Repertoire: the Lehman trio + Turner

 

Steve Lehman Trio + Mark Turner The Music Of Anthony Braxton (Pi Recordings, 2025)

This one - just out -  was eagerly anticipated (by me) from the minute I found about it. As it turns out? It's both a very enjoyable recording on its own terms, and a disappointment / anticlimax... how does that work? Read on.

The background

The group is Lehman's regular working trio with Matt Brewer and Damion Reid, first captured in the studio almost thirteen years ago - plus (of course) the special guest for the occasion, tenorist Mark Turner. Until this album was announced, I really didn't know Turner's name at all - I only listen pretty selectively to contemporary jazz artists, and it's more than fifteen years since I followed any radio broadcasts purporting to document that scene - and this is the only recording of his I've yet heard. The page for this album on Pi's website carries Lehman's brief explanation of why Turner was recruited for this gig, clarfiying that B. and Turner are "both heavily influenced by the music of Warne Marsh and the larger Tristano-inspired orbit*... they both have the ability to combine high-concept approaches with more visceral expressiveness."** It has to be said that the tenor player fits in pretty well here.

It's slightly less clear what the gig itself comprised, since that same label blurb refers only to a "live concert... recorded in front of a boisterous crowd at ETA in Los Angeles", but the album itself was culled from two dates, 18-19 June, 2023, and it includes its fair share of fade-outs and edits. I would presume that these two nights did not use the exact same setlist, though I suppose they may have done; the more successful readings of each piece will obviously have been selected, but it seems likely that some stuff did not make the final album, too. If that's the case, the presence of at least one cut on here is rather questionable, as is the decision to include two of Lehman's originals; the Monk standard "Trinkle, Tinkle" makes sense, in the light of the leader's stated intentions at the time of convening the project (see below); this is arguably less true of the two originals, even though Lehman's own quirky and fluid playing is well showcased on these numbers, as is the work of his superb band.

The package

There's not a huge amount to say about this, basic as Pi's CDs generally are: inserts are usually not provided, and that trend was not bucked here. I'm sure everyone has seen the front cover already; the back cover includes this peculiar matching drawing of the maestro:

- which manages to be instantly recognisable, while not really looking all that much like him. The mouth rather resembles that on a ventriloquist's dummy; examined closely, much of the drawing below B's glasses seems to be more of an exercise in rendering the musculature of the maxillofacial region than it is an actual attempt to realise a naturalistic portrait. But there we go. That aside, there's very little else: the inner panels reproduce the same five drawings in miniature, along with some basic information about the recording itself, and a brief thanks list. I've never been much impressed by this very functional approach to packaging, utilised by labels such as Pi and RareNoise: in an era where music piracy is so common and so easy, why would you not want to give potential buyers a bit more for their money, as an incentive to spend it in the first place? But as you can see, it doesn't necessarily stop me from purchasing the product, at least some of the time; and perhaps in Pi's case, they trust their excellent roster to promote the product for them. The label survives, anyway, and that is always a good sign.

The music

I may as well get right to it and explain what the problem is, for me: a notable lack of ambition. Satisfied just to play B's pieces through, Lehman and co do not even try to do anything much with them. Now, here of course it becomes a question of what the leader wanted to do with them in the first place; I had not read any of the label's own blurb until after I had heard the album a few times, so relied entirely on drawing my own conclusions***, but I have since read that the idea was "to connect Anthony’s music with new audiences and make a case for his small group music as a really indispensable part of the jazz canon". To what extent Lehman succeeds in the first endeavour is debatable - any audience which was up to speed with what his trio were playing is likely to have been familiar with most (if not all) of these pieces to begin with, I would think# - but it's fair to say that the second is more or less successful. This sort of material feels just as natural for the band to be playing as do Lehman's own small-group compositions, or any of the other repertoire which he is prone to introduce; Dialect Fluorescent, that first trio album linked above, included pieces by Coltrane, Duke Pearson and (Lehman's alto touchstone) Jackie Maclean, as well as a handful of originals - and it's not as if Lehman were not already used to writing his own material by that time: he absolutely was, and usually did. So there is a longstanding precedent for including jazz rep in the group's live book, and to be honest, if they had simply done exactly that - played five or six of B's pieces straight through in the trio's own style - the problem would actually be less obvious. Instead, it's flagged up by the approach taken to (what were eventually released as) tracks four and seven.

Comps. 34a## and 40b work well enough, in the manner suggested above: the small group reads through them as they would any other piece, with solos taken by all except Reid - Brewer opens 40b with a bass solo, then cues up the theme with Reid - and 23c... well, let's hang back on that one for a minute, there will be a bit more to say about that in due course. Reid doesn't solo as such because he really doesn't need to: given full rein to express himself throughout the entire performance, he exploits that licence fully - without ever sounding as he's upstaging the rest of the band. He sounds fantastic on this material: it was really the first thing which I noticed about the recording. Brewer plays much more of an anchor role, so his solo time is the reward for that. (I do find myself thinking each time I play the album that 40b is a touch more sedate than it needs to be, and when the theme is first being set up, one is almost entitled to expect 40m instead.) 

The title 23b + 23g encourages the listener to expect more than s/he gets, however. Collaging? Forget it: what is played is another straight reading of 23b - nailed well enough, no problems there - followed by a brief coda consisting of the 23g head, with the piece itself not explored at all, in any of its implications, beyond the basic tension inherent in the written theme###. This sort of "medley" approach, just tacking one theme onto the end of another piece, feels like selling the material short (if not the audience, who lap it up), and I have to say I don't care for it. But a far bigger problem arises when we reach 23e + 40a. The published track length (3:44) should raise eyebrows right away: we are not going to get anything like a proper exploration of either piece, and of course we don't. Indeed, even someone who knows the Five Pieces 1975 album thoroughly could listen to this piece without recognising 23e at all, the magisterial number sketched out as the faintest of pencil caricatures, no more than a fragmentary evocation of a sombre mood with just the barest of melodic material - the fact that Reid and Brewer build the initial mood with considerable skill is almost irrelevant here, because the piece never gets the chance to go anywhere. If one knows what it is that is (supposedly^) being played here, one can work back from existing versions of the piece to establish that when the musicians hit a certain note and hold it - briefly - that is supposedly the part of 23e just before the moment of transition or crossing; a moment which, in the actual composition, contains almost superhuman levels of power, here so stripped of that same power that it's really not noticeably the same music at all: you have to be listening out instead for "anything which sounds as if it might be from 23e", and even that feels like straw-clutching. No, what happens here is that after the momentary hold and pause, Lehman repeats a few bars of melancholy alto, before the trio starts to tap out the lines from 40a - just the trio, as Turner sits this out, but it's all over very quickly anyway. Brewer makes no attempt to rise to the difficult challenge laid down by Mark Helias and others - alternating arco and pizzicato lines in brisk succession - and within less than a minute, we're all done with the whole thing. As regards 23e - if you had told me that this was actually an inchoate attempt at Comp. 69n instead, I would have been happy to believe it^^; the track as a whole just feels unfinished: here, the music falls so far short of its potential that for me this one wasn't worth doing at all.

