Thumbscrew pt 1: background and context

 

Thumbscrew, The Anthony Braxton Project (Cuneiform, 2020)

Not for the first time, I've had to approach an album sideways, so to speak - or perhaps it would be better to say I've had to take an unusually long run-up at it... anyway, let's hope it doesn't turn out to be another one of those false starts (ahem). 

There are several different reasons why I have found this a difficult album to write about - or, more accurately, a difficult album to think about (since I haven't precisely tried and failed to write about it... I just haven't got round to it until now). Some of these reasons overlap a bit. Some of them I have touched on before. All of them will be laid out and examined here:

1. Insofar as I ever gained any reputation at all, I'm sure it would be fair to say that I gained one back in the day as a pedantic and difficult bastard who had to have every detail just perfect (and who got decidedly short-tempered and impatient, at times even downright unpleasant, with anybody who I perceived to have fallen short in this regard). This in turn can't have been especially helpful to the original cause of the blog: spreading the word about B's music and (ha!) providing a place for people to talk about it. Obviously that's long (loooong) gone, but still, I have it in mind when approaching things like this album, the release of which "should", it seems, have been greeted with joy. Just having such things in existence is basically a blessing, after all. To have such a project undertaken/overseen by an experienced former Braxton student/collaborator such as Mary Halvorson is more or less the kind of thing which might appear on an imaginary wish-list. So to have such an album in the hand - as I first did back in January 2021 - and have such mixed feelings about it as I did... that is, as they say, kind of a bummer. It left me feeling really quite conflicted, and I hated having to feel that way, being all too aware of what a rare treat the album's release - the project's being brought to fruition, if not necessarily the actual finished product - was in the first place. Hence, any time I played the damn thing I tried quite consciously just to switch off my critical faculties and allow myself to enjoy it as a collection of music, played by a very good band. The fact that I was fairly successful in the attempt also, then, helps to explain why I never seemed to get any closer to the point of being able to write about it. 

2. It's annoyingly short. Not so much the running time: I mean, OK, that too actually because in the CD era, although there is absolutely no reason in principle for an album to run any longer than albums used to back in the vinyl/cassette days - forty minutes is fine, generally - there is very much a compelling argument for shoehorning in as much material as the format will tolerate (eighty minutes, as it happens) in a case such as this, where rare items from B's back catalogue are being given an outing, in many cases for the first time ever. (For more on this last point see 3., below...)

- The album clocks in at well under fifty minutes, and comprises eleven tracks - but only nine different compositions. (Three different versions of Comp. 14 are included, each a solo interpretation by one member of the band.) However, as stated above, my main gripe here is not so much even with the overall running time - or with the glaring fact that they could have utilised and included more material, under the circumstances - but rather with the brevity of the readings themselves. Two of the eleven tracks run between seven and eight minutes; one further track lasts just over six minutes. The remaining eight pieces are all under four and a half minutes. Indeed, six of them last less than four minutes, and four of them last less than three minutes - in creative music terms, over when they have barely begun*. (The truism that is the "three minute pop song" most definitely has no currency in this context - as if that needed to be pointed out.) It is just impossible for me to suppose that the band finished working on this with the collective sense of having done the best they could do. There HAS to have been some inevitable sense of artistic compromise,  whether this was in the preparation, the researching/acquisition of scores, the recording itself - who knows - but it is just not possible to conclude that this project turned out exactly the way the musicians had hoped, or anywhere near it, really. The text on the CD tray makes a point of saying that the music was "developed, recorded and premiered during an artist residency at City of Asylum in Pittsburgh" - before explaining what the latter consists in. One is rather given the impression from this that favourable conditions prevailed throughout. The recordings were done over four (consecutive) days in the studio. So, what happened? Why was a tribute to this famously detail-rich composer brought off in such a brief and inchoate fashion? 

Just to hammer (or screw) the point home: compare the tracklists for Thumbscrew's other albums. I mean, the ones which feature the band members' own compositions. You won't find a lot of pieces under five minutes on those. Seriously, what the actual fuck?!

3. I can't remember where exactly I read it now, and nowhere does it say this on the actual album, but I swear the whole point of this project was to bring to light pieces from B's vast canon which had not yet been recorded. OK, so quite clearly that wasn't exclusively the case: the album kicks off with Comp. 52, which most definitely has been recorded before, and several times (by various players). Nevertheless, a lot of these opus numbers are ones which the even most diligent friendly experiencer - with access to the full online discography (before it was taken down, or in a genie-granted parallel universe where it never was) - would seek in vain amongst the recorded catalogue. Looking through the tracklist before I played the CD for the first time, I saw practically nothing which looked familiar.

- Imagine my surprise, then, at hearing something entirely familiar, assigned an entirely unfamiliar opus number. Track 7 purports to be Comp. 61; which is 'passing strange, to be sure, because the (many) previous times I had heard this piece it was known as Comp. 29a**. I recognised it instantly because it was something of a favourite of mine, in the early days of this blog; I even wrote (rather briefly) about the album on which it appears. It's not a hugely well-known album - and I daresay some of those who have heard it still wouldn't recognise the piece from this version, which has completely different voicings (B. originally laid it down as a duet for contrabass clarinet and Mario Pavone's (string) bass); it just happens to have been something I listened to a lot and thus know very well. OK, so... now what?! which is it to be? I know B. is regarded in some quarters as an "eccentric professor" type (and has arguably even played up to this image himself), but not even he can have written the same piece twice.

The band must have had access to a decent variety of scores for this project, but the (very brief) notes don't go into any detail about this at all. Yes, City of Asylum provided the time, among other things, but it seems unlikely that a full range of Braxton scores happens to be permanently available in Pittsburgh, a city which (as far as I know) bears no direct connection to B. at all. No, these had to have been sourced via TCF, in which capacity one presumes Carl Testa helped out: he is thanked along with the TCF and this would not otherwise have been necessary. (Halvorson and Testa played together many times and must know each other pretty well.) Of course, I am in no position to comment on how professional the archiving is or isn't at TCF; we know that B. used to have a lot of trouble with record labels messing up the graphic titles on track lists, that sort of thing, and the maestro himself may sometimes have allowed things to get a little confused after the fact, or so he has suggested in the past to this writer at least***. Nevertheless, one rather presumes that he has arrived at the point some time ago where he can get other people to take care of that kind of thing for him, allowing him to get on with the more crucial stuff like playing and composing new material (always, always pressing deeper into new mines). I've seen - we've all seen - title pages of scores with the opus numbers written at the top. What happened here, to allow two unrelated pieces to become conflated like this? Whatever this is, it's not a case of a simple typo: the graphic title assigned to track 7 here is completely different from the one included on the album with Mario Pavone. The band this time genuinely believed that they were reading and playing Comp. 61, even while B. himself had already recorded it under a completely different premise. (If the band were aware of the earlier attribution and wanted to release the piece under its correct title and opus number, to make a point, then surely there would be a note to that effect on the CD. The absence of any such note suggests very strongly that they are unaware of the problem.)

