Partial assembly

 

Spoiler alert: I'm not going to make any very confident declarations following my listening to the unauthorised release Live at the Rainbow Gallery '79 (and just for the record, when I say listening to the release, I mean playing the individual files on Youtube; I don't own the CD (but see below, at the end of this post)). However, I did hear all of it - albeit just over a week ago, and while doing other things - and I do have some more half-cooked conclusions to present... continuing on from where I left off. 

First, then: the set-list is (almost) precisely as given by Discogs user "senorton". Which is to say: the opening piece is an extended-but-incomplete reading of the Ray Noble standard "Cherokee"; and the remainder of the set consists, very simply, of Comps. 23d, 23e and 40f. I say "almost" precisely: perhaps senorton was writing from memory, but he is wrong when he says that "(the) composed music is connected, in typical fashion, by free improvisation". It isn't. Whatever the circumstances were regarding this performance - or series of performances (painter David Scher, otherwise known as Discogs user "fetidwheeze", says that his work was exhibited at the gallery "during Braxton's residency" - though he doesn't say how many days or nights that comprised) - it doesn't proceed in the usual mid-seventies manner. Friendly experiencer senorton is probably just trying to account for why the label wrongly lists the four pieces as "Free Jazz Improv. One", etc - and his explanation is perfectly plausible in principle, but it doesn't match up with the actual recording. Track one is just "Cherokee" - and as mentioned above, for whatever reason, this part of the broadcast was incomplete, fading out before the conclusion of the trombone solo. Track two is Comp. 23d, which begins "cold" rather than emerging from any sort of transition phase; actually this one was quite surprising for me when I first listened to it, as I had figured beforehand that surely there would be a medley of some sorts here: the band couldn't possibly just have played this one number for almost half an hour..? -but no, that is indeed precisely what happens, and after 28 minutes, the piece finishes and we get some polite audience applause. No transitioning, and for that matter no radio announcer (this was supposedly sourced from a radio broadcast, don't forget - indeed it looks as if the date '79 in the album title refers not to the date of performance, but to the eventual broadcast, rather perversely). Track three is Comp. 23e, which is preceded by a little bit of tuning up, but that is not traditionally regarded as improvising... again, the piece fades out in mid-solo (this time a piano solo), but on this occasion it may just have been a question of the (ahem) "recording engineer" having to flip or change a tape, as Track four picks up shortly after Track three leaves off, still in mid-piano solo, and we just carry right on until we get some more applause, at around 6.15. This isn't a link phase though, it's just crappy indexing; there are then a few "false starts" before Comp. 40f begins just before the 7.00 mark, and this is where Track four should really begin, properly speaking. Fifteen minutes of that takes us up to the end, and some more applause. 

- So I suppose the only way senorton could have thought that the primary territores are linked by free improvisation, other than simply misremembering, is if he played just the beginning of each track before writing his notes; Track four beginning as it does in medias res could fool the hasty listener into thinking that. But although these are all pretty lengthy workouts - allowing for some extra solo time, given the presence of a pianist - I didn't hear any suggestion of different pieces being interpreted or even quoted, and like I say, Comp. 23d has a clear beginning and end, despite lasting a full 28 mins. If Comp. 23e seems to drift away into places new in its second half, that in itself is not at all unusual - indeed it is pretty much the way this piece was written*- and again, it comes to an end to allow for some applause. Comp. 40f, again, concludes by sounding quite clearly like itself, although when played in concert this piece usually segued into something else. But this was apparently not a normal Braxton concert performance, whatever else it was, and however extended the readings may have been. A Braxton concert beginning with a standard? WTAF?! Hmmm. 

