john zorn This is a killer building, one of the best buildings on the Bowery. What was it originally?

michael goldberg It was the original YMCA.
jz   You're kidding. So, I brought you some CDs. I don't know what you have or haven't got.

mg I've got a mess of your music.
jz   But maybe you don't have the classical stuff.

mg No, I don't.
jz   String quartet? Yeah, you need the classical stuff. Here's a brand new Masada. You listen to music when you're painting?

mg All the time. And loud.
jz   Here you can do it loud. You've got the whole building! You've got all jazz shit here. Ornette! I was listening to him this morning, Live at the Golden Circle. So mostly jazz you listen to?

mg Well, I was listening to Neapolitan folk songs this morning. I love this guy, Robert Murolo. He's got a family but he gets arrested all the time for fucking young boys. So, they put him in jail for a year.
jz   Jesus.

mg He's a big hero in Naples.
jz   Man, he should be in the clergy now.

mg So, are you married?
jz   No.

mg See, I am.
jz   How long have you been married?

mg A long time, Lynn and I have been together now since 1969. She and I are totally different, which I think is why we're still together. She is a sculptor and she loves things like athletics, swimming, hiking.
jz   And you probably don't do any of that stuff.

mg Well, I was in the service for four years.
jz   Where were you, in Europe?

mg In North Africa, then in Burma.
jz   Oh, Christ, you were in Burma!

mg Yeah, I was a master sergeant in Merrill's Marauders.
jz   Oh, fuck! (laughter)

mg So when you write music, I gather you do it with a pencil or pen and paper?
jz   Yeah, pencil and paper. These are your notes? This is horrible! We're having a great time, and you're going to ruin it now with an interview!

mg No, no, don't say that. We'll bullshit all the way. So, I used to be quite friendly with the drummer Elvin Jones, you know him?
jz   Yeah!

mg We saw each other for a while. And I remember he and Coltrane and Jimmy Garrison came out to San Francisco, when I was teaching at Berkeley. I had half a ferryboat in Sausalito, a studio. They came out looking to score grass, with an entourage of the meanest looking guys I've ever seen–about 20 of them trampling all over my boat. I thought, What the fuck is going to happen? But they played, and it was extraordinary. So I said to Elvin, "You know, I'm trying to listen to the time you are creating, and I can get into it, but I can't get out of it." And he said, "Well, that's what it's all about." He said, "I don't get out of it."
jz   It's like self-hypnosis, in a sense. When I'm writing, sometimes it gets to that place where I feel like the piece is writing itself and I'm trying not to get in the way. I'm getting ready to write a piece now, and it's been six months thinking about it, changing the instrumentation, changing the name, doing more reading. I'm reading a lot of Aleister Crowley.

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