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..?

Simple pleasure(s)

 

This time of year typically sees any (posting) momentum I might have built up tailing off, as the festive season approaches: anyone with children can attest to the fact that December evaporates with terrifying speed, once it's underway... there are always plenty of other claims on my time and attention, and the focused mindset required to keep up this sort of work can be pretty difficult to achieve. It's probably no coincidence that interest in the blog tends to dry up round about this time too - bearing in mind that there hasn't been a huge amount of interest this year anyway, especially not since the early summer. 

So, if I manage three more posts between now and the end of the month it will feel like a rather heroic undertaking, and nobody should be too surprised if it doesn't end up happening*. Still, after my recent analysis of the 1995 ensemble reading of Comp. 187, I had intended to go back and listen again to Cygnus Ensemble's short rendition of Comp. 186 - included on their 2000 release Broken Consort. I first heard this "cover" - feels a bit silly to call this that - years ago, but at the time I had not made the direct connection: violinist Jacqui Carrasco, a member of William Anderson's group at that time, had taken part in a handful of the early GTM, first species performances, starting with the Thanksgiving 1995 concert referenced above. Having listened closely enough to witness the way in which B. encouraged the ensemble to take repeated "little liberties" with the written material, would I now find more latitude in a reading which I had previously characterised as ruler-straight?

It took me a while to dig out the recording from my archives: as it turned out, I don't have the mp3 file anywhere (could have sworn I did), and have only got it burned on the end of one my old CD-Rs. Now - it is supposedly possible to find it on Youtube, but good luck getting that to work properly (... I couldn't)**. Hence, this post is really even more pointless than usual since I am going to hazard a guess that most readers won't have this obscure album in their collections***.

Buuuuut... here we go anyway: 

186 was of course the second of the two pieces unveiled in October 1995 in Istanbul - that concert marking the second ever official GTM recording - and I have no idea whether Anderson and co had access to the score, or simply transcribed it from the Braxton House CD; either is possible, the second option maybe more likely#. I am going to assume though that Carrasco's prior experience was crucial here, not just in the decision to play the piece, but in the group's feeling confident that they could tackle it. 

The instrumentation set out in Restructures was slightly wrong - as I mentioned in a footnote to a recent post - in that not only did pianist Haewon Min not play on this##, there is no piano on it at all: the correct instrumentation was "violin, cello, flute, oboe, and two guitars". What this failed to specify is that one of the guitars was acoustic, the other electric; and not "Wes Montgomery electric" either, nor even "Joe Morris electric", but played through at least one pedal, so that there is some actual timbral inflection applied at times - though you do have to listen very closely to be aware of this. I don't know who played which guitar - but this instrumentation - sextet with two guitars - is not only not unusual for the group, it is actually still their standard format###.  Carrasco (on violin of course) is at the far left of the stereo image, with the electric guitar on the far right, and oboe, guitar, cello and flute in between.

As is generally the case with this sort of thing, the more closely one listens the more rewarding the experience becomes. The acoustic guitar has a real chop to (many of) its attacks and the ensemble's sound is absolutely lovely. Taken at a brisk allegro trot, the music succeeds in being somewhat hypnotic from the outset, the regular first-species eighth-notes interspersed with occasional legato swoops; and quite early on, inside the first ninety seconds, we do get a breakout of sorts, at least half the group departing from the main written theme to undertake what is presumably^ secondary material, while the rest continue the theme undistracted. This works very well, with each temporary section of the group functioning independently of the other in a manner of which the maestro would surely approve... but of course it doesn't last very long, as indeed was quite normal in most first-species readings. Just after the ensemble coalesces again, the pace slows, and just before this there are a few tiny bow-scratches from the violin, the closest thing yet to any improvisation, though the listener really has to be paying attention to catch them. 

