[NEW - unedited version of rip now available (see bottom), in case anyone would prefer to index their own versions differently from me, etc... c x]
here are those same, celebratory recordings alluded to in the previous post, converted to handy mp3s by mcclintic sphere (thanks again!) - i've since split the second and third sets into separate tracks. link is at the bottom of this post.
over the last couple of days i've read up a bit more about these 65th birthday concerts, specifically the first of the two nights (as far as i can tell, b. himself didn't play at all on the second night). actually, i was mainly looking for the name of the person who replaced reut regev in the gtm 'tet - and i was unsuccessful in that, but i did find out a few interesting things. for some reason, the website i linked to last time places the sets in reverse order: on the night, the duo was first, then the trio/quartet and finally the expanded ensemble. there was other music on the programme too, but only these three sets featured the leader.
in point of fact, only the gtm piece was supposed to feature b. at all. richard teitelbaum was ready to play solo, and had prepared for the occasion some samples of b's playing from the duo's previous encounters; to his and everyone else's surprise, up jumped the honoree with alto in hand. the music, as i said last time, is extremely good: indeed the impromptu duet worked so well that many in attendance apparently assumed that teitelbaum was sampling b. live, rather than using prepared material.
again, the second set was billed as a trio of crispell, dresser and hemingway, not as the quartet. what they were intending to play after the second repetition structure may never be known, because of course what happened was another "stage invasion": as the trio began to navigate away from comp. 23c, b. joined them (to audible cheers) and it wasn't long before his first quote from "impressions" was picked up by the other three players and turned into a full rendition of the famous modern standard. since my last post i've identified the first piece played by the trio: it was comp. 69b. as previously stated, this was followed by comps. 40(o) and 23c, thus giving us a brief selection of materials from the second, third and fourth books for the creative ensemble. "impressions" of course closed the set.
finally, the evening was brought to a close by the one set intended to feature the composer: the gtm piece interpreted by the 12+2tet. this, in turn, is simply an augmented version of the famous 12+1tet which gave us the glorious iridium box, and another official recording since - as i mentioned above, the only member of that group who didn't make it back for this reunion was trombonist reut regev (anyone know why?): thb was there of course, as were james fei, steve lehman, andrew raffo dewar, jay rozen, sara schoenbeck, nicole mitchell, mary halvorson, jessica pavone and aaron siegel; carl testa was on bass, rather than chris dahlgren (both have played in this group); the extra player was another returning reedman, chris jonas. again, as i said above, i haven't been able to identify the player who replaces regev here and i can't say for sure that it's even a trombonist (perhaps if i listened to the whole set just for that i might be a bit more confident! not even i am that obsessive about such details). b's thanks at the end of the set take in all the players, as always, and the missing name sounds to me like "makiko reid". anyone familiar with a japanese-american of that name?*
here is the music
(i am using the latest version of audacity now, and i haven't yet had much of a chance to get my head round it... i am sure i could have done a much better job of tagging the files when i split them. the resulting mp3s may be numbered rather confusingly; accordingly, i have included a text file with full track details including the running order and timings.)
here also (rather belatedly!) is the original stream rip, in
* see second comment for the answer...
8 comments:
btw, more music is coming soon... look for it later this month.
my online reading about this concert took me to (among other places) some american forum or other, can't remember what it was... a number of posters had attended the gig and the discussions were a bit vague, sometimes even amusing! everyone seemed to enjoy it a lot, but some were a bit confused about the material... one guy said rather huffily that although b's initial quote was, indeed, from "impressions", whether or not that was what the band actually went on to play was a matter of interpretation (to be fair, a reply to that said that it was nothing of the sort). various people tried half-heartedly to decide on the material for the trio's set up to that point; one at least identified it as being b's music, "from the 70s" (true enough) but although one poster complained that nate chinen (in the new york times) failed to put opus numbers to any of the pieces, none of the forum members did any better..! at least people did recognise that the band were not playing a group improvisation, as some of the reviewers apparently claimed.
to cap it all, one guy said that gtm had been a big turn off for him, and that he was glad b's large ensembles had now moved beyond this. what the hell did he think the 12+2tet was actually playing?!
(yes, i realise that i probably sound like that guy off the big bang theory... what can i say, some of the things people come out with when talking about b's music leave me shaking my head in amazement... and that of course goes for some professional critics too -!)
"i haven't been able to identify the player who replaces regev here and i can't say for sure that it's even a trombonist... the missing name sounds to me like 'makiko reid'"
close - it's Tomeka Reid (cello), a musician from Chicago who works regularly with Nicole Mitchell, among others:
http://aacmchicago.org/tomeka-reid-1
http://www.myspace.com/cellomama
best,
Jason
j, long time no "speak" - thanks for the correction! were you there? c x
No, unfortunately I couldn't make those shows.
I've just discovered your blog for the first time and have only begun to get a handle on it. But based solely on your description/analysis of Braxton's classic Dortmund Hat recording I feel compelled to leave a note and encourage you to keep it up!
I also look forward to listening to this 65th b'day concert.
Many thanks for the astute writing.
maready, thanks for dropping by... hope you enjoyed the music!
sorry it took me a couple of days to get back to you, i normally try and respond to comments more quickly, but have had no internet for the last 48 hrs :(
with braxtothon phase four just (very nearly) wrapped up, i will soon be posting a list of the phase three/four entries which will hopefully make them a little easier to find (and the blog easier to navigate!). the phase one/two entries are visible in the blog sidebar on the right, in case you haven't found them yet.
thanks again for reading and for your kind comment, rest assured that there is more on the way.
having heard about the birthday celebration on the braxton list I finally (finally!) found my way back to your site to discover, with much joy, that you're going strong. Much for me to read and catch up with, but it's always nice to spend some quality time in this corner of the web. Hope you and yours are doing well. Best-Lee
hello lee :)
glad to hear from you. how is it going with you and yours?
yes, as you can see there has been a certain amount of activity round these parts over the last few months - not as much as the old days (as if!) but a fair amount of serious work. there is more coming of course... actually, first of all i need to get a few other little things out the way. seem to be having trouble getting down to business at the moment, but i daresay it'll pass ;-)
oh yeah - braxton list..?
cheers, c x
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