as we know, the years after the breakup of the "great quartet" (1993) were largely dominated by the massive meta-project known as ghost trance music (routinely rendered on this blog, and indeed elsewhere, as gtm). it's easy at times to assume that any opus number upwards of about 180 will refer to a gtm map/layout - but this is by no means always the case. the 323 series, for example, is a short book of diamond curtain wall blueprints for trios or quartets to use with the supercollider software.
- and another tradition continued in this era, that of b's writing pieces specifically to fuel his never-ending fascination with playing duets (which itself runs parallel to his core discipline of playing solo, a one-off requirement for aacm acolytes which became a lifelong gong fu practice for our man). as the opus numbers ticked into their fourth century, another clutch of duo territories sprang forth to provide fodder for another series of duets. frequently these pieces feature those half-mocking, interval-spanning birdcalls - messages fed to your ears by intelligent birds, seemingly offering the secret passwords to your dreams. (this hallmark, in turn, can be traced back into the early seventies and probably beyond... by 1976 the duo pieces b. was examining with george lewis seem to throw up eerily-familiar melodic fragments.) an example is comp. 304, evidently written with thb in mind, for the master's full album of duets with his new "disciple"...
... and two more are comps. 310 and 311, which if conceived in a different mood or another day might perhaps have begun life as 310 a&b... this time the duet date was with master percussionist andrew cyrille, the resulting material spread over two paired releases. far from being the full-on free jazz blowout some might have expected (?*), this meeting saw information shared and exchanged at a very subtle level, forceful dynamics rarely the chief concern. as well as the birdcall motifs which link these two braxton originals with comp. 304 (and with their common ancestors), all three recent pieces seem to include a basic stipulation that very precise modulations and inflections of tone and timbre will be employed at times. this is certainly the case for the leader, but to an extent it is mirrored in what bynum and cyrille bring forth in return. bynum is a very expressive player anyway, who prefers cornet to trumpet for that reason (expressiveness/tonal versatility) and who still probably has a special place in his heart for arch-trickster lester bowie; cyrille, all drummers to all people, becomes here a micro-explorer of the oceans of sound which lie scattered around his drum set. i'm guessing that those colourful signs and symbols we glimpse tantalisingly in partial reproductions of recent braxton charts were used quite liberally on these scores; that is, liberally but precisely, that word once more.
all three pieces have helped me enjoy the day, now it's evening and in writing just the vaguest outline about them i'm resisting the temptation to listen again with full focus to any of 'em, never mind all of 'em... we could be here for a long time if i did! the well never runs dry... i know from the half-listening which took place earlier that full concentration would see me engulfed, swallowed whole as if by a huge, friendly but hungry monster. one thing i can tell you for sure is that the fineness of those reed calibrations is getting ridiculous... by the time the millennium came and went, countless hours of informed practice were reflected by a supernatural degree of control over all the potential variables governing b's next individual utterance. for a duet partner this must be thrilling, intimidating and inspiring all at once... or so i like to imagine :)
* * *
just to get really nerdy for a minute, a quick word regarding a list... my list-making/fetishising proclivity has been reasonably well reined in for some time now, i try not to make them at all unless they are actually gonna be functional... and as regards my number one obsession, i can honestly say that i don't know how many braxton albums i have (in whatever form), because i don't need to know but i *do* maintain a master-list of all his recordings i have, arranged chronologically for obvious reasons. that list, at the time of the original braxtothon week, numbered exactly 100 entries; at present time of writing it runs to a manageable 183. (an entry might be a full-length album or live show, a box set, or a live fragment; news from the 70s comprises five different entries, the iridium box just one, as befits a monolith.) just to get really nerdy for a sec... right now all the post-millennium entries occupy one full page on my screen, something which has the added pleaser that there are no entries for 1999 anyway, this being one very few "dry" years i have left... may even be the only one. see, i'm not going to check -
- and in any case, what i actually wanted to pass on was the more relevant synchronicity which came as the answer to one of my own queries. 1985 or 1993, my finish-line for the braxtothon? well, again at time of writing the last entry for 1985 (coventry) occurs at line 113, which of course has a special significance in braxtonian numerology... so that's that, 1985 it is - whenever the damn behemoth rolls back over and onto its wheelbase, and however long it takes to get there it will terminate at the end of the 1985 u.k. tour. who knows, if i live long enough to see it, i may even embark on a separate series of voyages to the later realms explored by that same "quartet's quartet"...
* see comments
- and another tradition continued in this era, that of b's writing pieces specifically to fuel his never-ending fascination with playing duets (which itself runs parallel to his core discipline of playing solo, a one-off requirement for aacm acolytes which became a lifelong gong fu practice for our man). as the opus numbers ticked into their fourth century, another clutch of duo territories sprang forth to provide fodder for another series of duets. frequently these pieces feature those half-mocking, interval-spanning birdcalls - messages fed to your ears by intelligent birds, seemingly offering the secret passwords to your dreams. (this hallmark, in turn, can be traced back into the early seventies and probably beyond... by 1976 the duo pieces b. was examining with george lewis seem to throw up eerily-familiar melodic fragments.) an example is comp. 304, evidently written with thb in mind, for the master's full album of duets with his new "disciple"...