From there, let's at least turn our attention to a high-point, in the most unexpected of places: Comp. 23c is a piece which I really thought I never needed to hear again, and which always feels like a lazy selection, offering as it does almost no latitude whatsoever. Here, though, it's the one time when the group tries to take some liberties with the material, and even though those liberties are pretty limited, it works. Already sounding unusual, since Lehman sticks rigidly to alto - he seems to be one woodwind player who never switches to flute - the piece ends up in unexplored(ish) territory, with the completion of the written parts followed immediately by a funky groove which centres on the harmonic material contained in the final section of the written theme, supporting brief improvisations by both saxmen in turn. That done, there is a little bit of riffing on another section of the theme to wrap things up. It reminds me of The Locals, and although this hardly qualifies in principle as a very ambitious interpretation, it's refreshing just to hear any liberties taken with this through-composed piece, and the way it's handled feels entirely appropriate and effective. (The label gets a little carried away in suggesting that the piece is "transformed as a result of Reid’s ultramodern rhythmic approach" - the drum part is the one element of the piece which is not fully written out, allowing some freedom of expression to whichever drummer is playing at the time - but it is nevertheless notable how well Reid plays on it.)

In conclusion

Taken on its own terms, this is for the most part a highly enjoyable listen and a (qualified) success. B's compositions here sound just as appropriate to the modern, outward-facing small group format as do Lehman's two originals, or the Monk cover; Lehman cogently makes the case for these pieces being included in the modern jazz canon. Is that not what I (among others) have been looking for? It is; but it was still possible to hope for rather more than this. Lehman is one of the most restlessly creative and innovative composers currently active in this field, and it seems irresistibly apposite to demand more of him than simply taking a handful of B's more exoteric numbers and just playing them. What could he do with more demanding material? This may not be a fair question, however much we may be tempted to ask it: Lehman's compositional curiosity is above all reserved for his own composition, and there is nothing to criticise in that. Furthermore, in circumscribing the limits of the project's ambition ahead of time, he has answered this type of objection before it can be raised. But... but. Step back from here and ask yourself whether this project could have been left to a less ambitious leader, and whether an artist of Lehman's abilities might owe a little more - ? That does not feel impertinent. The highly superficial manner in which 23g, 40a and (especially) 23e are tossed off reminds us that this 80th-birthday tribute, well-meaning as it undoubtedly is, may nonetheless not have required a huge amount of thought or effort. That is the crux of my problem with this.

It's an album I will be happy to listen to: Reid in particular sounds terrific from start to finish, the whole band is really good, and Turner is definitely someone I will investigate further. As an album of BraxRep, though, there is no way I will ever consider this to be on a similar level to Jump or Die - or to the much more recent offering by the Ghost Trance Septet; like Thumbscrew's album, for slightly different reasons, this one may be best heard and enjoyed with diminished critical engagement. I may have got a little overexcited, after all.

* My emphasis. (Those names are significant ones, in these demesnes.)

** One might observe that the same is true of plenty of other musicians, especially these days. But it's fine: Lehman is just explaining why he thought Turner was suitable for what he had in mind, and he wasn't wrong, of course. 

*** This is basically what I always used to do anyway. I've just tended to do it a bit less, in recent years.

# Needless to say, I could be wrong about that... but it seems a little bit of a stretch to suppose that people who would turn up to hear Lehman's group in the first place might constitute a "new audience" for this sort of thing.

## This is the title as given on the album, and is in keeping with the conclusion which I myself reached last year (v. seventh footnote to that post). The Antilles album which first unveiled the piece to the wider world simply calls it Comp. 34.

### For those who don't carry this stuff around in their heads at all times, 23g is the original pulse-track prototype (although earlier examples can be found of B's trying out similar ideas, once you know what you're looking out for): the single-line instruments play one part, the rhythm section another part entirely. (First studio version is on Five Pieces 1975.)

^ I'll take it on trust that what is being played can be found somewhere in the written score. Honestly, I would never have known that they were playing this piece if it didn't say as much in the track list.

^^ This would also make sense, as 69n can be found on Six Compositions: Quartet, just like 40b, 34(a) and 40a. This feels persuasive enough that the attribution 23e may even be a mistake..? But in all honesty this throwaway medley is perfunctory enough that it scarcely matters whence the component parts were derived; Lehman can do a lot better than this, and he knows it...

Ten compositions (duets)

 

Anthony Braxton with Alex Horwitz Four Compositions (Duets) 2000 (CIMP, 2001)

Anthony Braxton & Milo Fine Shadow Company (2004) (Emanem, 2005)

David Rosenboom / Anthony Braxton Two Lines (Lovely Music, 1995)

Thanks to McClintic Sphere for the post title... and for everything else

These three albums are being treated - in fairly light detail - together, because that's how I eventually acquired the files, and because all three of them are duo recordings... and all of them are relatively obscure. I don't think any of them is currently available for online streaming (please correct me if I'm wrong), and as usual I am not in a position to attempt to share the music here; so there is little point in going into extensive detail anyway. But having included two of them on my wants list the summer before last, and having written somewhat disparagingly about the very idea of the third a couple of years ago, it seems only fitting to say a little bit about each of them, now that I have heard them. It's understood that most people reading this probably won't have heard them, but perhaps it can nevertheless serve a purpose for those readers who are looking to build up their collections.

