Since the early '80s, Zorn, 55, has been at the forefront of "downtown" music, an omnibus term for sounds, composed and/or improvised, that drew from many genres but could not be categorized.

Zorn, like Sargent, became a favorite of Isabella Stewart Gardner. She bought his masterpiece “The Omnibus” when he exhibited it at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

“Omnibus Paris,” from 1892, the first painting Anders Zorn sold in the US, was purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner, who became a patron of Zorn’s.

Zorn used color masterfully, and his portrait of Gardner is a prime example. ... In his series of Omnibus paintings, Zorn gave life to the mundane act of riding a streetcar.

Composer and alto saxophonist John Zorn brings eight eclectic bands to the Big Ears Festival stage, ranging from solo classical piano to all-out electrified jams.

John Zorn may have turned 70 this month, but he looks younger. He sounds younger, too — energetic and irrepressible. Recent recordings of Zorn’s music, issued on his Tzadik label, include the ...