That's that for the programme. Any thoughts on the actual music? "Cherokee" is an interesting choice because it does, indeed, bring to mind Charlie Parker for many people - senorton probably went a bit too far with his assumptions about what its inclusion here might mean; but I was also wrong when I said previously that Parker was just one of many musicians to play it - or rather, I was incorrect in implying that it's really no more associated with Parker than with numerous other (bop-era) jazz musicians. It may have called to mind Clifford Brown for me, yes, but that says more about my self-educated approach to jazz appreciation than anything else. Once I looked into it, I found (actually rediscovered**) that Parker is in fact strongly associated with this tune for a reason: it was his obsessive woodshedding on this particular piece (in all twelve keys) that eventually allowed him to play "the music (he'd) been hearing", by abstracting the higher intervals of the chords and transforming them into a melody line. This may (or may not) have led to the "birth of be-bop"... but it does certainly mean that for some people, the association between Parker and "Cherokee" is so deeply-rooted that they even misremember him as having co-written it. (As I said before, he was too young for that even to have been a realistic possibility***.) Our friend senorton somewhat speciously cites this as evidence for his own identification of the trombonist on the Braxton bootleg as George Lewis: it is true that both of the duo sets B. laid down with Lewis in 1976 include Parker tunes, but those are almost tossed off as "extras", whereas this is both the opening number (still can't quite get my head round that) and a much fuller reading than either of those others. 

Now, to senorton's description of "a Charlie Parker solo played by the horns in unison". Braxton and the 'bone man - we won't definitively call him Lewis just yet - do certainly play a horn line together, starting at around 0.55 on Track one. But what is it? Parker's first, most famous, rendition of "Cherokee" on record is the one probably waxed in 1942 (or possibly '41) - various sources date it to '43, but I'm happy to rule that out, for the simple reason that that would place it smack bang in the middle of the notorious recording ban - with two rather obscure sidemen (who are quite possibly only remembered now in the context of this recording... I wouldn't know). This is apparently revered by some as being the perfect bebop solo (despite the fact that bebop didn't really exist yet at this point... but who's counting?) - and it doesn't sound to me as if B. and his compadre are playing that. [I thought I remembered there being a version of "Cherokee" included on Parker's recordings either for Dial or Savoy - but I may be just remembering the fact that "Ko-Ko" - Parker's contrafact based on Noble's changes - was recorded in one of those sessions. The Dial masters do include a private recording of "Cherokee" from 1947, apparently - that would be a pretty recondite reference and for all I know, it may not even have been in general circulation at the time Braxton was playing this gig.] It almost sounds to me more like an Eric Dolphy solo than one of Parker's - I actually went away and checked that they aren't quoting "Out There", but they're not - but whatever it is, it's clearly a rehearsed line, successfully pulled off, and definitely a crowd-pleaser: some claps can be heard over the music, around 1.44 when the brassman lays out and B. takes over for his alto solo.

When I said previously that I didn't make any attempt at first to identify the players because I couldn't hear the bass, that isn't really true. But it sort of is: some of the bass can be heard fairly clearly, even in a compressed rip, via an online video played on cruddy "speakers" on a device which can't even properly be called a laptop. The thing is, you can only hear some of it, and that turned out not to be enough for me to feel confident about saying that this is or isn't Dave Holland; or, for that matter, that this is or isn't Barry Altschul. The drums sound so thrash-n-bash on this rough and ready (audience?) recording that it could almost be anybody; half the time, all you really hear is lots of cymbals. As for the bass, it's not until around the 6.00 mark, when B's solo finishes and the piano solo begins, that you actually get to hear all of what the bassist is playing. The easy confidence and assuredness at this accelerated tempo could well indicate Holland; but then, it could be a number of other players too, and whoever Braxton hired for a gig was not exactly going to be a slouch. I wasn't about to drive myself mad with this... and as undesirable as it is in principle to write about music one has only heard while doing something else (even if that wasn't something which required much brain power), this ropey half-baked excuse for a bootleg simply didn't seem to merit a really close and focused listen, even if I had the time for that at present (which I don't, really). The "album" was obviously slung together very cheaply, using a recording of dubious provenance and questionable quality, with little or no attempt to verify any of the information (or even to present it consistently: after all, if the listed personnel are correct, it definitely wasn't recorded in 1979... which is kinda where we came in). We don't know if this was the whole concert (well, it wasn't - there are fadeouts as already stated above), or that the order in which the pieces are presented on the CD is the same order in which they were played on the date - only that Comp. 40f definitely followed Comp. 23e. As for the feeble cop-out of a "track listing", we can safely assume that no attempt whatsoever was going to be made to identify the material correctly - easy though that turned out to be - since the people who released this weren't about to approach anyone remotely close to B., as they would hardly have wished to advertise the fact that they were putting this out without his knowledge or permission.