[There are not exactly ten duets, by the way - except that there are, sort of: Shadow Company presents itself as one performance, broken into eleven parts. (It really isn't, but... poetic licence being exercised there by Martin Davidson, one assumes...)]

***

1. OK, so this little-known CIMP curiosity is (as stated above) the same album about which I wrote with such a notable lack of enthusiasm back in March 2023. Having seen the album unexpectedly listed for sale here in the UK, I had to enquire what it even was - and having had that cleared up, decided I had no burning desire to hear this one, never mind own a copy. Naturally, it being one of B's releases, I would need to hear it eventually, but... so many other things to do first. If it had been left solely up to me, who knows how long it might have taken..? Anyway, in the end it sort of fell into my lap, in digital form at least, and in actuality it turns out to be simultaneously rather more enjoyable than I would ever have suspected, and every bit as irritating as I had feared. How does that work?

The best way to make sense of this album is to intuit that B. himself probably had a blast making it. The four compositions - interpreted piecemeal, broken up into fifteen separate tracks* - are dedicated to four "master comedians", and knowing that is the key to understanding how this most peculiar of albums got made in the first place. Horwitz, who was apparently described (with typical generous enthusiasm) by the maestro as "poised to make a real impression on the third millennium"**, seems to have lapsed into near-obscurity***, but he was part of a student comedy troupe at Wesleyan; and the acerbic, sardonic type of humour he dealt in was obviously something which appealed to the composer. How well this works in practice is another matter... B. does what B. does - describes all manner of weird and wonderful lines and shapes and figures with his reed playing - while the comedian/vocalist ignores the music completely and simply riffs on modern life. Comp. 281 begins with Horwitz trying to make sense of the idea of the DVD - on the grounds that only human beings can be "versatile", so what does this multi-talented disc actually do? It's a pretty lame basis for a sketch - the adjective "versatile" is not exclusively applicable to people, at least not on this side of the Atlantic - and the resulting material is just unfunny and annoying. That's how the album starts, and... for the most part, that is basically how it continues.

There are fleeting moments wherein it all suddenly seems to make perfect sense: these are the occasional points at which Horwitz avails himself of a megaphone, and intones (for example) "departure paths: number 69-J, local route; number 19, underpass; number 216, centre lane; number 199, express trail"# while B. squeaks away behind him. This sort of thing harks directly back to pieces such as Comp. 173, in which meta-commentary is provided on the territories which are being explored, and it provides flashes of (what Zappa fans might term) conceptual continuity. And I do have to admit that there is an entirely different character to the recording from that of any of the solo saxophone albums; "duetting" with the vocal monologues in this way creates something new and sui generis, even while there are instrumental passages which could easily have come from a solo sax recital. And, like I say, I can well imagine that B. himself thoroughly enjoyed making this album. But as to whether it really works... I'd have to say probably not. The more closely you listen to this one, the more likely you are to be irritated by Horwitz's vapid and uninspired material; he has the delivery down pat, but seems to have nothing much to say with it. Treated as semi-background music, this works surprisingly well: the instrumental playing is of course delightful, and the vocal additions work reasonably well if you let them fade into the background without concentrating too hard on their actual verbal content. But this observation - a recommendation to treat a creative music recording as background noise - is itself a red flag, a warning that the album is not the kind of thing that most of B's fans are going to be looking for. Overall, I think it's just as well that it was safely released on CIMP, and thus destined for greater than usual obscurity##. At least this time I had no trouble recognising B's sound in the flat, sterile production. 

***

2. So to a completely different type of recording - a far more typical, improvised duo encounter - which nevertheless shares this key feature with the previous release: it was issued on a label run by a monomaniac, whose every project was tied to an unswerving vision of what real music should be. The late Martin Davidson may ultimately have been less divisive a figure within the creative music community than Bob Rusch, but in his own way he was probably just as uncompromising.

When I first came across this release - whenever that was, exactly - I had no idea who Milo Fine was; and for that matter, by the time I finally got round to hearing it, I still had no idea who he was. I had to look him up, and if I'm completely honest, I still don't really know. His potted bio on Discogs (doubtless taken from elsewhere; they usually are) makes him sound somewhat important, but then I have frequently observed that very minor figures in the art world, if left to write their own histories, are capable of greatly exaggerating their own significance, so this need not be trusted very far. A look at his recorded discography suggests that he has not generally worked with what we would call top-flight collaborators; besides this meeting with B., he did work at least once with Derek Bailey (another Emanem release); he has apparently played drums since the age of eight or nine, but his "informal studies" on them appear to have been undertaken with a family member. The list of groups which he has been a part of is not long, nor does it include any well-known names (with one notable exception, but even that is a red herring###). So far this was not hugely encouraging. Still, he was leading his own dates for Hat back in the 1970s, and he met with the maestro on what we will presume were equal terms, so let's see what we're dealing with.

Inevitably, for an album on this label, the music is freely improvised and at least gives the appearance of having been completely unplanned. B. works with his customary plethora of reeds, while his partner switches between piano, drum kit and variety of clarinets, sometimes within the same piece of music. As regards that music: the track titles Part 1, Part 2 etc almost imply that this is one continuous work divided up into bite-size chunks for the listener's convenience^... but it really isn't: they start, and they play until they stop, for whatever reason. The "opening track" comes across as more of false start than anything, lasting a mere sixteen seconds before abruptly ending^^. The longest piece lasts more than seventeen minutes, though, so they did find some coherence, on the face of it; two further pieces last ten and nine minutes, so it's not unreasonable to hope that some real common ground was discovered.