Mary H. has extensive experience with B's music, obviously. Michael Formanek, to the best of my knowledge, has no direct experience with it at all; Tomas Fujiwara is a bit of an in-between case, having what you might call extensive indirect experience (by osmosis, as it were, via his long-standing musical partnership with THB, and various more recent connections#), and some direct experience, albeit in a very specific context##. Obviously, I don't know if any of them have heard the duo album with Mario Pavone###. Also obviously, it doesn't matter how much I ramble or rant about this here, we're not going to figure out how/when/where the mistake got made just by speculating about it. What I will do between now and "pt 2" is look at the composition notes for Comps. 29 and 61, just to see if that clarifies things at all. But the point is, the irritation I felt about this is not limited to not knowing the correct opus number for this one piece. Rather, it's the implication raised by such an anomaly coming to light in a project of this nature: that we can't actually be sure of any of the titles given for the previously-unrecorded pieces (i.e. most of them). In theory, one should not need to worry about this kind of thing at all: the band were doing this with B's blessing for sure, and presumably with his knowledge as well, and one would think they would have had full access to officially certified, accurate scores in making their selections of what material to perform. In practice, that's all up in the air now. In theory, there is considerable value for the Braxton community (for want of a better term) in having this type of project undertaken: I don't mean just an album full of his pieces generally, although there are few enough of those in existence (as recently discussed) and that alone gives this some weight, makes it desirable; I mean specifically an album of premieres, pieces which have never previously been officially recorded (in some cases, perhaps not even publicly performed). In practice... well even I would stop well short of declaring this to be of no value; that would be absurd, ridiculous. But unfortunately to have it in this form, with these doubts hanging over it, lends an ambivalence to its reception that I really wish I didn't have.

OK, breathe... that's most if not all of the venting out of the way...

4. ... and what remains has nothing really to do with the recording, as such, but more to do with my own essential (unavoidable) shortcomings as an analyst. This has been nagging away at me for years, on and off; a long time ago now, I wrote about my own (lack of) musical education, explaining why I come to have such knowledge as I have, while also making it clear why it doesn't go any further... more recently I have found myself banging my head against my own ceiling, so to speak, in trying to delve into the innermost workings of music which normally presupposes a pretty fair degree of formal training without, in my case, actually having any.

I didn't really think (much) about this aspect of the problem when I first mooted the idea of writing about this album. (It was there in the background, for sure; but given that I knew I was going to do this writing "at some point", rather than imminently, in the background it remained.) It really came sharply into focus when I made the first steps towards a comparison between two different versions of B's Comp. 305, as discussed briefly here; I have also been watching some of Chanan Hanspal's video analyses of Frank Zappa recently, and it's not been at all lost on me that he is able to use detailed analysis of the actual scores to unlock layers of the music which have in many cases remained pretty obscure to me until now (I have been listening to Zappa a lot longer than I have been listening to Braxton, and I wouldn't even pretend to understand some of the more advanced pieces). I never learned to read music, and even if I did, I doubt it would be of much use to me in analysing work of this degree of complexity. Plus I don't even have access to the scores... so why am I even bothering? One acquaintance did more or less ask me this way back in the early Braxtothon days... but back then, the answer seemed obvious enough because even without formal training, or being able to use transcriptions in my write-ups, I was assured by a number of people that I had helped them hear B's music a lot more clearly than before. However it worked, for a while back there I really felt as if I'd been somehow "looking over the composer's shoulder". (B. himself was kind enough to confirm a little later that I wasn't simply imagining this.) That didn't last forever though; and while it lasted it was greatly aided, undeniably, by the use of cannabis while listening. I haven't smoked in well over five years now - and although my appreciation of music definitely continues to grow, not diminish, with time and age and experience, there is no doubt that I did for a while have access to a dimension in it which is now closed to me. (Don't ask me how any of this works - it just does. Or doesn't, as the case may be...) Without it, is there really any point in my trying at all?

So that's yet another thing which presents difficulties in writing about this album - and indeed other recordings, but this is the article I've been promising to write. Hence, this acute awareness of my own ignorance now appears to block the road for me, just as I'm trying to move forwards.

***

That's it: that's all of it, I think. I needed to get points 1-3 off my chest before I could even think about tackling this, because until I'd got all this properly laid out and acknowledged, I didn't feel able to listen to the music with any sort of critical ear at all. 

How much the problem outlined in point 4 will prevent me from doing that anyway is, of course, something which remains to be seen...

* What seems really galling about this is that the graphic titles for two of the pieces - listed on the CD as being Comps. 274 & 150 (although I can't, alas, take that for granted - see point 3. above) very much suggest that these are longish compositions. Comp. 274 must presumably be GTM, although I don't recognise the graphic at all (and maybe this is one of those pieces which has not previously been recorded); Comp. 150, too, has the type of graphic which B. usually reserves for the sort of pieces which take up an entire CD in the reading. The latter is disposed of in less than three minutes, and even though the former is one of the longer pieces here, that's only a relative thing: it's still only just over six minutes. I have pondered before why B's own GTM performances tend to last so much longer than the same pieces when interpreted by other musicians; this album really takes that principle to an extreme.

** The original Music & Arts CD lists it simply as Comp. 29, a mistake corrected by Jason Guthartz in his much-missed online discography.

*** Shortly before B. contacted me for the first time, I had wondered aloud whether recreational substances might not have interfered with the matching up of the pieces on For Alto with their intended dedicatees (leading to the much-repeated, nonsensical dedication to John Cage of the piece intended for Cecil Taylor, for example). He didn't exactly confirm it, but he certainly didn't try very hard to deny it...

# I'm thinking specifically of The Thirteenth Assembly, a grouping of THB + Fujiwara with another long-standing musical partnership, Mary Halvorson + Jessica Pavone. The group Illegal Crowns (with Benoît Delbecq) is another example. 

## Tomas F. may well have worked with B. in another context around that time; there was a lot of stuff being released by NBH back then, much of it on a digital-only basis, and I only heard a fraction of it. I was at least aware of some releases which I didn't actually hear - including the four-CD set in a trio with Tom Rainey, as referenced in the post. I don't delude myself that I didn't miss some things altogether.

### It's a curious coincidence if they haven't: the Pavone duo set concludes with a cover of "Stablemates" by Benny Golson, and the exact same standard kicks off the Thumbscrew album Theirs, an album of cover versions which the band released (in conjunction with an album of new music, naturally entitled Ours) in 2018, two years before their Braxton album. This could, of course, be precisely a curious coincidence: Golson is not exactly underrepresented in the world of jazz standards, and many musicians have covered tunes of his. It's just another twist... (Yet a further one is abstruse enough that I didn't even allude to it in the main post: it's tempting to assume that Mario Pavone was related in some way to Jessica Pavone, although I have not been able to confirm that. Even if he was, that doesn't of course mean that Mary H. would necessarily have heard everything he recorded, just because she was a close friend of his daughter/niece/etc. Coincidences are everywhere.)

From my lips...