... and two more are comps. 310 and 311, which if conceived in a different mood or another day might perhaps have begun life as 310 a&b... this time the duet date was with master percussionist andrew cyrille, the resulting material spread over two paired releases. far from being the full-on free jazz blowout some might have expected (?*), this meeting saw information shared and exchanged at a very subtle level, forceful dynamics rarely the chief concern. as well as the birdcall motifs which link these two braxton originals with comp. 304 (and with their common ancestors), all three recent pieces seem to include a basic stipulation that very precise modulations and inflections of tone and timbre will be employed at times. this is certainly the case for the leader, but to an extent it is mirrored in what bynum and cyrille bring forth in return. bynum is a very expressive player anyway, who prefers cornet to trumpet for that reason (expressiveness/tonal versatility) and who still probably has a special place in his heart for arch-trickster lester bowie; cyrille, all drummers to all people, becomes here a micro-explorer of the oceans of sound which lie scattered around his drum set. i'm guessing that those colourful signs and symbols we glimpse tantalisingly in partial reproductions of recent braxton charts were used quite liberally on these scores; that is, liberally but precisely, that word once more.
all three pieces have helped me enjoy the day, now it's evening and in writing just the vaguest outline about them i'm resisting the temptation to listen again with full focus to any of 'em, never mind all of 'em... we could be here for a long time if i did! the well never runs dry... i know from the half-listening which took place earlier that full concentration would see me engulfed, swallowed whole as if by a huge, friendly but hungry monster. one thing i can tell you for sure is that the fineness of those reed calibrations is getting ridiculous... by the time the millennium came and went, countless hours of informed practice were reflected by a supernatural degree of control over all the potential variables governing b's next individual utterance. for a duet partner this must be thrilling, intimidating and inspiring all at once... or so i like to imagine :)
* * *
just to get really nerdy for a minute, a quick word regarding a list... my list-making/fetishising proclivity has been reasonably well reined in for some time now, i try not to make them at all unless they are actually gonna be functional... and as regards my number one obsession, i can honestly say that i don't know how many braxton albums i have (in whatever form), because i don't need to know but i *do* maintain a master-list of all his recordings i have, arranged chronologically for obvious reasons. that list, at the time of the original braxtothon week, numbered exactly 100 entries; at present time of writing it runs to a manageable 183. (an entry might be a full-length album or live show, a box set, or a live fragment; news from the 70s comprises five different entries, the iridium box just one, as befits a monolith.) just to get really nerdy for a sec... right now all the post-millennium entries occupy one full page on my screen, something which has the added pleaser that there are no entries for 1999 anyway, this being one very few "dry" years i have left... may even be the only one. see, i'm not going to check -
- and in any case, what i actually wanted to pass on was the more relevant synchronicity which came as the answer to one of my own queries. 1985 or 1993, my finish-line for the braxtothon? well, again at time of writing the last entry for 1985 (coventry) occurs at line 113, which of course has a special significance in braxtonian numerology... so that's that, 1985 it is - whenever the damn behemoth rolls back over and onto its wheelbase, and however long it takes to get there it will terminate at the end of the 1985 u.k. tour. who knows, if i live long enough to see it, i may even embark on a separate series of voyages to the later realms explored by that same "quartet's quartet"...
* see comments
3 comments:
somebody, somewhere, a while ago expressed a clear distaste for the cyrille duo sessions. may even have been an early comment on here... i get a little confused at times ;-) but i wonder if they were disappointed not to get a high-intensity "interstellar space" rerun or what. i enjoyed this pair of albums a lot and will look forward to hearing them again.
and yes, i got them as rips on the net, but no, i'm not publishing the link since (i think) the albums are still in print. hypocrisy? it's not, but i can't be bothered to explain that unless anyone *really* needs to make an issue out of it..!
I just recently tracked down an (ill-gotten) recording of the Cyrille duets. Loved the first, lukewarm on the second (although this might have something to do with the fact that the first was at a much higher bitrate, but I know better than to walk into this woodshed with that old saw!). Only heard 'em once & not too carefully, but I kept thinking throughout how much of a natural extension of B's duets with Max Roach they were. I know I've read somewhere about Cyrille coming out of the Roach school; I'm not a perceptive-enough percussion listener to verify that for sure, but the nature of B's interactions seemed consistent between the earlier Roach recordings & the later Cyrille ones. & of course those Roach sets weren't blow-outs either; just a lot of thoughtful & playful music-making.
hi b, and yes - i think numerous people have drawn a line between roach and cyrille, certainly in this context: not least braxton and cyrille themselves, at the time of the duo sessions (or after? there are interviews with both about the date)... of course this was only the second recorded duo meeting with a drummer, so it's a pretty straightforward line in that respect! but the famously precise approach of the earlier master seems relevant here. don't know about the bitrate difference, but i wasn't listening through 'phones, and they may not even have been the same rips (?) - heard plenty of subtle textural detail in both though...
Post a Comment