Fast-forwarding here (having promised "fairly light detail", after all), I found MF to be a lively and interesting drummer, an unorthodox but quite creative piano player, and a rather one-dimensional clarinet player, to judge purely by this recording. There definitely are moments when the two players actually make something work, and perhaps not surprisingly these tend to come in the longer pieces, with the shorter numbers really coming across more as brief little sketches rather than containing any genuinely meaningful interplay. Fine's habit of flitting between his different instruments does seem to work to his advantage, in that there are times when he sounds as if he might be perilously close to running out of ideas on one, but gains new momentum by moving to another; his clarinets, as I say, are really what seem to let him down here as although he apparently plays a variety of these, and brought at least two of them to the date, all he really seems to be able to do with them is squeak and squeal, and not with anything like the degree of control and precision that B. can deploy when he chooses to take a similar approach. Unorthodox playing is in principle (ahem) just fine, but if you are sitting down with a world-class woodwind virtuoso, you might want to keep the reed instruments in their cases for the time being. On piano and drums, however, MF is capable of maintaining the maestro's interest and even of keeping pace with him at times; there was even, dare I say it, one moment in my listening to this when it seemed that B. was the one not properly holding up his end^^^. Nevertheless, I found it impossible to shake off the impression of an imbalance, an insuperable talent gradient which relegates this meeting to the less-essential end of B's long shelf of improvised duo encounters. It's not without interest by any means, but I can't imagine that anyone wouldn't manage without it.

***

3. I've definitely saved the best for last, because Two Lines, besides being the earliest of the three albums under consideration here, is also the only one on which B. has a duet partner on his own level. David Rosenboom, best known to most Braxtonheads as the pianist who subbed in for Marilyn Crispell on the Black Saint release Five Compositions (Quartet) 1986, will be someone B. knew from his time at Mills - but, unusually for such a connection, DR will surely have been fellow faculty rather than a student~. Recorded on 3rd October 1992~~, then (per Restructures) "edited and processed March 1994", this music was not released until 1995; DR is credited with "MIDI grand piano, Hierarchical Form Generator, responding sampled piano". I take that to mean that what we hear, at least in terms of the keyboard parts, is not precisely what was played, but rather a factitious representation of it - by way of substituting piano notes (etc) for keystrokes played on a different keyboard. I'm guessing, though, until such time as I can get a look at the physical CD.

Whatever the details might be regarding this one, and notwithstanding my own personal preference for hearing music which was physically played by musicians rather than processed and edited, this album is both exhausting and thrilling to listen to, with B. playing almost flat-out for much of the running time, and the keyboards - however they were achieved - matching him. Here, the shortest piece played is the opener, entitled "Lineage", and it is more than eight minutes long; the centrepiece of the album, the titular "Two Lines", lasts more than twenty-six minutes. This is the one fully composed by Rosenboom; the other four are co-credited to both players, which I take to mean that they were more or less improvised, though probably within established and agreed frameworks. (Intriguingly, Rosenboom's piece is the most Braxtonesque piece, at least to my ears, reminding me at various points of Comp. 136 in particular.)

Despite this being a very exciting and stimulating album to listen to, it's also exceptionally difficult for me to write about - because I can't pretend to understand a fraction of what the two players are doing, or not in the way they would understand it. What I have been left with, every time I have listened to this, is the sense that this is the sound of two hugely-advanced musical minds, revelling in each other's company. Though I can't analyse any of the music on its own terms, I can still hear it, and the shared explorations which are laid out for the listener are just as satisfying as the virtuosity on display is dazzling. I am pretty sure it's never been an easy album to get hold of, but I would strongly recommend this to anyone who happens to be reading. The fact that it's the only one of these three albums which I can wholeheartedly recommend does not make this a case of "damning with faint praise"; on the contrary, all three of the albums discussed here have their merits and points of interest for the serious friendly experiencer... it just so happens that the other two have numerous drawbacks and reservations to them, and this one really doesn't. Two Lines, above all, was well worth the long wait for me to hear it.

* Just trying to get your head around the track listing is perplexing: Comp. 283 - in which Horwitz deals very superficially with social anxiety disorder, and which is the only piece in which the vocal and instrumental attacks make any real attempt to interact meaningfully - last just over two and a half minutes. Comp. 280 lasts around three minutes, broken up into two parts (one purely instrumental, one mixed). Comps. 281 and 282 are both considerably longer, each broken up in into numerous segments and scattered somewhat around the album; it is pretty hard to derive from this a real sense of what characterises or links the four pieces, besides the fact that they are the materials which B. brought to the date. 

** I don't have the liners for any of these three albums available. The quote comes from Derek Taylor's 2001 review of the album for All About Jazz.

*** He would appear to be the same Alex Horwitz who now makes documentaries - or something, meaning that he is not completely obscure in the wider world of contemporary media. I don't think he took off in the world of comedy.

# From Comp. 281, pt. 1-1.

## Anyone releasing an album on CIMP would surely know that very few people are ever going to hear it - even by the standards of this type of music, generally. In B's case, he recorded at the Spirit Room four times: or rather, his sessions there yielded four separate albums. Two of these contain modern standards, mostly by Andrew Hill; one represented a specific cul-de-sac or dead end, and the fourth was of course the one we've been discussing. None of them is likely to feature on most listeners' "favourite albums" lists... and while in principle this most specialist of labels "ought" to have made a great match with this highly specialised musician, in practice I think it's fair to say that didn't quite work out. 

### The names Reform Art West and Reform Art Orchestra will likely ring some bells with readers, as well they might; but although both groups featured Fritz Novotny, MF was not strictly a member of the original Reform Art Unit as such, and his tenure seems to have come some time after the involvement of Clifford Thornton.

^ This is quite often the way such improvised recordings are divided up, after all. But then, those are very often (more or less) continuous explorations, whereas the eleven pieces here very clearly start and stop, and just to hammer the point home, a few extra seconds of silence is provided in between.

^^ The indexing of the CD suggests it's almost twice as long, but the playing begins at 0:05 and ends at 0:21...

^^^ For the benefit of anyone attempting to keep score, I noted this during "Part 7". (The players don't seem to find each other there, but it didn't seem like MF's fault.)

~ This is an educated guess, but must be accurate, I think - I am also reasonably confident that I have actually read that somewhere, at some point (?). 

~~ The official bootleg Orchestra (Los Angeles) 1992 (BL011) - one of the very first official boots to be made available, if memory serves - was recorded two days later, also at CalArts (though not at the same campus). George Lewis and William Winant were featured players on that one, as well as Rosenboom, again (credited with electronics on that occasion).

