Search - John Zorn :: Lacrosse

Hearing John Zorn and a cast of greats doggedly work through Lacrosse in two very different forms is fascinating. Zorn has crafted the piece as a study in shifts, from sonority to sonority, from noise to noise, from player to player. And some players they are: the New York session has Eugene Chadbourne on guitars; LaDonna Smith on violin and viola; Davey Williams on guitar and banjo; and Zorn on saxes and clarinet. Recorded in 1978, the New York session is jittery beyond measure, requiring the most attentive listening possible--which can make one recoil if the volume is too loud and a shrieking note is hit just so. The San Francisco version of the piece, contained on a second CD, is great in contrast. It was recorded a year earlier, is previously unreleased, and features Chadbourne and Henry Kaiser on guitars and Rova's Bruce Ackley and Zorn on saxophones. It's a lot less jumpy and to the same extent more prone to spinning in brief spirals of flinty tones and overtones. Ackley adds tons here, parrying with Zorn as a second reed voice that, like the composer, can't be contained. These are, as Zorn notes in the lavish insert notes, his first recordings intended for release, and they portend what his career has since borne out: a tremendous and startling talent exploring all manner of extended sound arts. --Andrew Bartlett