# Whatever John Lurie did became a trend: Video, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2023/01/03/whatever-john-lurie-did-became-a-trend-video-photos/
- Published: 2023-01-03T00:02:32+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**From punk jazz to fake jazz to no jazz: Whatever John Lurie did became a trend.
Now the great musician, cool actor and witty conversationalist is seventy years 
old.**

Within a fourteen-block radius of New York’s East Village, the epicenter of cool,
he was the man of the ’80s. Everyone wanted to be John Lurie. Or sleep with him.
Or smack him. At least that’s what the connoisseurs rumored. They were probably 
right. Lurie has attracted attention, aroused desires, provoked envy. He could do
whatever he wanted. dressing too. Too wide, too long, too worn. Everything became
trendy. He was easy-going, skinny, over five feet tall, lethargic: hip. And played
alto saxophone. Not like Charlie Parker, more like Johnny Hodges. It didn’t matter.
The fake jazz of his band Lounge Lizards came from the pinch of Ornette Coleman 
salt, which he mixed with the sweet Ellington sound of Hodges. Fake jazz came after
punk jazz and led to no jazz. That was consistent timing.

But how exactly and why all this happened, the gods know. Lurie was just there and
right in the middle, had talent, also in showing it by apparently not attaching 
importance to it. Naturally, so does charisma. He met the right people at the right
time. Perhaps more precisely: the people who ticked like him. Tom Waits, for example,
who picked up his songs like fags on the street and had his Budweiser written down
in the corner bar at the bitter end of SoHo. And Jim Jarmusch, who brought all these
creatively loitering characters to the big screen: Stranger Than Paradise, Down 
By Law, Mystery Train. All cult. There was no protesting against anything and nothing
to stand up for, but got along without anything.

![John Lurie, amerikanischer Schauspieler, Komponist und Musiker, Mitgründer  der
Fake-Jazz Band The Lounge Lizards, als Saxophonist beim Jazz Fest  Berlin, Philharmonie,
1981. John Lurie, amerikanischer Schauspieler,  Komponist und Musiker ...](https://
i0.wp.com/c8.alamy.com/zoomsde/9/2c4ccbbb79754d938df8315b63cbf781/2g03df4.jpg?resize
=640%2C683&ssl=1)

Much later, Lurie took stock of the aesthetically indifferent generation with enough
sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ jazz: “Of the real artists from that time, I’m the only
one who’s still alive and has his own liver. ” Oh well! He too has paid his tribute.
With addiction, paranoia, physical ailments, self-isolation. When he left his apartment
in the Village after a period of quiet contemplation, he said nobody knew who he
was. You have forgotten him. That wasn’t true. On the contrary. The celebrity had
got mythological format. Whatever was on Lurie’s mind was still valid. He performed
successfully with the Lounge Lizards in various occupations until the late 1990s.
In addition, he wrote the soundtracks for films such as “Get Shorty” and “Lulu on
the Bridge”, invented the musician Marvin Pontiac, from whom he brought out a bizarre
recording of his greatest hits, founded his own label Strange & Beautiful, developed
the completely crazy TV series “Fishing with John” and began to cultivate his early
talent for naively surreal painting again after his health condition made it impossible
to tour with the band and other activities. And linked the idea of non-fishing with
non-art: “Painting with John” is probably the most adventurous art school that has
ever been broadcast.

![John Lurie bei einem Auftritt der Lounge Lizards in Berlin 1981](https://i0.wp.
com/media0.faz.net/ppmedia/aktuell/4076606182/1.8531404/format_top1_breit/john-lurie-
bei-einem-auftritt.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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