The tempo changes throughout the reading are handled extremely well, and it must be said, the musicians all seem properly sensitive to the needs of the written material, really playing every attack. Over time, there are minute fragments of improvisation, mostly from the violin and electric guitar, which reward the attentive ear; it is fair to say that the possibilities inherent in the piece are not exactly fully explored, but then a) in a shortish reading like this that would never be possible^^, and b) the sound of the group really is quite beautiful, and it's easy to forgive, or overlook, what potential they fail to develop. Late on in the second half of the reading, some small effort is made to open up new spaces in the music, and although it would be easy to say there's too little of this, on reflection I am inclined to think that there is just enough, given the limitations enforced by the shortish duration and the "magazine" format of the album on which this appeared. It's not ruler-straight, exactly; neither is it completely liberated, but I reckon they got the balance just about right in the end.

***

Because I had to dig out an old CD-R, like I say, that also furnished the opportunity to refamiliarise myself with other treats I may have neglected... in this case, those included half an hour of shehnai wizardry from (one of Atanase's great heroes) Ustad Bismillah Khan, as well as a boot of maestro B. in a trio with George Lewis and Frederic Rzewski at the Pisa Jazz Festival in 1980; neither of these recordings had pleasured my ears in over a decade, I'm sure, and in both cases there was considerable pleasure to be found in the reacquaintance. But the other disc - as was my wont, I had slotted two discs into one envelope  - reintroudced me to an album I have never completely forgotten, but again have not listened to in a good few years: Paul Smoker's QB, whereon his working trio with bassist Ron Rohovit and drummer Phil Haynes was, of course, augmented by B. for three of its tracks. What I had forgotten is that the two "hottest" tracks on the album - "Gemini-Scorpio" on side one and "Blue Jungles" on side two - don't feature the special guest; but there is still some suitably exciting, intriguing and varied playing from him on those three cuts, rest assured. Unfortunately, I don't think this overlooked album is currently on YT; it's well worth tracking down if you can find it.

* Bearing in mind that I wrote those first few paragraphs last weekend and it's taken me another seven days to get round to finishing this (fairly trivial) post, that target looks more ambitious than ever at this point... meanwhile, the blog actually did have two days of significant interest in the interim - but of course one never knows if that is merely bot-related :-S

** Literally every other bastard track on the album plays just fine, but that one gets stuck just before the 2:00 mark... it's infuriating. (Or, I dunno, maybe it was just me - and others won't have that problem...)

*** If you live in the US, you can pick up a mint-condition copy of the CD on Discogs for two dollars. Safe to say it's not widely sought-after :-S

# This might also explain why the reading here is so short - although it is also one of eight (sets of) works by different composers on the album, and thus had to compete for disc space.

## Indeed, I was unable to find any evidence that she had ever been a member of this group at all - which does not, of course, prove that she wasn't. (However, she definitely wasn't at the time that this album was recorded.)

### This per the group's own website, which should at least in theory be up to date. (In the photo on their homepage, that would appear be Oren Fader who has an electric guitar with him, though he isn't playing it right at that moment - I believe that is bandleader Anderson who plays only acoustic.)

^ That is to say, it is nothing I recognise as an earlier piece from B's oeuvre - which would make it tertiary material. I will assume for the time being that it's taken from supplementary material provided at the back of the score - which tends to favour the idea that the group did actually have an official score to work from, although not necessarily; Carrasco could simply have had access to this much "inside information", for example. (If they did have the whole score to work from, they never intended to use all that much of it.)

^^ My personal yardstick for a perfunctory reading presently remains that by Ensemble Dal Niente, enjoyable though it still is; at the other end of this scale, the performance (just over a year ago) by Plus-Minus Ensemble struck me as fully embracing the spirit of GTM in all its manifold possibilities. That was, though, a live performance, over twenty minutes long... and the group had help, from (Europe's recent Braxton expert) Kobe Van Cauwenberghe - who assisted them in their preparation of the (unnumbered) music they performed...

Where it all began

 

Muhal Richard Abrams  Levels and Degrees of Light

(Delmark, 1968)

Every Braxton fan worth their salt knows this one, even if it's only by name: this was of course B's first recording credit*. To be precise, his first two recording sessions - both in 1967, but more than six months apart - saw him working on material destined for release on this album, the following year. I myself had not heard it for years until very recently, when an opportunity arose to acquire a copy on CD.

