Zorn: My first thought was "Here is a series of individuals, each has his own personal music. All worked on their instruments, on their own, to develop a highly personal language." So my first decision, which I think was the most important, was never to talk about language or sound at all. I left that completely up to the performers. What I was left with was structure.

What I came up with is a series of rules, like a trading system — one person plays, then the next person plays, then the next person plays — and event systems, where people independently perform events. Everybody can perform one event each, for example, but nobody can time it at the same time with anybody else. There might be a series of downbeats where at a downbeat a change will happen — if you're playing, maybe you must stop. If you're not playing, you may come in. That's just one example.

With each new piece, I made up new sets of rules, sometimes incorporating similar ideas and systems from old pieces but changing the sequences, or the overall way it was put together. I would perhaps get a series of fifteen systems, each one able to spark a different set of relationships among players, then figure out a way that these different system could be used by them.

This quote comes from an interview in Future Jazz, by Howard Mandel (1999). A longer excerpt is on the notes page.

In the late 1990s, Zorn released four game pieces (Hockey, Archery, Pool, Lacrosse) in a box set called The Parachute Years. These CDs were later released separately.

Starting in 2000, he began releasing the second wave of game pieces. This began with Xu Feng in 2000 and (in 2002) the latest performance of Cobra. In September 2003, during the Zornfest at Tonic, he recorded a number of game piece performances for future release.

Zorn has a real passion for improvised music, but these albums are his least accessible. He's spent a lot of time creating rules that he won't explain to outsiders — only the participating musicians know when to switch, when to cut in, and what to do next. You can't hear the rules, no matter how many times you've heard the album.

As a result, every game piece album sounds like a chaotic, highly-complex blend of music and noise. It doesn't make any sense, so all you can do is say, "There are a lot of musicians on this one" or "Hey, this version of Cobra is played very fast." (Or, "I can't believe I paid fifteen bucks for this.")

Lacrosse

composed 1977
recorded 1977 and 1978
released 1997

The music on this double-disc album sounds like a series of random noises. If there's a structure to the improvisation, it's impossible to detect. It's not a bad album, but . . . okay, it's pretty bad. Unless you are a hard-core Zorn fan, Lacrosse is a waste of your money.

The first track and the second track are approximately twenty minutes long. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth are seven minutes (give or take a minute). The second disc has a single track — half an hour of random blurts, plinks, and chords separated by moments of silence.

The second disc is played by Eugene Chadbourne (guitar), Henry Kaiser (guitar), Bruce Ackley (saxophone), and John Zorn (saxophone).

Zorn: My early compositional efforts in improvisational structures, like Lacrosse, were about making every note count. That's what that piece was about.

What each person was involved in doing was creating short little events between three and ten seconds long. Playing something, concentrating completely on that one little thing, and making sure every note counted. And then stopping, pausing, thinking of another little event to do. And then doing another event where every note counted. When you get six or seven people doing this, what you get is a tapestry. Everybody's really concentrating on the little thing that they're doing. At the same time, they're listening to other people and relating.

The problem is that each "little event" is a sound and not a little piece of music. There are other Zorn albums where collections of sounds blend together into something interesting. This isn't one of those albums. There seems to be no connection between each moment, so the listener has to impose some kind of meaning on top of it all. And that takes too much effort.

Xu Feng

composed 1985
recorded May 2000
released 2000

Lacrosse was boring, and Cobra never really took off like I expected. But Xu Feng is a lot of fun.

There are six players: Fred Frith and John Schott on guitars, Chris Brown and David Slusser playing "electronics", and William Winant and Dave Lombardo on drums and percussion. (Zorn is credited as the prompter.)

Winant and Lombardo dominate the album. The guitarists and electronics-players spew out random licks and squeals over an earthquake of rhythm. Sometimes the drummers play what Zappa called "quaalude thunder" — macho heavy metal blasts, doubled-up bass drum rolls, and lots of pointless pounding. In other moments, they rattle away with clanks and clangs, bongo fills, and tricky cymbal rolls.

All of this seems entirely random — you won't hear a steady beat or melody — but it works. The drums and percussion just keep coming back, taking over and driving out the electronic beeps and the guitar feedback. There is some sort of method to the madness, but you can't pick it up consciously. Under the surface, there's a pattern.

Cobra

composed 1984
recorded 2002 ?
released March 2002

This is the second Cobra album I bought. Although it's better than the first, I still don't understand it. When I hear it, I say to myself, "Now that is some crazy shit! Listen to that chaotic crap!" And then I put it back on the shelf for months.

There are fourteen musicians on this album. Every song has the same build-up. It starts with a few musicians playing something complex, then the other players join in, adding their own little chunk of chaos. This builds up into a whirl of clashing notes, chords, drones, and rhythms. The music starts to drop off a little . . . and then it builds up again.

The only thing that distinguishes one track from another is the choice of instruments. One song is a barrage of computer-generated noise, another is a drone made by viola and horns, and a third is a collection of random notes and static created by guitar, drums, and piano. The songs full of computer effects and sampled sounds are particularly hard to listen to.

This is the first game piece album I've seen that includes a copy of the rules. If you remove the plastic CD tray inside the case, you can see a set of diagrams showing how Cobra is played. None of it is self-explanatory (it raises more questions than it answers) but it's fun to try to piece it together from that single page of clues.

If you've always wanted to hear Cobra, this is probably the best version to buy. Personally, I'd recommend about 40 other Zorn albums before this one.

Locus Solus live

recorded September 10, 2003
released April 2004

One of John Zorn's earliest musical projects was Locus Solus, a set of improvised hardcore songs inspired by rock and roll. Every song is played by Zorn, a drummer, and a third musician. On most cases, the third musician was Arto Lindsay, playing electric guitar. The original Locus Solus sessions were recorded live in the studio in 1983. A few tracks were adjusted with overdubbing, but the majority of the songs were improvised on the spot.

In September 2003, Zorn staged Locus Solus at Tonic in New York City. He teamed up with two musicians from the original sessions twenty years earlier — Arto Lindsay on guitar and vocals, and Anton Fier on drums. This performance was played live in front of an audience.

To outsiders who don't know Zorn — or avant-garde, experimental music — this CD is just a lot of noise. Anton Fier pummels the drums with no rhyme or reason, Zorn honks and squeals on his saxophone, and Arto Lindsay plays random chords while he sings surrealist lyrics. Like Painkiller, this is a mess of loud music played with a certain style in mind. The songs end when the players want them to end, and song titles are added later.

I thought the original Locus Solus was an indulgent waste of time, but it's also a great example of extreme improvisation. This live version matches that description, but it's faster, tighter, and less pretentious. This is the sound of Zorn and two of his friends goofing off, hoping something exciting might happen. Nothing does, but that's okay. Everyone is laughing throughout the performance, and the concert feels like an elaborate inside joke.

The worst thing about Locus Solus is the fact that you could re-create it at home with two friends. All you need is a set of drums, a guitar, a saxophone, and tolerant neighbors. No talent necessary. The three guys on this CD are great musicians, but there's no evidence of their talent in this performance.