Nothing new about this, as such: I missed an Anthony Braxton live concert, thanks to being too far removed from current goings-on to know that it was even taking place. That's right! Having talked recently about missing the ZIM septet (to say nothing of the "standards quartet" with Alex Hawkins), I managed to miss yet another performance just over a week ago - so, since I resumed blogging. You couldn't make this up. But yep, while I was taking far too long over a post about the '84 band, B. himself was in London, playing with his New Acoustic Quartet under the auspices of the London Jazz Festival (and on a double-bill with Henry Threadgill, what's more). It would be quite easy to give up hope altogether, upon realising that: it's as if I have slipped into some awful parallel universe where everything goes wrong, all chances are squandered, all effort thwarted - and every so often the universe just makes a point of rubbing my nose in it. 

And yet...

... although I did not know it at the time, I was somehow synchronised with the maestro, intensely focused on his music while he was onstage. There is still a connection. 

Now, the parallel-universe-where-everything-went-south idea is far from limited to my trivial meanderings (and underachievements). Braxton has always worked from a starting point, not of (merely) creating music, but of striving to make the world a better place. His musical strategies are extensions of his philosophy, and the energetic matrices which support the soundscapes his groups create are consciously designed to foster positive vibrations, enhancing human experience. Music to save the world... but wait, look at it. The world seems to be poised, a fraction of an inch away from irremediable ruin. B's music, in turn, actually does enrich the lives of a small number of people who allow it to touch them; but they form a vanishingly minuscule drop in an ocean of indifference. Even that would not necessarily matter: the hermit who lives in a cave on the far side of a mountain may yet hold in his or her hands secret levers which invisibly move distant engines; power does not need to be seen in order to make itself felt. But where, then, is this influence felt? More than ever before, it seems, the world's dwindling resources are controlled by a tiny minority of plutocrats who cannot see past the immediate expediency of the next moment. The planet might yet survive, but, surely, only by purging itself of the race which has failed so egregiously in its stewardship thereof.

And yet...

... I still breathe, and where I breathe there is life, and with life, hope. I could allow my inner gaze to focus exclusively on the damage inflicted, the gathering dark; but the massing of the dark only concentrates the light and makes it burn brighter. I choose instead to train my gaze on that which I can encompass and control: this present moment, in my own consciousness. I locate the seed of hope and nurture it.

Others may yet do the same. And they must choose whatever focus helps them in nurturing that seed; for myself, I am fortunate to have a number of such things. Among these blessings, none is greater than this man's music, and the knowledge of the fierce joy it brings to those who play it. I contact this joy when I listen... and thus is the downward spiral reversed. 

22-11-2022 

If you only watch one video...

 ... that is to say, if you only watch one Braxton-related video clip, located on Youtube, recommended by this monomaniac blog, this year - make sure it's this one. 

Yes, I did promise to write about Thumbscrew next (and I will), but all these great pieces of video footage keep showing up on Youtube - I'm not even looking for them - and almost immediately after I posted the "duo stuff" thing last night, I came across something which may be somewhat famous * for all I know, but which I have never seen before: a nearly-fifteen-minute excerpt from a filmed concert in (purportedly) Antwerp in August 1985**, a trio with George Lewis and Mark Dresser. If that sounds as if it could be incredible (and will therefore turn out not to be), well, it actually is. 

B. and Lewis have "form" when it comes to this sort of thing: I still remember babbling hysterically about the '82 Pisa trio with Derek Bailey when I first encountered it; once I'd calmed down a bit I posted about the same concert in these very pages... (a little later down the line the same concert - in expanded form, I think - ended up being published on TCF as an official "Braxton Bootleg"). So this is not the only chance to hear the two hornmen in a trio improv setting - although of course it's still great to be able to see them as well. But to be able to watch them interact with Dresser, himself very much still learning how to get to grips with being B's regular bassist at this point: that's just invaluable and man, the clip doesn't disappoint in the slightest. There is an absolutely astonishing bass solo towards the end of the clip in which MD sounds at times as if he is two or even three musicians playing simultaneously - it's great to see Lewis still moving to the pulse of the music throughout, despite having laid out at this point. This is obviously the kind of little "cherry on top" which you can never get from an audio recording. (B. himself, mind you, appears to be locked away in his own expansive world even while Lewis is grooving.)

The fact that the performance was professionally filmed would tend to suggest that there must be more of this footage, and in due course I shall have a hunt for it. In the meantime, for all I know everyone else - anyone who might even accidentally find themselves reading these lines - may well already be familiar with this excerpt, but if you're not - do yourself a huge favour and check it out at once!

***

Further confusion surrounds the "ringer" clip from the Braxton/Frith duo recording (as previously described in the fifth para of yesterday's post). I already warned that Soundohm's samples for that release include a clip from something completely different; when I'd finished writing - just before I was gifted the trio video raved about above - I discovered that the Youtube index for the fifth piece on the album is actually this same "intruder clip", lasting just over three minutes. Quite clearly it has nothing to do with the duo concert: even though the core recording sounds as it might involve live playing over a tape or similar (which is what led me to think it might possibly be an Echo Echo Mirror House excerpt), there is a live drummer on this and a live trumpeter (not THB) too. What's more, a quick check of the timings for the official release reveals that the last section of the music is just over eight minutes long. God knows what happened here, or which website originated the mistake (and how the hell nobody noticed that what they were posting as a duo recording couldn't possibly be anything of the sort) - but just be aware. I have not been able to find the fifth segment of the duo concert on Youtube yet, although the first four chunks are all there. It's not the first time I've had to explain some anomaly with a recording posted on that channel, is it? Dear oh dear. Never mind, four out of five is still decidedly better than nothing at all...

* Calling a creative music event "famous" is a bit like calling a politician honest - not a literal contradiction in terms, but not far off...

** The clip itself, which for once has actually got plenty of views - more than thirteen thousand in nine years - has no information with it, not even the personnel, so that this sort of thing had to get sorted out in the comments section (as is so often the case). Viewer Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg provided the missing details, though not the exact date. I wonder if I have this recording in my collection of tapes..?

Some duo stuff (... and other stuff)

 

Even though I'm trying to write about (some) matters in more detail, not every post has to be like that... right? So this one is really just a pointer to some things that are out there...

Back at the beginning of September, on the verge of moving house, I first mentioned on here my having listened to the new release Duet (Other Minds) 2021, with James Fei. I had just listened to the music online; the actual CD was not technically even released yet (although I think it was out the following day). [At time of writing, and to the best of my knowledge, this is actually the only new release under Braxton's name this year. Times are hard.]

In that same post I linked to another site, Soundohm, because in its listing for the CD it gives more detail than I could find anywhere else: specifically, it provided a name for the new musical model employed by B. for this piece, Composition 429. The new system is called Lorraine (apparently). As it turns out, all this same info is available on the Other Minds webstore page linked above: everything on the Soundohm page, including the false identification* of the electronics as "Diamond Curtain Wall", was taken directly from Other Minds. (Whether that wasn't the case on 1st September, or I just somehow missed it, cannot now be established with any certainty. Ahem.) And don't bother trying to order the CD from Soundohm either because it shows as sold out. However, they do list various other Braxton goodies on there. The Bologna Duo with Jacqui Kerrod is available, and they are also still listing copies of the 1995 album Two Lines with David Rosenboom; what's more, they list as available a CD which commands rather higher prices elsewhere, the Victoriaville duo concert with Fred Frith. As it happens I don't (yet) have any of these recordings in my collection, but the one with Frith caught my eye in particular as it's one I have always especially wanted to get.

