Help!

 

I'm looking for something... but before I get to that, for those of you who might be looking for a quick and easy blast of Braxton on a Sunday in late February, here's a video of Bobby Spellman's Free Brass Trio playing Comp. 23j outside a record store in Newburyport, MA, in April 2016. Spellman himself does a sterling job on the written line, and although the support isn't quite in the same class, I'm completely with them in spirit. Just the thing to liven up a rainy and miserable Sunday! (Well - it is here. For those of you reading this in other parts of the world: hope your weekend weather is better than ours...)

***

So, the request: I am trying to locate an online rip of B's quintet performance from the 1976 Newport Jazz Festival. I don't think I even knew about the existence of this event until last year, when I was listening to Four Compositions (Washington, D​.​C​.​) 1998 - a fabulous album, by the way - and reading Bill Shoemaker's notes, which explain that (the work now known as) Comp. 70 was originally written for - well, funnily enough, for the 1976 Newport Jazz Festival. The working group was of course basically a quartet at that point - Lewis Holland Altschul - but this was augmented relatively frequently* by Muhal Richard Abrams, and in the case of the work in question, B. composed it with this specific quintet in mind. There was no official recording made of the performance, and so it wasn't until more than twenty years later that Comp. 70 was properly documented... anyway, I read that much last year, but what I didn't realise at the time was that there was already an entry in the discography for the original recording, which was (apparently) offered for download in 2011. The link included in that archival entry no longer resolves to a valid page, indeed it doesn't even seem to redirect to a valid page; but once I could see where to look, it wasn't hard to find the right page within the "Wolfgang's" site.

Clips from the performance - with a pretty good sound - can be sampled right there. However, it doesn't look as if the full files are available for download as such, only for streaming; and that is limited to members. I have more than enough music to listen to without signing up for a service promising access to thousands of live shows; the "free trial" is one of those deals which is only available if you first hand over your credit card details, and I'm not about to do that, so this was a dead end. [Besides... I'm not convinced I like the look of the site. They also sell merch - in B's case, they have some of his CDs for sale, but at what look to me fairly outrageous prices.]

Still, now that I knew about the existence of this 1976 Carnegie Hall concert... I figured it had to be around somewhere. The Yale Library collection (as detailed in these pages last year) contains more than 750 recordings, so obviously it'll be in there... right? No, apparently not. - And when I checked the list of my tape collection, it's not there either. Now, what's going on here? There is a live recording of well-established provenance, with confirmed date, venue, occasion and personnel, which became available in one place only thirty-five years after it was recorded, and it's never been available anywhere else? That borders on the preposterous, yet that is seemingly what we're dealing with... anyway, regardless, if anybody does happen to have a copy of this recording, could they please let me know..? That would be awfully well appreciated :)

***

Just briefly going back to that video clip linked up above: it is, unfortunately, one of several such to have attracted identical "trolling" comments from a Youtuber using the handle rinahall, who seems to have some sort of personal grudge against the maestro (people in such situations always claim to have arrived at their extreme positions after doing "some research" - as here - but invariably give themselves away, by going way too far with their supposed conclusions: "instrumental technique is close to zero"; is that right?! LMFAO). Bobby's answer is about the best I've seen; in other places, some people have attempted to argue, and I was tempted to do so myself when I first came across this nonsense last year, but what on earth is the point? The best course of action is surely to ignore it altogether... still, it did get me thinking: is this in any way, shape or form related to whatever (ostensibly) caused Jason G. to close Restructures when he did**? I never did really find out what B. was supposed to have said or done, but whatever it was, it has not led to a mass cancellation of him by the musical community... far from it, if the events in Darmstadt last year are anything to go by... nevertheless, it clearly pissed some people off at the time, and I did vaguely wonder whether "rinahall" might be one of them. Then again... who the hell cares?

* Muhal sat in with the group on multiple occasions around this time, both before and after Holland and Altschul left. One such occasion would appear to have been a short residency in Minneapolis, a few months after the Carnegie Hall concert - although on the later occasion, no new material was presented. (I have long since "firmed up" my tentative conclusions about that bootleg recording.)

** I have said before that JG must have had some other, more personal reason(s) for acting as he did, and just used the "storm in a teacup" as a pretext for it. I still think that's the most likely explanation, but (of course) only he knows for sure...

On the subject of wilful obscurity

 

[I posted last year about some potential difficulties inherent for the serious listener in B's approach to writing music; and I've pointed back to that in subsequent posts, and will continue to do so. This post right here is a sort of blood relative to that one (and will be linked back in the same way from now on, at least that's the idea).]