Naturally, as a specialist, I have a very particular and specific interest in this album - although I am to some extent interested in everything to do with the AACM and its members (and have considerable regard for Abrams as a musician and composer, and enormous respect for him as a figurehead). I had a serviceable rip of the album already; the only reason I felt a need to get hold of the CD was because of B's involvement. But there are two aspects of the recording with which I am concerned here, and the second of these has nothing to do with the maestro, as it happens...

First exposure

Limitations of the LP format meant that the running order of the original album was never really in doubt: the two shorter (though hardly short: 10:30, 9:43) tracks made up side one of the vinyl and the remaining track - a twenty-three minute epic entitled "The Bird Song" - comprised all of side two. The CD reissue changed this (among other things, as we will see): for reasons not divulged**, the opening title track (which does not feature B.***) remains in place, with the longest piece now moved into the middle of the set. From the entirely unilateral perspective of the Braxton fanatic, this means that the altoist's first entries are now those which he himself first recorded: "The Bird Song" was recorded at the earlier session, on 7th June. This affords a rather pleasing sense of concord to those of us who approach the album from this angle.

B. had joined Abrams' Experimental Band in 1966, not long after being discharged from the army, and took part in his first recording session just after his twenty-second birthday. The first sounds on "The Bird Song" - which are altissimo squeals - could easily be mistaken for B's own first entries, but they aren't: by listening very carefully indeed, we can discern that we are actually hearing Abrams himself (again on clarinet) in the left channel, and Jenkins in the right, replicating each other's attacks so closely that it's only occasionally they can be told apart. This opening lasts for around seventy seconds, and overlaps slightly with the poetic recitation of David Moore (which above all proved the lightning rod for the controversy discussed below). This lasts a full five minutes and is in turn replaced by a section for the two bassists - Charles Clark, who plays on the whole album and Jones, who appears only on this track - who are eventually joined by Jenkins, and by drummer Thurman Barker (mainly using cymbals to great effect). At 12:53, Abrams enters on piano for the first time, followed immediately by B. (left of centre in the stereo image). 

In a manner which would soon become very familiar, B. opens with some melodic phrases which quickly give way to the fast runs, angular phrasings and abrupt changes of direction and dynamics which would become (some of) his hallmarks. Although this has all the characteristics of a solo, it sees an increased intensity in the musical backing as well, which is only ramped up still further at 14:05 with the introduction (right channel) of Kalaparush(a) Maurice McIntyre on tenor, and for the next few minutes the two saxmen and the pianist-leader batter away at the listener, Ascension-style, over a furious layer of bass(es), drums and percussion which must have been too much for some listeners at the time; the modern ear, if trained in free jazz listening, can fairly easily separate all the individual strands in what would sound to a novice like a barrage of noise  - but note, this separation is probably only possible with the recording in its present form (see below). By 16:55, the two reedmen have reached the point of outright shrieks on their respective axes and such is the level of sustained intensity, Abrams himself disappeared from the mix some time ago without this really being noticed. There are moments when the alto and tenor could conceivably be working from the same written material, rather than just "free blowing", but with the dynamics pushed this far, it almost doesn't matter anyway. Just after 19:30, both saxophones sign off and lay out, signalling a notable drop in the volume level, though the bowed basses continue scrabbling away for all they're worth, over washes of cymbals, bells - and the birdlike tweets and whistles which have been present (though not always clearly audible) almost throughout. For the best part of seven minutes, B. has torn the place up, demonstrating at this germinal stage the energy, technique and stamina which would remain among his trademarks more than half a century later.