Frith is a player far better known to many others than he is to me: in truth I only came to know of him in the first place via John Zorn, who cast the British guitarist as a bass guitarist in his group Naked City. Much later I discovered that Frith had a long career already behind him playing experimental rock and that kind of thing; but (more than) thirty years after I first heard Torture Garden, I still basically only know FF in connection with Zorn, really**. Nevertheless he has always impressed me any time I've heard him. On the face of it, he didn't seem a natural playing partner for B. - but then since when did that ever stop anybody, in the predictably-unpredictable world of free improv..? (Nobody expected B. to play with Wolf Eyes, either, but that same Victoriaville Festival in 2005 saw precisely that meeting.) Somehow, though, this recording never fell into my lap and it was only very recently that I heard any of it. 

The Soundohm page includes some samples, although caveat auditor: four of these appear to be provided, but the fourth has nothing to do with this release (if it is a Braxton recording at all - which it might be - it must presumably be an excerpt from the EEMHM album, yet another Victoriaville release - albeit this time not from their festival as such). Rather jarringly, even if one plays clip 1 it will then segue without warning into clip 4, bypassing 2 and 3 completely (these are from the duo meeting with Frith). Still, between those first three clips it is possible to get a pretty fair idea of how strong this meeting must have been. There's nothing essentially new or surprising on there, that I heard; B. does what B. does, in various moods, and Frith supplies expert and intriguing backing. (At least some of the pieces are available in full on Youtube; I can't work this out because the first and second tracks, for sure, are posted via the AB channel I've mentioned before (virtually passim in September's posts); but the reason I hadn't noticed that before is that if you go to the actual channel page, these pieces don't show there..? not gonna mess my head up too much trying to get to the bottom of that one.) Actually, I am listening to these full pieces right now and they sound fucking amazing. The sheer multiplicity of Frith's approaches to guitar playing seems to bring out a particularly inspired performance from B., or possibly B's renowned virtuosity brings out the best in FF, or... more likely, both of them have reputations which rather precede them and they both made certain to bring their "A game" to the stage. (Not that B. ever really brings anything less... maybe we should think in his case more in terms of his "A game" and his "A+ game", I dunno...)

I do have to get this recording, sooner rather than later. If I end up buying it from Soundohm, I will report back on how that goes***. [They do also have some other stuff showing as still in stock, although they also list plenty of stuff which is out of stock, rather unhelpfully; the sextet from Victoriaville '05 is available at time of writing, as is yet another Victoriaville event, the solo concert from 2017. They also seem to have copies still of the 4CD-set Old Dogs with Gerry Hemingway. (Honestly, trying to keep up with all this stuff is practically a full-time job... )]

***

More duos: I recently came across a listing on Youtube for a reading of B's Comp. 305 by Payton MacDonald and Gideon Forbes. Neither name was familiar to me, but MacDonald is evidently a percussionist and Forbes a reedman, although it's posted on the former's channel (which sort of makes it look as if it was his idea, etc). I had to hunt first of all for where - if anywhere - I had come across that particular opus number before; and eventually I located it, on the album which B. cut with his heir apparent in 2002. I don't own a hard copy of that one, but I do have the mp3 files, so I dug out the original (?) version of Comp. 305 - which presumably, then, is specifically a duet on the score - and earmarked it for listening, the idea being that I would attempt to make some sort of comparison between the two renditions. This, however, proved beyond me for the time being; which is to say, I could probably do it, but the result very probably wouldn't be worth reading. The version with THB is dense, absolutely beautiful (of course), but covers a lot of ground - and there is some collaging, as Comp. 44 is worked in there at some point, as well as some "language improvisation"; the recent interpretation - which has been up for about a year or so and has rather fewer than 150 views, at time of writing - looks to be a faithful reading of Comp. 305 only, straight from the score... although even that is somewhat perplexing, as I couldn't help noticing that when MacDonald turns the page on his music, Forbes doesn't; very possibly, the written score for this piece has different materials for the two players - ? The vibraphonist turns the page as early as forty-four seconds into the piece, and at around 8.30, he turns it again, but appears to go back to the page he was on originally. Forbes, as far as I could see, doesn't turn any pages at all although he does seem to have a wider set of pages on his music stand to begin with, so maybe he just has all his sheets laid out at once... who knows. Playing soprano sax here, Forbes appears to follow the score very closely - although it's quite hard to work out how he can possibly have more than ten minutes' worth of notated music in front of him at one time. What do I know? Both of them play gorgeously on this, I can say that much; Forbes in particular - given that he has the unenviable task of replicating the maestro's part on soprano - really gives a great performance, and overall both of them fully commit to the music. It definitely deserves more attention than it's been getting, but (again) such is the lot of the serious artist, in our world of reality TV and shallow celebrity culture - and for that matter, such is specifically the lonely lot of the Braxton interpreter, since MacDonald's Youtube channel has rather more than three times as many subscribers as this particular video has views... 

... it definitely needs some love, and I haven't completely abandoned the idea of trying to do a comparison piece; that's just more ambitious than I thought, at first. Something for the future, then... in the meantime, I am going to stop teasing McClintic Sphere and write about Thumbscrew, at long last..!

* DCW, just to clarify this point, is a musical model unique to B. It entails small-group playing over interactive electronic backing, the software for which was called SuperCollider (if I remember correctly). The write-up for Comp. 429 online wrongly assumes that Diamond Curtain Wall was the actual software itself and hence further assumes that the electronic backing for the recent performance uses the same application. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't... but either way the resulting music is not DCW.

** Frith duetted with JZ for one of the latter's 50th birthday concerts - one of the ten or twelve (? can't remember offhand) which were deemed good enough for official release. He also played in the quartet with JZ, Bill Laswell and Dave Lombardo which is retroactively known to collectors as Bladerunner - although as far as I know the band was never billed as such. It certainly wasn't when I saw them, at the Barbican in London more than twenty years ago now. (It was a memorable concert for various reasons, but I do remember being fascinated by the range of sounds conjured up by FF.)

*** We all know how my last foray into the world of online-shopping-from-untried-sources went. Soundohm gives the impression of being quite well established at this sort of thing, and tempts the potential buyer with the idea of becoming a member and getting free shipping; what that actually means, though, is paying 60 euros a year for membership - and shipping is only free if you're buying at least 140 euros' worth of stuff. OK, shan't be doing that, then... but I may well end up ordering something from them, so wish me luck..!

The not-quite-there quartet

 

I had been thinking quite a bit recently about the Prague '84 quartet concert, intending to dig it out and play it - I don't own a proper "hard copy" of this CD, but I do have a CD-r that a friend burned for me, back in the days when I was actively collecting as much of B's stuff as I could get my hands on* - but hadn't yet got round to that when, lo and behold, an obliging Youtuber stuck it up online. 

Before I get to the specifics of this actual concert, then, we have to get the "frame story" out of the way...

