John Zorn - Pool (USA 1980)

The John Zorn Discography no.3

    1/ Pool                                     (Zorn)                  51:12
    
    Recorded at Sorcerer Sound Studio, New York City on March 1, 1980
    
  Polly Bradfield: violin; Mark E. Miller: percussion, contact microphones,
  vibraphone; Charles K. Noyes: percussion, saw, khene; Bob Ostertag: elec-
  tronics (Serge); John Zorn: alto, soprano, Bb clarinets, game calls; Lesli
  Dalaba: prompter.

    2/ Hockey (first version)                   (Zorn)                  11:16
    
    Recorded at Dick Charles Studio (by Les Paul, Jr.) on March 4, 1980

  Eugene Chadbourne: electric guitar, personal effects; Wayne Horvitz: ampli-
  fied piano; Bob Ostertag: electronics (Serge).

    3/ Hockey (second version, take 2)          (Zorn)                   3:42
    4/ Hockey (second version, take 5)          (Zorn)                   2:43
    5/ Hockey (second version, take 8)          (Zorn)                   0:50
    6/ Hockey (second version, take 10)         (Zorn)                   0:59

    Recorded at Sorcerer Sound Studio, New York City on March 1, 1980

  Polly Bradfield: violin; Mark E. Miller: percussion; John Zorn: goose, duck 
  and crow calls, clarinet mouthpiece.

    1980 - Parachute Records (USA), P011/12 (2xLP)
    1997 - Tzadik (USA), TZ 7316 (7xCD)
    2000 - Tzadik (USA), TZ 7316-3 (CD)

  Note: the 1xCD reissue only contains (1).

  See THE PARACHUTE YEARS 1977-1980 (1997) for unreleased takes from the
  Hockey session.

The above information was taken from the John Zorn Discography.

I have tried to give this a serious listen and I don't have a problem with music

 with plenty of weird sounds etc, but this is almost unlistenable. As much as I

 love John Zorn's music, his early game pieces are hardly what I call music. I

 know these are games that the musicians play and I'm sure that they have plenty

 of fun playing them, from what I have seen on videos but I am not sure why he 

 ever actually recorded them. Wether or not I actually understand how this system 

works and the rules doesn't make this any more enjoyable to listen to. There is a 

lot of space in there pieces between short bursts of the musicians making their

 instruments make all sorts of noises. The version I was listening was from the 

Parachute years box set, So I'm not entirely sure how that fits with the particular

 recording above, except there are a lot more takes on the CD set.
The First version of Hockey I could almost get into with its electronic noises and

 it was a more compact piece than the others. But I just can't listen to the rest 

of this stuff. I would like to see "Cobra" played live just to try and see this 

sort of thing in the flesh and that is his most famous Game piece, but if your new 

to Zorn's music, stay well away from this stuff.Rating 1/5.