Renewal of (non-)hostilities

 

Wolf Eyes x Anthony Braxton live at pioneer works, 26 october 2023 (ESP'Disk)

This one really crept up on me: I had no idea it existed until a few days ago, when I saw it listed for preorder (on CD) on a well-known online marketplace - but with no actual stated release date. At that point, I was unable to verify its existence on Discogs, and assumed it might be months off; however - by one of those nice syncronicities - an email from Avto G. referenced the same release, talking of it in such a way as to make it clear that he had already heard it. From there, it obviously took only minimal digging to discover that it is in fact only the CD issue which is still technically forthcoming: the album can be streamed (and bought) from Bandcamp. A vinyl issue, released on January 31, has already come and gone: sold out. 

So, at least some of what I said near the beginning of last year regarding this on/off collaboration was mistaken: these guys had already got back together earlier than I thought (in October 2023, indeed - if not before then, too). Clearly, all three of them believe there is something there which is worth pursuing. This is a good thing :)

I had better clarify at this point something which a cursory glance through last January's post titles might confound: when I said "... and now for the good news", I did not mean at all that the reunion show/s with Wolf Eyes were not "good news". The post title was for the benefit of those who had read the previous post, and knew that B. had lost his footing at the Zebulon show and had been helped back to his feet by Nate Young; at the solo show a few days afterwards, he had experienced no such incident - hence the good news. (Obviously, the fact that he planned to attend the BBC Proms event, later last year - and then pulled out of it - was not such good news; but as far as we know around here, the maestro is still standing, still playing and definitely still composing.)

Still, for my part, I can confess that although I approve the hell out of the fact that the "BraxEyes" grouping exists in the first place, they are yet to yield any favourite recordings of mine. Not only do I not have a problem with industrial / noise music / power electronics (..., whatever one might call it these days), I used to be fully signed up for it, albeit mainly in my younger days; but then, I still listen to various forms of extreme "rock"-based musics*, too - I just don't feel the need to blend such stuff with saxophones or clarinets, etc. As much as I still love listening to intense free jazz also, I don't tend to seek out areas where these styles or genres overlap. You will never get me to sign up for the idea that jazz/rock fusion is the highest of all musical art forms; with very few exceptions**, I like to keep my jazz and my rock entirely separate. 

Of course, this particular grouping represents neither jazz nor rock, but is really something quite different. And we know that all involved have enthused about what a natural meeting this is: B. has said of Wolf Eyes that "they felt like family immediately. The communication was immediate"***, whilst John Olson said of B. that "his language on the saxophone is just insane... There is nothing he can't do on the horn. It was a perfect match."# More recently - around the time of the concert under consideration here, in fact## - the duo posted on their Instagram page: "We are extremely grateful for last night’s show. Braxton was incredible." What's more, it's worth remembering that this was not a case of the two younger men seeking out the older player, persuading him to get down with something to which he might not have been naturally suited; B. himself reached out to them in the first instance. We need have no doubts at this point that this is a serious musical endeavour, not some sort of passing caprice.

No, the problem I have had with these performances is one of simple acoustics: if Wolf Eyes get even close to maximum power, this poses problems which will inevitably vex even the most ingenious live engineer. A saxophonist is left with no choice but to play flat-out, or be drowned out; and whilst B. is more than capable of matching just about anybody in the post-Ayler school of reed-bending, he excels above all in subtle distinctions, precisely-controlled timbral distortions rather than balls-out blasting - all of which are never going to be fully audible over that sort of backing. What he may be hearing in his head doubtless gels perfectly with what his collaborators are playing, but what we hear will only tend to be a partial representation of that.

Hence, this current release is probably the performance I have most enjoyed out of those I have heard. Atanase didn't seem to like it so much, presumably because Wolf Eyes sound a little toned down, but that is exactly what enables us to hear everything the maestro is playing - and that in turn frees him up to play with more latitude than he is maybe used to in this context. I liked this a lot, and when the CD is out I will buy it. Olson and Young are not just sonic terrorists - far from it: they are improvisers, and do their work on a second-by-second basis, like real improvisers do. Having them dial down the power is, for this (highly partial) listener, an acceptable trade-off for being to hear B. clearly for once, and to hear how he works with them.

That's about it really. Oh, except to say that for all the above, it's actually quite a few years since I listened to Black Vomit - I may end up eating my words, as soon as I get round to rectifying that...

*... for a certain value of "rock": death metal, grindcore, powerviolence, noise rock, sludge metal etc have very little to do with "rock", when it comes down to it. The term indicates the origins and roots (just as does "jazz" for lots of things I listen to these days which really are not that at all). No more than that, though. [On the whole. I could actually pick an argument with myself right here, given that this isn't the place for it, and it would be nitpicking anyway - but quite a lot of sludge metal is pretty straightforwardly blues-based, for what it's worth.] 

** Last Exit, some of Zorn's stuff... when it comes to fusion, a few other things, but I do mean a few. [Sylvain Kassap put out a very good octet album a few years back - although he carefully avoided mentioning the obvious, i.e. how clearly influenced it was by Bobby Previte's Pan Atlantic project. We'll let him off - he's put in the mileage.] Even in Last Exit's case, that's a band which I approve of more than I actually listen to them, if the truth be known. I make no apology for having highly peculiar and specialised tastes.

*** Interview for The Quietus, 2021.

# The Wolf Eyes interview from which this was taken was previously available here, but the link appears to be broken. (Actually that whole site looks to be defunct.)

## The show they were talking about would seem to have taken place a little before then - on October 4th, to be precise. How often the grouping had reconvened prior to October 2023 is unknown to me, fairly obviously...

Incoming...

 

Lots of distractions at present... I am preparing a post about three of the lesser-known items from the maestro's vast discography, but it seems to be taking me ages to get that together. In the meantime, McClintic Sphere just tipped me off about an important new announcement: a free concert in Washington, D.C. on March 8th. Naturally, I shan't be able to attend personally, and (encouragingly) the event "sold" out very quickly in any case. Still... major event!