These days, where B's name is known at all, it is probably fair to say that it's associated quite strongly with GTM in particular, and with some of the other later developments in his music/thought system; so that we may already have passed the time when jazzheads would talk of his "great quartet" as if that marked the pinnacle of his music (... and all downhill from there; mind you, some older jazzheads - not so many of those guys left these days - would try to tell you that nothing B. recorded after the 70s is really worth hearing... all that means of course is that they stopped paying attention at that point). Nonetheless, the mid-80s band retains a definite cachet among the better-informed creative music listeners out there, and when we look back from where we are now, it's very easy to see that the quartet with Crispell, Dresser and Hemingway was a band in which B. invested a great deal of time and effort - and one which rewarded him with special performances, resulting in a number of very special recordings. There's even a book about them! Graham Lock's justly-celebrated Forces in Motion details the band's 1985 UK tour, just in case anyone is not already aware of that marvellous book; for obvious reasons, that line-up is sometimes known as the Forces in Motion Quartet. - Hence, the appearance in the discography of this "prequel" line-up, with Crispell and Hemingway already in place but John Lindberg still holding down the bass chair, inevitably has the feel of a band on the verge of becoming a classic group, but not quite there yet. Wouldn't it have been nice and neat if that line-up had been convened all at once, out of nowhere, as it were? But of course life seldom works out like that... and in this case, the band came together gradually, with all the lines blurred as B. continued to develop his musical strategies and (in particular) to redefine the possibilities of what his core working group, his creative ensemble, could do.

Back in 1979, the working group - the creative ensemble, for which the extended composition books were written** - comprised Ray Anderson, Lindberg and Thurman Barker. It seems likely that B. would have known Barker (who is only a few years younger) for a while, but in any case, the first appearance I can find for any of these three players in the discography was, as it happens, the same one for all three of them: the 1978 expanded-and-enhanced Creative Orchestra (Köln) 1978 - largely an all-star affair, which the more famous 1976 version hadn't been, really - features Anderson as one of three trombonists, Lindberg as one of two bassists and (of course) Barker on drums and percussion. This album was recorded on May 12th; B. played again with Barker - and six other percussionists*** - on Roscoe Mitchell's "The Maze", recorded on July 27th (and subsequently released as one of four side-long pieces on a Mitchell album for Nessa), but there is a notable quartet-shaped hole in the Braxton discography for 1978, although I'm absolutely sure that I remember reading somewhere# that Lindberg was already in the band at that point. In order to find the next instalments of this continuing story - the continuous development of B's small groups, as well as his writing for same - we have to skip forward to 1979, as I say: specifically, to September 1st at the Willisau J.F., and to a typically superb performance captured for release a couple of years later (and subsequent reissue a trio of times after that). The (fairly) well-known studio album by the same quartet - Seven Compositions 1978 - was actually recorded in November 1979 and released in 1980; the Moers people have a bit of a habit of being less than scrupulous with their dates. (This album, like others on Moers Music, has never been reissued on CD.)

The next small-group recording we have under B's name dates from early in the new decade## - a concert in Bologna, April 20th 1980, released (much) later as Composition No. 94 For Three Instrumentalists (1980) - sees the maestro accompanied by Anderson, yes, but with no conventional rhythm section at all; rather, the third player is guitarist James Emery - this being the sort of trio instrumentation not really seen since the days of Jimmy Giuffre. [The relevance of this to the matter in hand is to demonstrate how B's approach to the creative ensemble books only ever constitutes one aspect of the music(s) with which he is actively involved at any given time.] Once again, whatever configuration the regular, working group had in 1980 is not recorded by way of the official discography; and things don't necessarily get much clearer in 1981, but in January of that year, we do see the first appearance of Marilyn Crispell. Again, this is not a working group, but a one-off line-up for a specific piece of music: Composition 98. Anderson is once again included, and B. "borrowed" Hugh Ragin from Mitchell; as excellent a success as this endeavour was, over the next year or so we get no suggestion that Crispell will be continuing to work with B's groups. Indeed the next drink from the creative-ensemble well (recorded over two days in October '81, released '82) sees a completely different line-up again: Mark Helias had actually been a member of B's group before, in 1977; but that's really a red herring, since at this point B. is basically just using Anthony Davis' rhythm section, including Davis himself. Either there was no working group at this stage, or for whatever reason, B. chose not to take it into the studio for this date; the results are so fabulous that however it came about, we can all be suitably grateful for the way things turned out###. 

OK, so... you get the idea: there is no clear-cut continuity as regards the core quartet during this period. - Or, at least, if there was then that's not - yet - reflected in the official discography: where B. was getting the chance to do recording sessions, he was using these either for special projects, or for one-off line-ups (sometimes both). In 1982, he cuts a duo album with Lindberg; it's tempting to say that this itself implies the latter had a certain degree of familiarity with B's music at this stage, but it doesn't necessarily indicate anything of the sort. Really, we have to wait until the following year again for the definitive evidence of Lindberg's continued involvement: Four Compositions (Quartet) 1983 is clearly the latest instalment of the working group's on-off narrative, Lindberg and George Lewis are both back in place, and we finally now get the first appearance of Gerry Hemingway. Obviously, with this two-horn instrumentation, we are nonetheless some way removed from what will later be considered the "great quartet"... ultimately, regardless of what may have been going on in the undocumented background, as far as the official recorded output is concerned we don't get our first look at the prototype for the "Forces" group until 1984. In September of that year, a quartet with Crispell, Lindberg and Hemingway goes into the studio to lay down some brand-new stuff; the following month, the same group is out on the road in Europe, unveiling (some of) the same material... and that, finally, is where we came in.

In retrospect, we can see 1983-4 as a watershed period. The 1983 quartet with Lewis features one (lengthy) new piece and three from the fourth creative ensemble book, which latter pieces had presumably been kicking around in one form or another for some time; Lewis is a familiar partner-in-crime by this point, whilst Lindberg represents a sort of continuity at least (we know he has been around B's music since 1979 at the latest, even if his presence in the band(s) has been far from constant), and Hemingway is a completely new presence. The instrumentation itself is a throwback to the working group from the mid-seventies, but the approach is rather new and Comp. 105a, at any rate, is a very different type of territory from anything which we would have heard (at least from the quartet) during 1974-6. Significantly, 1983 also marks the point at which B's album covers begin to list both the graphic titles and the opus numbers together. The definitive switch occurs when Lewis - who was probably only ever "moonlighting", rather than (re)joining as such - is replaced by Crispell, whose multi-linear approach to her instrument finally opens up for B. a whole new dimension to the small-group music he is writing at this point, offering a set of possibilities which he didn't have when he was composing with two single-line instruments in mind. Yes, he has worked with pianists before on his small-group music, but always on a "special guest" basis. I don't know when it became clear that Crispell was actually staying put for a while - in 1981 she was almost certainly hired for that one specific gig (which just happened to encompass a studio recording as well as at least one live rendition of the same piece^) - but with her in the band, B. can now start thinking in a subtly different way. How important Hemingway was to this approach may or may not have been immediately obvious. As for Lindberg, at the very least B. must have felt that the bassist's training and experience gave him enough of a thorough grounding to be able to participate in this increasingly-complex new direction he was going to take. The collage phase is not yet fully up and running, but all the elements which contributed to it are already in place, now; or are they..?

