I've played Cobra. Erik Deutsch (keyboard player with Charlie Hunter, among others) organized and conducted it after lengthy conversations with Zorn. We got the tome of rules weeks ahead of time and had multiple rehearsals. I think basing the outcome on one or two performances is to confuse the fundamental nature with specific outcomes. Yes, it is perhaps more fun for the performers than the listeners, but I have to say that our entire audience was rapt with attention during the whole thing. Not one person in a packed house complained that it sounded like random noise. It may be improvisation but there is very little that is aleatoric about it. It depends entirely on the ensemble, as does pretty much any improvised music. Given that we had the A list of Colorado improvisers on board, it was a great evening and I think that perhaps our guys were a little more inclined to cooperation than the participants in the Zorn conducted versions I've heard. It's most successful with people who aren't superstars in their own right, but able to not only focus on ensemble playing but to applying themselves to creating the language of ensemble on the spot, which can require great humility. Regardless of the style, form or method of creating the music, if you're not telling a story the audience can understand, you're not really playing music. The audience should laugh, cry, reflect, etc., and ours did.
We had a very diverse group, a horn section, upright bass, DJ, percussion, drumset, middle eastern instrumentation, electric guitars, etc., and I played primarily effects. At the end of the night, Ron Miles came up to me and told me I had big ears. Pretty much the single biggest compliment of my musical career.
The lessons learned in performing and listening to a good performance of Cobra can be applied to any music. Writing it off as noise is understandable, but there's the danger of condemning something not for it's inherent being but a subpar manifestation. It's like saying electric basses are inherently crappy instruments because you've only experience an badly set up, out of tune Hondo and never even conceived of an Alembic. Cobra in and of itself is awesome, although like other powerful tools to make music, it can sound hideous.
Say, has anyone here heard Zubi Zuva?