The programme features an all-star ensemble playing two pieces from the back catalogue, and concluding with the US premiere of the new Thunder Music system. Exciting news, I am sure you will agree... Of the players, pretty much all of those names will be familiar to most BraxtonHeads: speaking for myself, the only name with which I was not immediately familiar is that of vocalist Nick Hallett - but it turns out that he was part of the group which recorded the fabulous GTM (Syntax) 2017... as for the others, some may be surprised to see big names missing*, but the participants include James Fei, Katherine Young, Carl Testa, Anne Rhodes and Tomeka Reid - rest assured that every name on the list represents a musician already skilled in interpreting B's music. We can presume that Comp. 100 will be played by the whole group, perhaps with the maestro conducting; Comp. 222, which was itself premiered in 1998 in the very same concert hall where it will be played this time around, will presumably be a duet for notated-music** expert Cory Smythe and either Jean Cook or Erica Dicker. 

As for the climax of the concert - well, the mysterious Thunder Music name has been batted around for a year or more already without most of us having any great sense of what it entails, although I was previously under the impression that it was a strategy for multiple singers and instrumentalists; admittedly, there will be at least three singers present in March. But what we are now discovering is that all players will be able to influence the electronics - "to control the live electronic modulation of sound as well as the sound of thunder". A system which combines elements of Diamond Curtain Wall Music and of Echo Echo Mirror House Music, then? - or perhaps nothing of the sort, but the comparisons seem irresistible... whatever it turns out to be, the salient point to remember is that approaching the age of eighty, B. is still pushing forward into territories new and unexplored. (Not that we would expect any different, of course.)

I am simultaneously envious of those who will attend - the music is to be preceded by an interview / conversation with the ensemble - and simply happy that such a joyous occasion is to take place at all. Not everything is joyous at the moment, is it? - and many of us suspect that things will get worse before they get better. However, news like this provides a much-needed cause for cheer and (cautious) optimism, reminding us that while there is breath, there is hope. Oh, and as McC also pointed out, B. is bound to get a big kick out of the fact that his donation of his papers and recording archives to the Library of Congress made it into their Top 5 list for 2024, alongside bequests representing Liszt, the Kronos Quartet, Burt Bacharach and The Wizard of Oz (!). Now, if that doesn't raise a smile...

* THB and Mary Halvorson are both pretty busy in their own right these days, and were maybe just unavailable - Ingrid Laubrock? Jacqui Kerrod? - we could go on, but this isn't really a time to focus on who is not going to be there. 

** Smythe is mainly known in these parts as an interpreter of the formidable solo piano work Comp. 30, and is (apparently) a specialist in New Music - i.e. contemporary notated music; in this capacity he was one of four such specialists who balanced out the four improvisers in Nate Wooley's fascinating 2021 project Mutual Aid Music. 

Reframings (2)

 

Last time out, then, I had a (very) quick look at a couple of albums - one already released, one forthcoming - which re-examine specific Braxton compositions in different ways. This post is a little different: I'm focusing on two tracks wherein contemporary figures within the creative music scene have taken "quotes" from B's pieces, and worked them into their own compositions. (Both tracks are available to be streamed on Youtube - and doubtless in other places too.)

1. Taylor Ho Bynum / 9-tette, from The Ambiguity Manifesto (2019)

We're considering here the second-longest piece on the album, track four, "(G)Host(AA/AB)*". The band is an expanded version of THB's long-running sextet, all of whom had extensive experience of playing with him by this point: Jim Hobbs,  Bill Lowe, Mary Halvorson, Ken Filiano, Tomas Fujiwara. The additional players were not exactly strangers either: Ingrid Laubrock, Tomeka Reid and Stomu Takeishi. That little lot certainly constitutes a "host" of sorts; but if the identity of "AA" was not already pretty obvious, the designation "(G)Host" makes it fully clear that it's Albert Ayler. As for AB, well: Bynum likes his books as well as his music - another piece on this album is dedicated to Ursula K. Le Guin - so it could be a reference to Ambrose Bierce or Algernon Blackwood, or... for that matter, it could be a reference to Dutch reedman Ab Baars; but, you know, it isn't**. 

The way the piece seems to work - I have nothing go on here besides my own interpretation - is that the group channels Ayler's influence first, then B's later on - although it isn't quite that simple. But for now, let's run with that: the first few minutes of the piece are characterised by droning sounds from the lower voices, accompanied in increasingly frenzied fashion by skronks and squawks from the two sax players, and rattling drums and skittering cymbals - Ayler is not really quoted (or not in any way that I could recognise - there certainly is no hint of the sing-song, almost nursery-rhyme themes which he favoured) so much as the ecstatic nature of his music is invoked. - And, of course, the idea of a wild group interplay (far from unique to Ayler, but associated with him nonetheless) is present here too. Around 6:30, most of the players suddenly fall silent as the powerful drone from the bass instruments continues; over this, the guitar and electric bass begin to sketch out a rubato figure which should sound naggingly familiar to any reader of this blog. You may take a minute to place it; in the meantime, Bynum himself is unleashing flurries of fast notes in the upper register, as the same figure, with slightly varying spacing between its eight notes, is repeated again and again. By the 9:00 mark, the same figure has revealed itself as a sort of first cousin to the "slow part" of the theme from Comp. 23b - that is, bars 11-14 inclusive of that piece (the point at which the hectic pace relaxes temporarily, slowing from eight frantic notes to the bar, to just two***). It's not exactly the same phrase - but its intervallic contours are basically a direct match, and once the listening ear has located it, the flurries of notes from the cornet also make perfect retrospective sense, apparently referencing the fast section of the same theme.

Once clearly stated, in (near-)unison and with the notes evenly spaced at last (from 9:05), the phrase promptly vanishes, as the piece continues to take on a character all of its own; over the next few minutes there are teasing echoes of it from several voices, without any of them playing it as such, and in the meantime all manner of weird and wonderful sounds abound, with some really excellent playing. By 11:44, it has found its way back, once more taking over the soundscape as the various instruments stagger it amongst themselves, with numerous subtle rhythmic shifts and variations. This sets up a fierce solo by Halvorson, and from there the musical tapestry gradually unravels, the horns finally interrupting each other in spelling out broken lines which repeat to fade.