So we finally arrive in Prague. The germination of the collage approach is already underway, albeit at this prototypical stage that consists solely in the addition of pulse tracks to a couple of the pieces: these are the same hybrids which were already worked out in the studio, which is to say Comp. 110a (+108b) and Comp 114 (+108a). This is just the leading edge of an experiment which will preoccupy B's compositional mind for the next seven or eight years, even while he is working on other strategies (and doubtless glimpsing yet further ones); but having said that, although the track listings may only show these two tiny additions, Crispell is already taking the music in that direction, her incredible extended solo on the Prague reading of Comp. 105a being so far-out that (certainly as far as the audience of the time is concerned) she might as well have been playing a completely different piece from the rest of the band. Perhaps this had already been discussed between them, and perhaps not; either way, Crispell - who was (of course) formatively influenced by Cecil Taylor - has a natural tendency to play in such a way as to suggest plural, parallel musical ideas unfolding (at least when she really gets going^^); and this makes her the perfect vehicle for what B. goes on to do next. Hemingway, too, sounds so naturally suited to the resulting complex territory that it's impossible to imagine anyone could have provided a better fit. And Lindberg..? Well... actually no, this isn't quite true of him, although I doubt that even the most switched-on listener, or the harshest critic, would have really concluded that at the time.

Coming back to this album as I did - immediately after immersing myself in the ZIM septet - I was struck at first by how simple this music sounds by comparison (not, one suspects, an impression that the 1984 audience had of it). Recognisable compositions, played one after another! and so on. But even then, it took only a few minutes before the impression of simplicity was dispelled: once Crispell is properly warmed up, the music becomes essentially complex (as well as vibrant and exciting - but those qualities are very often found in B's music, of any vintage). The rapturous applause which breaks out at around 18 minutes^^^, when the piano solo finishes, gives some indication of how stunning the effect must have been on those witnessing this. In any case, this post is not the place for a detailed analysis of the music played in the concert: simple-by-comparison-with-later-developments, and complex-in-its-own-right, the music is just pure pleasure to listen to from start to finish. Lindberg, continually busy and creative in his own way, absolutely plays a part in this; still, I am not listening to the music with the ears of one who was present at the time, but with a very different and vastly-more-informed perspective (this is not arrogance, but rather a helpless acknowledgement of how much of B's later music I have already heard before I returned to this recording). I can hear the extent to which Crispell and Hemingway both sound ideally suited to the long-term experiment which is beginning here; and I can't avoid hearing the extent to which Dresser will later complement them, in a way Lindberg cannot. Above all, it's the latter's arco technique, which is idiosyncratic and creative, but lacking in the authority of Holland (and Helias) before him, and has nowhere near the majestic control which Dresser would later bring... I still don't know exactly what happened in Amsterdam, a little later down the line - so that a first set played by a quartet was followed by a second played by a trio, the bass present on the stage while its owner sat at the bar, having been summarily fired in the interval; but with hindsight, it can be seen how essential that was to the eventual development of the music. Dresser, in Europe on a scholarship to study privately with one of the Italian masters, would prove to be a fourth virtuoso to match the other three; Lindberg, for all his undoubted talents, can only suffer by direct comparison.

But... that's still in the future at this point: like I say, taken just as a listening experience on its own merits, this concert offers any friendly experiencer an hour of sophisticated delight. Lindberg plays his part, and the knowledge that he wouldn't be around for much longer need not obscure that. 

***

Kobe Van Cauwenberghe's Ghost Trance Septet album, you'll be pleased to hear, is every bit as brilliant as I hoped it would be...

* ... back in the "golden age of music blogging", i.e. sometime around 2007. Of course, I am actively collecting again now - but official releases only, having quite enough to work with in general, and no present need to solicit copies of anything (much)... in case anyone is wondering, I don't feel guilty about having pirated copies of any of this stuff, nor would B. expect me to.

** Even B. himself has been known to refer to the 6 series, the 23 series etc as "the quartet music", but as I have written before - in these pages, years ago - they weren't written for quartet as such; rather, they represent music for "the creative ensemble", which in this case happened to be (usually) a quartet. Nuance ;-)

*** The piece was for eight percussionists; only two of the ones on the recording - Barker and (Famoudou) Don Moye, were actually percussionists, i.e. in their "day jobs". Mitchell himself, Braxton, Joseph Jarman and Malachi Favors (like Moye, cohorts of Mitchell's from the Art Ensemble of Chicago), Douglas Ewart and Henry Threadgill were the other six.

# Actually I'm pretty sure this was gleaned from one of the books of Composition Notes, but they are not precisely accessible at present (even though I know exactly where they are)...

## Since I allow full licence to my own pedantry in these parts - indeed, I insist upon it - I feel compelled to note that technically the year 1980 was of course the final year of the seventies, not the first year of the eighties. But nobody actually counts that way, do they?

### The Antilles album Six Compositions: Quartet is a personal favourite of mine. It also happens to be the only opportunity, as far as I know, to hear Ed Blackwell playing on a Braxton record.

^ I'm pretty sure there were several live performances of Composition 98, not just the one which appeared on the original double album (... and which has never been reissued on CD). But I can't be arsed to check right now.

^^ When leading her own dates, and playing her own compositions, Marilyn Crispell can be a much more simple, lyrical player (though I daresay that's not always the case). Put her in fast company, playing other people's music, and she transforms into a completely different beast. (Or so it has always seemed to me.)

^^^ Timing is from the Youtube video, rather than the CD (which has separate indexations for the festival announcer's spoken intro and for the uninterrupted set).

Repertoire

Guess what? My CD from Belgium finally arrived   {{{*********}}} - which, in all honesty, is more of a relief than anything else at this point. 

Still, eventually the cellular memory of never knowing if it was going to turn up will wear off... and I shall be free just to enjoy the CD. Right? I'm certain that will prove to be the case... It's a pretty nice item, for sure: a double-CD in a slimline digipak, with the graphic titles for the four primary territories on separate panels, and a 16-page booklet inside. The label has definitely gone to some lengths to make this a desirable purchase (... something which is more or less essential for any label, in these days of readily-available downloads - both legal and otherwise) - so it's a real shame that their customer service is so poor*. I really wish I could recommend buying directly from them, but it hasn't been the greatest or most encouraging experience... and if I hadn't eventually got PayPal involved I doubt I would be holding the actual CD in my hands at all :(

Still, I've got it now and I'm really looking forward to playing it, a little later in the week...

Until fairly recently, as we well know, it was a rarity even to get the odd cover-version here and there when it came to B's voluminous book of wonders; B's old AACM cohort Roscoe Mitchell might toss in the odd tune occasionally, and there were some real obscurities which might be carefully extracted from perusal of online discographies and the like. Was the music just thought too hard, too abstruse? Whatever the rationale for this marginalising of such a significant composer, it was a very rare occasion indeed that the listening public was treated to a whole album of B's music, in the vein of Jump or Die. 

About a decade ago now (jeez, really? wow...) Tzadik gave us something else to get reasonably excited about, although that almost didn't count since the three musicians involved were very much working the music from the inside. It was very nearly the same as B. releasing the album himself... Still, never look a gift horse in the mouth and all that: I had no hesitation in buying that one. (By the time I went through and counted all its teeth there was no question of sending it back again...)

