John Lurie

The ultimate avant-garde gadabout, John Lurie has been dancing about the edges of art since the saxophonist, composer, actor, and painter first emerged from New York's no wave scene in the late 1970s. His greatest acclaim came by way of his creation of the Lounge Lizards, a loose amalgam of virtuosic musicians and true minds (including Arto Lindsay and Marc Ribot) who, starting in 1978, constructed an eclectic stew of raw African roots played with a latter-day jazz sophistication. Lurie's sparse, otherworldly compositions have also provided an apt background to the ethereal fi...