This fascinating and very creative composition is nothing so straightforward as a cover, nor is it any form of contrafact; rather it seems to have begun with a "cell" of B's music, and used it as the basis for something entirely different from it - something which also melds in another major influence. In a way, this is more of a tribute to the maestro than any number of straight-up covers could be... oh, and when you listen back to the piece again, knowing how it will develop, you can hear the guitar foreshadowing the 23b material as early as 1:45-ish. A very interesting piece; the whole album is worth your attention, if you've yet to hear it.

***

2.  Alexander Hawkins Trio, from untitled album (2015)

Here we're looking at track three, "One Tree Found", a shortish excursion for the earlier line-up of the trio, featuring Neil Charles on bass as always, but with Tom Skinner in the drum chair (he would later be replaced by Stephen Davis - this second iteration of the group cut the trio's second album; but more significantly, as regards this blog, they provided the backing for the maestro's voluminous Standards Quartet tour); a simpler conception all round than the piece discussed above, this one riffs on various aspects of the theme from Comp. 23d, almost including a direct quote from it at key points. Again, anyone familiar with New York, Fall 1974 will have little trouble recognising this - although apparently I was the first person to call that out to the composer (who confirmed it to me in an email last year).

A simpler conception, indeed, this still very much merits the listening attention of anyone reading this, and not just because of the reframed Braxwerk: Hawkins is a consistently interesting composer, to my ears (not something I can honestly say about many of his British contemporaries), and a restlessly creative player; and although the core trio is just one of many vehicles he maintains for his own musical explorations - like Bynum, he is happy to take a sideman/collaborator role as well - it does seem to bring out the best in him. Check it out! Once again, repurposing elements of B's compositions in this way seems like a more profound artistic tribute than just playing one of his pieces - though Hawkins has been known to do that, too, and I have encouraged him to consider putting out a full album of such stuff. The world always needs more BraxRep, after all...

***

It is purely coincidental that both of these pieces build on elements of tunes from one single side of vinyl, but then again - is it, really? If one plans to undertake something like this, it surely makes sense to take as the starting point something which is relatively well known and easy for listeners to recognise... which does narrow the field down a bit. Nor must that principle be limited to the rare art of restructuring, as outlined in the two cases above... When I wrote last time about Steve Lehman's imminent album, it did not escape my notice that he chose pretty well-known pieces, including not one but two from that exact same side of historic vinyl. Don't get me wrong, I am all for the idea of musicians exploring the lesser-known corners of B's vast discography, and I fervently hope that more of them will rise to that challenge in the (near) future. But at the same time, the surest way to get some of these pieces enshrined as the modern standards they (essentially) are is to keep reminding people of how accessible some of the maestro's better-known compositions always were. We will get there... assuming the human race survives at all (not exactly a given, at this critical point in time), we will get there..!

* I checked carefully: there really are no spaces between the letters and the parentheses. (Looks a bit strange, but that is what the composer wanted to call it... who are we to query that?)

** I presume it really isn't necessary to explain how and why this is obvious (...)

*** Yes, this is one of those annoying times when I could really do with being able to (read and) write musical notation, so that I could include the phrase itself, in visual form. [It's a bit embarrassing that it took me so long to realise what a feeble excuse it is, to keep having to state that I can't read or write music: it really wasn't until just over a year ago that I finally acknowledged that most other people with my level of interest would have taught themselves by now. I didn't think it was necessary, for a long time; and when at some point I began to think it probably was at least highly desirable, I was too busy with other things... what else can I say?]

Reframings (1)

 

In the wake of my wondering (aloud - so to speak) whether a fresh approach might not be needed to what I do around here, I found myself wanting to do some quicker posts, still containing some (...) analysis and contextual detail, but requiring less time, preparation and mental effort than usual. I have in mind to do a fairly brisk rundown of a couple of pieces which aren't written by B., but clearly influenced by him - pieces by younger composers in the manner of a tribute, or - I hesitate to use the word - homage*. 

- Have that in mind, yes, but this is not it: still, it's tangentially related, since it involves two projects of actual Braxwerks - repertoire** - and two pieces of news which are (in different ways) hot off the press, as it were...

1. I was very excited to learn (just this evening) that Steve Lehman - one of relatively few creative musicians whose work I make a concerted effort to follow, as it emerges - is about to drop an album entitled The Music of Anthony Braxton, at the end of February. A glance at the proposed cover art tells me right away that this involves Lehman's working rhythm section of drummer Damion Reid (bottom left) and bassist Matt Brewer (bottom right); a closer inspection was needed, to discover that the fourth player on this (live) date was tenor saxman Mark Turner - someone whose name meant nothing to me at first, admittedly. But, well, I looked him up; and if he's a figure I have not so much encountered and forgotten as simply skirted around (and quite possibly never heard at all), he has played with a lot of respected musicians, and put out plenty of stuff under his own leadership. It may well raise an eyebrow to see Turner described on the album's Bandcamp page as "one of the most influential jazz musicians of the past 30 years" (certainly we might wish to know who exactly has been influenced by him) - but that's the kind of ecstatic hype we've all seen before in promotional blurb, and we'll all see it again***. Knowing that Lehman wanted to undertake this project with him is enough of a vote of confidence for me. 

The album looks to be ever so slightly misleadingly-titled, given that its eight tracks include two originals, plus "Trinkle, Tinkle" by - come off it, you don't need me to tell you who wrote that masterpiece - in addition to five tracks of BraxRep, comprising seven of the maestro's pieces in all. But fuck it, this is no time to quibble: one of my favourite contemporary musicians is releasing a tribute to my actual favourite musician, and that most definitely qualifies as good news! Naturally, with just two tracks available to stream at present, it remains to be seen to what extent Lehman limited himself by concentrating on material from a pretty narrow period in B's vast oeuvre... but I find it hard to believe that I will end up too badly disappointed by this. In any case, I will buy it as soon as it comes out.

[I am not in any way exaggerating when I speak of making a concerted effort to follow Lehman's work, by the way. He has numerous projects on the go, and I try to keep up with all of them, as far as I know: looking at his Bandcamp, I can say at once that I own this and this and this and this and this on CD, among other past releases; and I am familiar with other albums of his besides. In this instance, at least some of the prevailing hype is remarkably close to being justified, in my opinion.]