The third track on the CD, "My Thoughts Are My Future - Now and Forever", was recorded at the later session and is in a somewhat similar vein, but less frenetic, and the opening couple of minutes are dominated by the leader on piano. When B. enters this time at 2:10, he can be heard much more clearly, and within a few seconds his playing could never be mistaken for anyone else. Pretty much everything we might expect to hear from him is on full display at this point; again, his solo here rises to a pitch of harsh overblowing briefly, but in the much shorter time available to him here, he utilises a fairly wide range of tonal and timbral effects, even (fleetingly) some quite subtle ones, as well as displaying his highly individual approach to vertical and horizontal line-construction. By 3:55 he is all done, giving way to a drum solo; the next time we hear a saxophone entry, just before 5:00, it's again Kalaparusha. The whole band joins in from around the eight-minute mark, but with B. sharing the left channel with soprano Penelope Taylor, it is far from simple to pick him out, and really we have already heard all we are going to hear from him at this point. 

Given less than nine minutes of airtime across two of the album 's cuts, B. nevertheless makes his mark strongly on this date...

The Controversy

At the back of my mind, I knew there was something problematic about the recording process with this one, and had placed a mental bookmark - years ago - to check carefully before purchasing any format of the album. I had forgotten the details (perhaps not surprisingly). I vaguely remembered that the CD was regarded as questionable; trying to retrieve this from memory unaided, I came up with the idea that perhaps it added heavy reverb, not present in the original. As it turned out, I had it arse-backwards: the CD is regarded as questionable, yes, but that is because it removed that same effect. The original vinyl issue - Lewis tells us - "was awash in dense studio reverberation"#. This did not go down well with most critics, for a variety of reasons: the black writer## Ron Welburn, who strongly associated the use of technological studio trickery with rock music (which itself was "not a real music", as he maintained), distrusted this decision on basic principle, while several others - mainly but not exclusively white### - thought it gimmicky, tacky, confusing or just badly done.

I have never heard the original version of this recording - and when I first hunted about online for an answer as to what was "wrong" with the CD reissue (before I remembered to consult Lewis on the subject), I found some quite detailed discussions of the album which were also based exclusively on the later version produced from a digital master. My own rip of the album was from a CD; back in the Golden Age of Music Blogging it was very common for older recordings to circulate in the form of digitised vinyl rips, but that does not seem to have applied to this album. Some commenters on Youtube have weighed in, stating that they prefer the original vinyl - but previous would-be analysts have been forced to speculate, as I am. I must admit that it would be very interesting to hear the older version; all three tracks featured heavy reverb, as confirmed by Lewis, with the principal focus of the controversy being the recitative introduction (David Moore reading his own poetry) to "The Bird Song", which evidently rendered incomprehensible the actual words spoken. How much of the instrumental content of the album was similarly affected, I just don't know.

Lewis observes that the "reverb issue apparently stuck in the craws of some for many years", and makes it clear that many listeners at the time simply thought that someone involved in the recording - presumably engineer Stu Black - had messed up: it did not seem to occur to anybody that the published recording could have been the result of a conscious choice by the artist/bandleader. And this is where things get rather complicated, because while Lewis himself is unequivocal in his own view - the recording sounded the way Abrams wanted it to sound in the first place, and the reissue butchered it - he does not actually cite any sources for this. It is very clearly implied that he knows he is right from his interviews with Abrams; but look through these passages and footnotes as closely as you like, and you won't find any direct quoting or citation for this opinion. It is, however, a very strongly-held opinion indeed: in managing to strip away the reverb when preparing the CD, reissue producer Steve Wagner "seriously damag(ed) the recording's musical integrity". 

I can't quite work this out, despite turning it over and over in my head before (and during) the writing of this post. Abrams was making his debut as a leader - I'm really not sure if he had recorded at all before this^ - and would not necessarily have been given complete creative control, although with a reputable label like Delmark, we would certainly like to think that he was. Most (if not all) reviewers apparently assumed that the studio effects could not have been down to him, but must have been the result of clumsy or overenthusiastic engineering. Label boss (and original producer) Robert Koester seems to have been a bit embarrassed by the whole thing, and this above all is probably what induced Delmark to have the reverb cancelled out by the remastering engineer Konrad Strauss in 1991. But Abrams was very much alive and well at the time, and could have been consulted - or could easily have voiced his dissatisfaction if he wasn't; for that matter, he was still among us when Lewis was writing his book. It should have been easy for us to have on record what the composer himself thought about all this; for some reason, Lewis neglects to tell us that, which seems a rather inexplicable oversight in what is otherwise a work of notable academic rigour^^. Lewis believes that "the electronics were part of the texture" of the recording, but despite offering this and similar statements with no qualification whatsoever, he fails to make it clear that this is anything other than just his personal inference.