I'd say it is Lewis on trombone; but then realistically, who else would it be? - and I couldn't begin to identify the piano player, I'm more or less hopeless at that sort of thing; but as previously noted, Abrams is a pretty safe bet for anything recorded around this time. [I did previously float the possibility that if this is 1976, it might just as well be Anthony Davis; but there is a big practical difference between getting someone to sit in for a performance in NYC when they are there anyway, along with just about everyone else, and dragging the same person all the way out to Minneapolis. Then again, whoever it was, they weren't some random local hire: this will be someone who has played B's music before, and has therefore had to travel to the gig along with the rest of the group.]

What I will say, though, is that 1976 is almost certainly the correct year. And that's simply because of the material: even before I had heard a note of this recording, I reckoned that if the tracklist had been correctly identified by senorton (which it had), he was wrong about the year being 1979. There is no way (he says, with foolhardy assertiveness) that Comps. 23d and 23e are together on a set-list once Holland and Altschul have left the band; so, no later than 1976. Earlier, even? No, because there is no mention anywhere (to my knowledge) of Lewis being in the band before 1976; and although Comp. 40f sort of sounds as if it might have been written with Kenny Wheeler in mind (as I have noted before, years ago), I am not aware of any recording of this piece featuring Wheeler, nor any set-list prior to 1976 which includes it; it does appear to have made its debut at the same time as Lewis joined the band. So: no earlier than 1976, because of the closing number; no later, because of the other Braxton originals. Actually, now that I come to think of it: given that Comp. 23e is among other things a feature for Holland's impressive arco technique, that inclusion alone is basically enough for us to be able to say this is him. The drummer may or may not be Altschul; other drummers were available, to coin a phrase... and the line-up of the quartet was not, after all, immutable. But yeah, I'll say 1976 for sure. I think we can trust the painter's memory on this one ;-)

[O...kay. All that faffing around, just for the same conclusions I'd reached before I even listened to the recording? - and a post which is probably unreadable?! But fuck it, that's just how I roll sometimes...]

For the numerous reasons outlined already, I would absolutely not buy this CD new - and the fact that some retailers appear to be charging a "normal album" price for it is disgraceful. But I may buy it second-hand one of these days: it can be picked up cheaply like that, and the bootleg operation that put it out won't profit from such a transaction. I didn't go into any of this because (ironically) it wasn't strictly relevant... but some of the playing here, especially from the leader, is terrific; hell, it's a Braxton performance, how bad is it really likely to be? It's definitely non-essential, but I can probably be persuaded that it's worth having.

* This is a lazy assumption, relying on memory - and ignoring the fact that I have the composition notes downstairs. This is not yet the time to get those out, though. If I can sustain this and really get going again, they will be consulted regularly...

** When I first got into jazz, more than twenty years ago, none of my friends at the time really listened to it, so I relied on my own research. I read a number of books on jazz history in the first year I was collecting the music and trying to learn how to listen to it; at least one of those is bound to have included the story of how Bird first made his big breakthrough after woodshedding the fuck out of "Cherokee". In fact the more I think that one over, the more it starts to come back to me. I had just forgotten all about it.

*** As I have mentioned before, "Cherokee" was published in 1938; Parker was 18 at the time. Depending on whose word you take for it, he was 21 or 22 (or 23 - except he wasn't 23, because as noted above, that trio recording was clearly not recorded in the middle of a recording ban) when he first recorded a noteworthy version of the tune. The fact that his playing it to death ultimately (was one of the things which) led to a sea-change in jazz does not, in fact, retroactively confer upon him the status of co-writer. [Actually, Noble originally composed the song as the first of five movements in his (cough) "Indian Suite" - it's just that this is the only one which has "stuck". (Contemporary awareness of/ sensitivity towards cultural appropriation suggests that the overall suite is not likely to get revived any time soon.)]