I came across something interesting in the course of researching for the previous post. The books of Composition Notes published by Frog Peak all include various unnumbered appendices; besides the Catalogue* of Works, the Glossary of Terms and so on, each volume contains interviews and related articles of interest to friendly experiencers. It's been a long time (far too long... not much I can do about that now) since I really delved into this stuff, and in truth it only happened this time by accident... I was flipping through the book trying to get back to the notes for Comp. 92, and something caught my eye: this turned out to be an undated interview with Cadence**, but it was a specific section from that. B. is asked about the books he is writing, and begins to answer that he has "three books which are totally finished", meaning the Tri-Axium Writings. The interviewer interrupts to ask whether he has had any success in trying to get them published. B. replies that he has had several offers, but that he wants to put them out himself. Initially he cites Harry Partch, W. C. Handy and Sun Ra as pioneers in musical self-publishing and says he wants to follow in their tradition, but when he is pressed: "So you'd have control over the way they're presented?", B. is immediately drawn into the heart of the matter. He is "very much aware of what the record companies are doing... on this record I did on Antilles [Six Compositions: Quartet]... they even changed the order of the pieces on the record."***

Now that he is getting into it, B. needs minimal prompting and the briefest of cues starts a protracted explanation:

...I've found that they don't want you to have any idea about how your music should

be packaged. My liner notes... have become a source of irritation for many of the 

journalists. They don't want that kind of input, they don't want a musician defining his 

own terms, especially if that musician is an African or African-American. Because somehow,

for me as a Black creative person to define my own terms... # it's viewed as a violation

of what other African, Trans African pedagogies supposedly do. We are looked at as exotic

creatures with all this natural feeling... no intellectual process happening, we just have this 

great feeling for being able to bugaloo (sic) and to be able to catch the football and to make 

the hip dunk shot. And when we go to play, if a given focus or postulation is viewed as of 

genius or 'genius' (so-called), it's also quickly covered with an "Oh yeah, well, it's natural."

He illustrates this with reference to Charlie Parker - who may well have had a great deal of natural talent, but who also worked extraordinarily hard at improving that talent, and who was most definitely not "unstudied" as a player or composer - but then proceeds thus:

I have found... five million different levels of criticism of my liner notes :- "Did I have a

comma in the right place?"  "What does he mean by this particular term?" Cries of pseudo-

intellectualism, etc. But in the fifteen, twenty years that I've been documenting my music, 

I've never heard anyone challenge some of the liner notes which have been on my records or

on the records of musicians, so-called 'jazz' musicians for the last fifty years. You know,

liner notes written in the most beautiful English, where the Queen herself would have

approved of the structure. But articles which didn't know what the fuck they were talking

about. And so there's very little tolerance for someone like myself defining my own terms.

But there's a lot of tolerance for a so-called 'jazz journalist' who might not know anything 

about what they're talking about, but who can write very eloquently... it' s acceptable. In

fact, it's the standard of the day.##

- A further question and answer makes it clear that B. did not construe this as a straightforwardly racist problem: "If a White... musician tried to define his or her terms in the way that I've been trying to do, I think that they'd be put down too, because the White improviser is in what I call one of the 'sacrifice zones'... in the same position as the Black composer or the creative woman." ### Of course, the entire interview - being conducted by way of intelligent questions from someone who is genuinely interested in the answers - bears close inspection, and raises far more points than I can tackle here. B. also uses the term "cancelled" in a way that is extremely common just lately; but I didn't know anyone was saying things like that in 1982... Anyway, what I want to zoom in on now is this point about wanting to self-publish, refusing to let others speak for him (though of course this did change a little as he got to know Lock, Lange et al - and realised that there were some writers out there who would take the time and trouble to find out what the music was really about).

B. is of course the expert on his music, and his palpable disgust at having writers hired to make uninformed statements about it, based on guesswork or false assumption, is completely understandable and justified. While I was reading this material last weekend, I was reminded of something I learned as a philosophy undergraduate. I went up to university with (among other things) a cheap edition of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, an outdated translation. I soon learned that students were encouraged to buy a more expensive edition, in the translation by Norman Kemp Smith; the problem, I was told, lay in Kant's highly idiosyncratic German, giving rise to numerous passages where the text was susceptible of multiple interpretations. Translators had been forced to make their best guess as to what the writer had intended, in such cases; but, being themselves not trained philosophers, their guesses were just that. Once Kemp Smith had delivered his English translation - the first to be produced by a philosopher who was also thoroughly familiar with German and well placed to make properly-informed decisions about what Kant had really intended, out of the various plausible options - it was found to be so illuminating that (so I gathered^), not only were English-speaking students encouraged to work from his text, German philosophy undergrads were themselves encouraged to read the book in Kemp Smith's translation, not in their own native tongue, as it was thought to have rendered the text much less ambiguous than it was considered previously.