2. I just ordered a copy of Concept Of Freedom, the experimental project jointly credited to B. and Duke Ellington, but masterminded - at least in part - by that man Roland Dahinden (much discussed in these pages over the last year or so). I have alluded to the album before, and it was conspicuously absent from my inadequate attempt to discuss the various renditions of Comp. 136 in the recorded canon; I have only heard short excerpts from it, and would not claim to understand precisely what it is or how it was conceived, but it has always looked intriguing, and really I have just been waiting for a copy to turn up from a UK-based seller at a reasonable price. That opportunity having now presented itself, I seized it, and I would hope that -if nothing else - the album proves useful in getting me a tiny bit closer to a proper analysis of Dahinden's Ensemble Montaigne (Bau 4) 2013 project, perpetually on my to-do list...

That's it! Quick in, quick out... no preparation, and relatively little in the way of distraction. I'm not saying all of my posts will be like this from now on - indeed, they won't be - but it's an idea for keeping things moving, anyway :)

* I detest using this word, since virtually everyone now seems to have adopted the pretentious pronunciation "homarzh", as if it were a French loan-word. It isn't: and for the record, anyone who wishes to pronounce it thus ought to be prepared to spell it hommage, since that is how the word is written in French. The word homage has existed separately in English for centuries - unlike words such as collage or garage or triage, all of which have simply been dragged-and-dropped from French in the modern era, and are pronounced accordingly. OK... rant over ;-)

** In the context of the blog, the term repertoire refers exclusively to ("covers" of) B's past compositions; sporadic examples of my writing about this subject can be found by skimming the titles of posts from the last couple of years.

*** No disrespect is intended to Mr Turner here. A casual look at his Wikipedia page proves that he has an extensive discography, and has worked with a lot of people over a sustained period. But I don't think it's too outrageous to suggest that if he were indeed "one of the most influential jazz musicians of the past 30 years", I wouldn't have had to look him up. Record labels and their hysterical hype... {tt}

In the spirit of Janus (Cent's 2025 manifesto)

 

Yeah, that didn't quite happen, did it? 

When I said that "three more posts... (would) feel like a rather heroic undertaking", I hadn't really considered that I might not end up posting again at all before the end of the year. Of the various things I had lined up, I knew that most of them were not going to get done in December; but I had fully intended to do another retrospective, and in the event it simply didn't get done because we were away visiting people, and I didn't really get any time to myself, and... when it came down to it, I couldn't justify making a priority of it, since hardly anyone read last year's post anyway ;-)   This sort of granular self-analysis serves some purpose for me, but is of (understandably) limited interest to practically everyone else.

Still... twenty-eight months after I resumed posting in earnest, it does feel worthwhile to ask some questions about the extent (if any) to which all this is working. I had been away for an awfully long time, more than long enough to drop out of most readers' memories - and in the interim, Blogger itself had been relegated to "still active, but only just" status; would I be able to reclaim a decent proportion of my former readership, just by persistently plugging away?

The answer to that is a resounding "No!" as it turns out. Many former readers never found their way back - one can hardly blame them - and although a few new readers have managed to stumble across the blog, somehow or other, it seems obvious that many (if not most) of the potential readers for this kind of material just don't know that we exist. My skills, such as they are, do not extend to knowing what to do about this, so... up till now I have done nothing about it whatsoever. But on the whole the page hits for the blog during 2024 have been slightly down on where they were in 2023, which may or may not mean that I am doing something wrong, but certainly don't suggest that I am getting too much right. 

Then again, I never had the slightest intention of trying to make any money out of this anyway, so it's always been the case that as long as I felt it was of some value to me, I would keep doing it. If it also proves valuable to others, however few, so much the better. [Of course it's always also been the case that it had to be good enough for the maestro, if he deigned to read it; but I think it's safe to say he doesn't, any more. That actually doesn't change things, though: it still has to be good enough for him, from my point of view.]

So much for looking back. In terms of going forward: am I just going to carry on in the same vein, changing nothing? I'm really not sure yet. It feels as of some tweaks and adjustments are called for - but, lacking any real clues as to how to make them, I may very well just carry on regardless, yes... for the most part, anyway. The glacial pace at which I proceed with long-form analysis doesn't seem to be working very well at all: it's well over a year since I first thought about examining Ensemble Montaigne (Bau 4) 2013, but that entailed gaining a greater degree of familiarity with several prior works from B's catalogue, and I am still miles away from being able to undertake a full-form analysis. In the meantime, the length between instalments is not helping me either, as my memory is (alas) not quite what it was, and new knowledge does not always get retained these days, so working at such a slow pace is counter-productive to me, as well as possibly* being maddeningly frustrating to the reader. This aspect of what I do, at any rate, must surely be revised: after all, I now have a similar problem with regard to Comp. 27, which I still want to examine properly after it was unveiled at the BBC Proms last August; at my recent rate of progress, I might be ready to look at that in detail round about 2030, if I'm lucky. That just isn't acceptable to me. I need to find a different approach.

The subject of the Promenade concert raises another question, too. It was available online for a month or so after it was broadcast, but anyone who missed it at the time will not still be able to hear it now. If I write about it, without also posting a link to a sound file, is that worth doing at all? The greater relevance of this question is to the long-delayed matter of the tape collection, which I am always going to get around to, one of these days... what value if I do, when I am not able to provide downloads for any such recordings which I do, finally, hear? Will there be any point in writing about them? If there isn't, will there be any use to my doing it in the first place..? and so on and so forth.

I could of course chew my head up with questions like this, and in the past have done exactly that, but I try not to any more. So, all I can say for the time being is that I will still carry on blogging, even if I am not yet sure to what extent I will be blogging in the same manner as before. It does, after all, continue to be of use to me, and if anyone else does derive any benefit from it... I'm glad! Despite the exposure at the Proms, we seem to be farther than ever from a world where many people take time over things requiring their detailed attention; but we don't have to be fatalistic about that. There are some people out there who might enjoy what I do here - what we do, when we do it - if they only knew of the blog's existence, so if anyone reading this has friends with an interest in creative music generally, and all things Braxtonian in particular... do please tell them :-D

* Possibly - I mean, is it? Does anyone expect anything different from me, these days..?