Things are gradually changing, though - people are slowly catching on. Within the last two or three years we got the Thumbscrew album (yes yes I know) and the one by The Locals (admittedly, performed live in 2006... not released until last year). And now there is this guy from Belgium, this young guitarist who made a whole solo guitar album of GTM interpretations, and followed it up with the project that started off this post. Slowly but surely, creative musicians are proving that the world is (just about) ready for this stuff. About fuckin' time.

So, anyway, I've been teasing for well over a year the idea of writing about the Thumbscrew project, and that is one of the next handful of posts I will be writing (honest! it is!!). I also got hold of the Locals CD just last week, which is a much more satisfying listen that I thought it might be - so I shall be writing about that too, in due course. Oh, and then there is this one of course. (I don't seem to be able to stop myself at the moment, so I scored a copy of that Affinity collection** just today - of course I shall have to wait for that one to arrive now, but I don't anticipate any issues with that... not one but two Braxton numbers on that baby, so I daresay I might see my way to posting a bit about that too, eventually.)

What the world needs now... is Braxton, sweet Braxton... it may not quite roll off the tongue, but wouldn't it be great if the idea caught on?

:-D

* Sigh... I gave it a couple of weeks before chasing them, although even then, I had given them a chance to acknowledge my order because I needed to check that I'd paid the right shipping rates. At least, I thought I did: I emailed the only contact address they provided, but didn't get a reply. OK, so I let that go and left it a couple of weeks, like I say; by that point I really wanted to know that my order had at least been received - I wasn't convinced that the CD had even been released, frankly. No answer. Again, a week or so and another email, with a very clear subject heading in both English and French (just in case) saying that I wanted a reply; no answer. Finally I got PayPal on the case and oh, suddenly I heard back within 24 hours: a sort of apology, and a vague supposition that the order had probably been sent, but they would send it again (??) since it clearly hadn't turned up; I did reply to that email too, but funnily enough, no response to that one either. Fine, I have the CD now so I'm happy(ish) - but I shan't be buying from them again. Like I say, that's a real shame because I'm quite sure they could use the business. 

** For some reason I had never got round to hunting down a copy before, and indeed had forgotten all about it until today. I bought their Eric Dolphy tribute CD years and years ago. 

ZIM video

 

Anthony Braxton: ZIM Septet%

mœrs festival

Moers, Germany, 3rd June 2017%

Composition 411%

video here

% Precise details are not quite straightforward for this one: as a cursory glance at the video itself will reveal, the band was - or wasn't -  billed as B's "ZIM sextet", despite the evident presence of seven musicians onstage. This wasn't some sort of obscure Henry Threadgill tribute*; descriptions online differ as to whether the band was a "sextet, plus special guest Ingrid Laubrock" or just, you know, a septet after all. The onscreen titles in what appears to be an official video recording of some sort** - these appear at 3.05 during the main set, and again at 49.28 just before the start of the brief encore - specify the Anthony Braxton ZIM Septet, even though the video itself is credited to the ZIM Sextet on Youtube. It makes fundamentally more sense to consider Laubrock a part of the band, as her association with B's music dated back several years already at this point, and besides, she is listed as a member of the ensemble (nonet) for the four studio recordings made at Firehouse 12 in August 2017 which later made it onto the ZIM Blu-Ray extravaganza.

- The precise date is not given on the video; an internet search confirms that the 2017 mœrs festival took place from 1st-5th June, and a further search furnished a link to an unofficial CD release of the concert*** which gives the date as 2017-06-03. 

- Finally, the opus number for the performance comes only from a comment on the video page, courtesy of one Walter Foerderer; he gives the Composition number and lists the band (as sextet plus guest), albeit with the odd typo or two, and without citing any authority for this otherwise-useful information. [Walter did reply to me via Youtube to say that the video was broadcast on Arte.tv, which is whence he derived the personnel list (and presumably the opus number)... Very switched-on readers may note that Comp. 411 is one of the "ringers" listed on the Youtube channel which I used a lot in September of this year, while I was getting going again; according to the official track listing on the Blu-Ray, Comp. 411 is not included... the full details regarding this little anomaly can be found here.]

I have had this video cued up on a tab in my browser for weeks - it is actually one of several - and eventually got round to watching it last week. Multiple choice question: the experience was a) most enjoyable, b) bewildering and frustrating, c) potentially life-changing (or at least taste-changing) or d) all of the above? And the answer: d), of course. Watching this performance, and (foolishly) trying to enhance my understanding of the music by reference to the printed notes included on the Blu-Ray#, simply served to remind me that for all the time I have spent listening to the maestro's music(s), and all the words I have written about it, my understanding of his thought-system is actually still pretty limited##. This did not, you'll be relieved to hear, prevent me from enjoying the performance. Oh, and it is very much the case that an immersion into this kind of music could completely and permanently alter an open-minded listener's understanding of what "music" is, and might be###. 

The first really noticeable thing about a ZIM group^, then, is the doubled-up harps: these are actually pretty noticeable just in an audio context, but if you are watching one of these performances then you simply can't miss them. One to each side of the stage, they bookend proceedings most impressively. As noted above, the line-up is given by user Walter Foederer: anyone reading this would know of course that THB is on assorted brass, with Ingrid Laubrock on tenor and soprano sax, Tomeka Reid on cello and Dan Peck on tuba; the identity of the two harpists would have been harder to establish, since four of them appear on the Blu-Ray collection, but Jacqui Kerrod is in all the different ensembles, so she is pretty much a dead cert, and the other player (stage left/viewer's right) is Shelley Burgon. [Ms Kerrod was closely-enough involved with B's music to play at least one duo concert with him, in Italy the following year (this was later released as an album).] You know me, I'm always reluctant to take someone else's word for it, so I made sure I did image searches for both players in order to satisfy myself that they are correctly identified above. 

B. counts the band in - sort of - having first signalled to them with four fingers, making sure they have all seen and registered that. Does this refer to a time signature? Certainly not. Basically, nothing so "normal" as melody or time seems to exist in this music, for all that parts of it look to be through-composed; it is bound by a set of logics entirely its own, or at least entirely of B's devising. The detailed - but highly esoteric - liner notes for the Blu-Ray state that "(the ZIM) prototype is in the eleventh position in a twelve step layer cake"; leaving aside the probably-unintended, arguably-unfortunate connotations of the phrase "twelve step", this seems to imply that the ZIM system is the penultimate development of B's Tri-Centric musical universe, and... the second-most complex..? am I going too far with that? Maybe I am. Nevertheless, even listeners who think they have a reasonable handle on, say, Ghost Trance Music at this point may find themselves forced to admit - as I was - that they don't really have much of a clue about this stuff. Luckily, as I've already said, that doesn't stop us listening to it and deriving enjoyment from it. Understanding it really is another matter. The hand signal, by the way, presumably is to do with something else set out in those same explicatory^^ notes: THE INTERNAL MECHANISM OF THE ZIM MUSIC FOCUSES ON A FIVE PART DECISION CONSTRUCT (all caps in the original). If that's the case, then "four" would mean, let's see... ah, here we are: FLIGHT PATH GROUP MEETING BEFORE PERFORMANCE. - Oh. Is that right?  You know what, I'm just going to watch and listen (thought I). Who knows, maybe one day I will be able to get someone to elucidate this stuff for me, but for now... 