In conclusion

With all (considerable) due respect to Abrams, my own interest in this album is very obviously partisan, and if removing the reverb means that I can hear clearly what might otherwise have been blurred details in B's own playing, I am all for it. Actually, from my highly personal perspective, the ideal version of the album would probably be one in which the poetry recitation remained reverb-ed beyond the point of comprehensibility, but everything else was clearly audible: it's not even a matter of my objecting to the words themselves, so much as the heavily-mannered, "I am a poet and will now read from my work of poetry" style of reading them which I struggle with. But there we are; that's just me, and besides, that version of the album will (presumably!) never exist. For the time being, I will have to take Lewis' word for it that the "wash of sound was emotionally telling and dramatic" and that "without the reverb, the drama of the work is largely lost"^^^. I find plenty of drama in the CD version, though.

One other thing occurs to me now: the two possibilities outlined above are not mutually exclusive. It is not inherently implausible that the original electronic processing could have been broadly deliberate, yet clumsily realised; the readiness of the label to "fix" the unpopular effect - and the silence with which this seems to have been met by the artist - perhaps implies that I could be onto something with that. One of these days, I may finally be in a position to make an informed comparison between the two versions of this album; in the meantime, regardless of what Lewis or any original fans might think, I am happy with the one I've got.

* As George Lewis points out, these sessions also represent the first recording credits for bassist Leonard Jones - and, more surprisingly, for Leroy Jenkins (who was already thirty-five at the time, considerably older than either Jones or Braxton). Any source material cited in this post is from Lewis, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press, 2008)

** My copy is from the first CD issue (1991), which includes only the original liner notes - nothing specific to the reissue. - And this reissue would prove controversial, as will become clear...

*** The title track here, dominated by vibes and cymbals (and wordless vocals), includes a clarinet - but this is played by Abrams himself; B. plays only alto sax on the date.

# Lewis, op. cit., ch. 5, p. 148. This is the first mention of the album, and of the sessions which generated it; the rest of the discussion occupies the following two pages, and numerous footnotes. 

## I have noticed that recent social-science texts have standardised the orthography "Black" (capitalised) and "white" - while the (superb) contemporary novelist Percival Everett tends rather to capitalise both. Personally, I am far from convinced of any grounds for capitalising either word: they are descriptive adjectives, but not designating nationality (which would drive capitalisation - in English, though not in (e.g.) French). I have never had it explained to me why this is suddenly necessary; I am open to suggestions, but until that time... 

### A.B. Spellman criticised "the engineer's sensitivity" as being unsympathetic to the work. Other views cited in this passage of the book seem to be readily attributable to white writers; the only significance of this distinction is that the sociopolitical angle was purely a black concern. Welburn apparently felt that black musicians must resist any pressure or temptation to resort to new technology - and took issue with other artists besides Abrams, notably (of course) Miles Davis - although he doesn't appear to have demanded that black artists avoid using modern recording studios altogether.

^ Lewis mentions only the three players detailed in the first footnote above; the liner notes suggest that other players may have been making their recorded debuts here too, but it's not quite spelled out, and is written in such a way as to leave doubt about the actual leader.

^^ Chapter five alone includes 157 footnotes, some of which are pretty detailed. Would one more have been too many..?

^^^ Lewis goes so far as to (mis)use the word "bowdlerization" for the way in which the CD edition was prepared. (I'll credit him with having his tongue somewhat in his cheek, but still... the reverb was not actually offensive.)