The problem here is: in this analogy, B. himself is as much Immanuel Kant as he is Norman Kemp Smith. That he knows his music better than anyone else, understands it more clearly and fully, is beyond any possible doubt; but his manner of discourse - written and indeed spoken, to a fair extent - is fundamentally esoteric: accessible only by initiates. Hence, he has written at considerable length to explain not only the principles of his work, but also the stated intentions of a great many of his compositions; however, he has done this in language which not only eludes (and therefore alienates) the less patient reader, but tends to confound even the reasonably-patient and well-intentioned reader as well^^. I've said before - including just recently - that B. has no mandate to make his writings easy to understand, and every right to make the reader work very hard at them; don't forget, the maestro himself quickly jettisoned his plans to major in music upon discovering that the Roosevelt music faculty was still bitterly at war with itself over whether or not Schoenberg was "valid"; he then decided to major in philosophy instead, and presumably began germinating right then the ideas that would eventually coalesce into an integrated system. He has every right to create his own tailored vocabulary for that system, indeed; but with this inevitable consequence: most people will not be able to follow him there, and thus will very quickly abandon the attempt. Worse, because his music has always generally been perceived as impenetrable and incomprehensible, for a long time it seemed to be a "free hit" for people who wanted to grab a bit of unearned credit - by saying things that sounded like profound insights, but weren't anything of the sort - since nobody was likely to be able to call this behaviour out^^^. Nor was this latter frippery confined to music fans / listeners: jazz critics may not have been asked any more to write liner notes for this music (which they had no intention of trying to understand on its own terms), but they could take their revenge easily enough, by spouting all manner of platitudinous nonsense in reviews and in their own books~. 

We could argue, or at least speculate, about the extent to which B. has deliberately propagated his discourse in a manner which is abstruse and obscure. When we hear him speak, after all - on pretty much any subject, not just on music - he does so in a way which is closer to his writing style than to most people's spoken English. This must be a habit of long years, and is now just ingrained to the point where no effort has to be made to sustain it; indeed it must probably have reached that stage some decades ago. But it must have been obvious to him, in his younger years, that the people around him generally did not talk (or write) like that, and his continuing to do so represents on some level, at a certain point in B's life, a decision to set himself apart from them. It goes far beyond - but is undoubtedly linked to - affectations such as the smoking of a pipe in public (as seen on various album covers and in publicity shots); it has to be seen as part of a calculated plan to reinforce the image of an intellectual (as if in anticipation of the same objections he raised later, with regard to the music business and its attitude towards black composers and improvising musicians). It's not lost on me how much this conclusion tends to imply that B's struggle to shake off the label of a "purely cerebral" musician is to a fair extent a problem of his own making~~.

Anthony Braxton's music is an extension of his thought, and is inseparable from it - at least for him. There is nothing wrong with his developing a specialist vocabulary for his system, as many others have done before him - especially where existing language did not seem to cover the exigencies of what was to be explicated. But we've already seen the effect that has had; ultimately, he could never be his own Norman Kemp Smith: he needs someone else to fill that role. Graham Lock filled it extremely well for a while; Lock himself was not a musician, but his close access to B. for a prolonged period allowed him to make up for that, to a very great extent. Mike Heffley probably had the best opportunity, being both a musician and a student of B's, but his book was only in print very briefly, and I am no position to vouch for how successful he might have been in making the music more exoteric. In any case, that few people have ever seen the results of that experiment provides the question with its own answer... Ronald Radano wrote in language almost as dense as the maestro's, and thus was never really in a position to help spread the message more widely; since then, we have had other works by the likes of Stuart Broomer and Timo Hoyer, but I know that B. thought the former had raised interesting questions without really furnishing any answers~~~, and the latter's book has yet to be translated from the German. Superior liner notes over the years from the likes of Art Lange and Bill Shoemaker have never (yet) been developed into anything more substantial.

As for myself: the number of comments I received in the blog's first few years suggests that I did in fact succeed in penetrating (some of) the music and unpacking it in such a way as to help (some) listeners get closer to it; but as we've all seen, I was unable to sustain this and have only recently been able to come back to the work. Much as I would like to think that I still have a role to play in this regard, it very much remains to be seen whether or not I can reach enough people to make a real and lasting difference. (It also remains to be seen how long I can keep it up, this time...)