When the music actually starts, it feels fast, and it struck me straight away how unusual it was to see harpists playing in such a frenzied manner. (The others, well, we're all more or less used to that sort of thing by now.) But then, within a minute or two, the music settles into a much more restrained mood with prevalent legato phrases. This continual switching - not just from one section to another, but from one mood, one sound-world to another - absolutely seems to be a defining characteristic of the ZIM musics, as far as I can tell; it is certainly something which I kept noticing while watching this, and is something I remember from working my way through the twelve full-length recordings, back in September. Individual segments of the music feel utterly discrete, qualitatively distinct from each other, separated by more than just brief pauses. It has to be exceptionally demanding to play, but now that we can see the band, it is evident also how rewarding it must be: they really all do look as if they are enjoying themselves. - That is, when they are not glued to the score or looking intently at each other for cues, or minute attitudinal shifts which would herald some sort of change. I say "the score", but whenever one of the cameras permits us a decent look at the sheets laid out on a player's music stand, we see at least two different sets of notation: a page or two of written music, and a page of symbols or graphics. This, at least, is not completely new and not unique to the ZIM model: we have all seen similar sets of rubrics before. Different types of attack have long been represented graphically in B's works, although that, too, is a system continuously being developed and elaborated upon. Here, the sheer variety and specificity of different techniques being prescribed for the group is quite dizzying.

Around 7.30 there are some extraordinary "flutters" which are probably largely drawn forth from Reid's cello, with the assistance of B. and THB, but it's quite often surprisingly hard to pinpoint who is responsible for a particular utterance in this maelstrom of innovation. Shortly after this, with the fluttering attacks still present, B finds himself on bass sax, though he limits himself to very sparing and sparse sounds with it, visibly absorbed in the music nonetheless. Again, it's a real delight to be able to see this stuff being performed, whether that is because we can marvel at how intensely the players must focus, how sensitive they must be to each other's cues - or just to lap up little trifles such as THB using a CD as a mute (10.55). 

Even with just seven players onstage, sub-groupings can and do arise, and previous (partial) familiarity with B's approach to leading ensembles suggests that this aspect will itself be both agreed beforehand, and open to change at a moment's notice. At 22 minutes and counting, B. is back on bass sax and properly freaking out with it, this time; Laubrock looks over at THB to check what is expected from her next entries, and as the camera gives us a full view of the stage, we see Bynum taking over conducting duties at this point. A few minutes later, however, he is having a wig-out all of his own. This particular quality of the music is absolutely not specific to this prototype: individual players are both very tightly marshalled in terms of what to play at certain times, yet granted complete licence for personal expression at others. Indeed this, above all, may turn out to be the single quintessential characteristic which links all of B's musics.

At around 27.25, we are presented with what feels temporarily like the start of a new movement, signalled by slow, unison crescendi with pauses between; but this, too, is just a fragment, which in no time at all is replaced by something quite different. At 30.00, we are back in frenzied territory again. The music changes so rapidly, and covers so much ground, that over the course of the performance - less than an hour of clock time - it feels as if we are exposed to about a week's worth of music. If anybody thought this was already the case with GTM or Diamond Curtain Wall, etc (and it was, it is), it applies even more here. 

The most visibly-obvious "clue" in the whole concert comes around 32.50, when, with what already seems to a fully-inhabitable soundscape in effect, THB embarks on a complex series of gestural instructions, pointing first to his head then down to the ground - repeating this to make sure it's been seen and understood - and then holding up five splayed fingers, with the same wide-eyed emphasis employed by B. in holding up four, just prior to the start of the performance. This, then, presumably(ish) relates to... where are we... the following opaque pearl: SEQUENCING OF THE INTERSECTIONAL MATERIALS INTO ONE STRING-LINE TO PROVIDE THAT PARTICULAR INSTANCES CAN BE NOTED. You know what, it really would be great to get one of the players drunk one night and ask them informally how much of this stuff they really understood while they were playing the music. Bynum, fairly obviously, would be able to expound at great length about pretty much all of it, and I imagine that James Fei probably could too; maybe some of the other guys and gals who have been section leaders at different times would have a decently thorough grounding in it. Does everybody? Do they need to? (... and: does this matter? I'm not sure it does.)

More than is usually the case, this is exceptionally hard music to write about. There is one little collector's item still to flag up, though: at 45.40, Shelley Burgon breaks a string. She instantly yanks her fingers away to avoid getting cut, indicating how taut these strings normally are, when they aren't flying around; it's not even a particularly forceful passage at that point, but as previously noted, the harps do take some hammer during the performance as a whole, and it really is quite something to see. There isn't long to go by this stage: at 47.10, the music is drawn quickly to a close, and B. - as is his wont - jumps in to name the players and say thank you, before the audience has a chance to react and drown him out.

React they do: the audience is no doubt as to what a great opportunity they have just seized by being there for this event. An encore is demanded, and given: as with many of the DCW sets before, the band plays again for just a couple of minutes, but so much ground seems to be covered even here that this little fragment, a chip from a hologram, seems somehow perfectly emblematic of the whole.

* In the unlikely event that anyone reading this doesn't get that reference: Threadgill led for a number of years a "sextett" (sic) which comprised seven players, the two drummers being counted as one. (Didn't he also have at least one outing where a sextett featured only one drummer, but still counted seven players? Am I misremembering that..?)

** I don't actually speak German, not having studied that language at school. But I believe this was filmed by students of the Cologne Art School and the Dusseldorf Music and Media Institute. Or something close, at any rate.

*** This won't be too hard to find, I daresay. I shan't link to it here as it's quite obviously an unauthorised, bootleg release. (I didn't even look to see how many other such concerts were available from the same place.)

# I haven't actually bought this, yet - the liners are all scanned to the master entry on Discogs. 

## To some extent this is very much my own fault: I do own the Tri-Axium Writings, after all. I did even try to read them at one point, but wasn't able to make much headway. They are very hard to follow and I had numerous other claims on my attention at the time. It's still possible to return to them... 

### I do have to specify "an open-minded listener" here: Youtube user Jazzgent (...) probably summed up the feelings of listeners with more, ah, traditional taste in music when he said "Boy, this sounds like s**t so it must be good!"Obviously, not everyone will understand, or even want to...

^ In the liners for the Blu-Ray B. alludes to a ZIM quartet, which apparently played in Alabama (hard though that might be to credit) before the larger ensembles were conceived. There is not, yet, any official record of this group that I am aware of.

^^ I used to wonder - back in my teens - whether there would ever really be a useful distinction between the verb "explain" and its Latinate equivalent "explicate" - but do you know, I finally think I found one! The ZIM liner notes can hardly be labelled "explanatory" since, in current parlance, that would imply that they actually make the subject matter easier to understand. (Not, alas, the case.) Nevertheless they do explicate or "unfold" it, in a rather more literal sense. Hmmm ;-)