There may yet be others, though... indeed, as I suggested just this month, word seems to be ever so slowly getting around, and as more musicians get bitten by the bug, there is more of a chance that someone will yet be able to construct the definitive bridge between the maestro and the music-loving public. In the meantime, the best way to make meaningful contact with B's world is simply to listen and listen. 

* Unlike last time out, I'm spelling this word the way *I* would write it. Yes, B. writes it Catalog - because he is American. It is not necessary for me to render it the exact same way he did in order to be "authentic" or whatever - it's not a matter of citing the title of an artistic work, rather the name is purely descriptive and functional. Of course I will continue to quote from his writings exactly as he wrote them. But in this case, I am using the same word, we just happen to spell it differently. Hope that makes sense, but if it doesn't... tough ;-)

** Several points about this. One, the interviewer is listed solely as "Cadence" (thereafter CAD). It's been a long time since I saw any of those Cadence interviews in the original format etc, and I can't remember if they are always presented that way, but in any case I think I'm right in saying that Bob Rusch conducted them himself. [More about him coming soon, funnily enough...] Two, I thought that these articles were usually (notoriously) long, whereas this one is - well, maybe it's fairly long: I suppose by music mag standards it is pretty long, at that. I just would have expected it to be longer... Three, there is no date given. However it is clear from context that it must have been some time in 1982: B. refers to a performance "in April" - meaning April of the same year the conversation was taking place - and [1982] is slotted in afterwards. Also he talks about working on (what eventually became) Comp. 103 (for seven trumpets) - and the publication date for that is given elsewhere as 1983. His referencing the Antilles album - recorded in October 1981, released 1982 - further helps to narrow this down.

*** The archival entry for this album on Restructures notes that "the graphic titles for 34 and 40 A are transposed in the sleevenotes", and cites Lock for this. This could itself be indicative of what B. is saying in the interview: he presented the pieces in a certain order, but the label changed that because they thought they knew better how to sell it to their putative demographic; maybe they just didn't bother to switch the titles as well, since - I mean, who the hell was going to notice, right? This does feel like the kind of decision a record label would (still) take without missing a beat.

# Aposiopesis is present in the actual text here - I didn't put this one in. (Yep - contrary to what most people think, it's only an "ellipsis" if something is missed out; if the same "..." indicates a lengthy pause or a tailing-off, that is different, and thus has a different name. Not a lot of people know that, these days...

## Quoted material in this post is taken from Anthony Braxton, Composition Notes Book D (Synthesis Music/ Frog Peak, 1988) pp. 495-

### - Not straightforwardly (or exclusively) racist, no. This is absolutely not to suggest that B. didn't think there was a very strong current of racism running through the whole situation - he goes on to make it perfectly clear that he did. I am also certain that he was completely right about that. It's too big a subject for me to get to grips with it here. 

^ Several points to make about this: 1. Not wishing to bang on about something I have mentioned many times before, I was an undisciplined and easily-distracted student, and learned far less at university than I might have done... when it came to Kant, as it happens the only part which I found really interesting was the very first bit ("Transcendental Aesthetic"), and I never found it necessary to buy the recommended edition; everyone I knew who really got their teeth into Kant swore by the Norman Kemp Smith translation, and this was the story everyone told about it. Was it true? I don't know. It doesn't actually matter whether it was true or not, for the purposes of this post; 2. It goes without saying that anyone studying Kant at a higher and/or deeper level would eventually need to deal with the original text, rather than any translation (however excellent). Nobody ever meant to imply that the improved translation rendered the original redundant; it was just thought to be sufficient for a undergraduate course, where Kant is only one element of the syllabus. 3. I did also think of another example at the same time - that of a martial-arts master of my former acquaintance, the first proven fighter to translate some core classics on taijiquan (tai chi chuan) from Chinese into English; in this instance, previous translators had no experience of using tai chi for combat and were therefore not qualified to... etc. This felt like one example too many, hence its being tucked away down here (and not fully explained)...

^^ I did try, a number of years ago, to read the Tri-Axium Writings. I didn't manage to get very far, although I took this more as a reflection on my shortcomings as a serious scholar than as a judgement on the original material; I may try and make a second concerted attempt this year. But I don't know how many people have really read this stuff, never mind understood it. I've mentioned before (musician and Youtuber) Brian Krock's video on the maestro, for which he claimed to have taken a deep dive into the written material; the conclusions he reached, as far as I recall, were not really of a sort that he could not have gleaned pretty easily from other sources. This is not said with a view to undermining Brian - rather it highlights how difficult the writing is, if even trained composers can struggle to get to grips with it. (One would also suspect that only so much reading and research was ever going to be done for a thirty-odd-minute video presentation.)

^^^ That did change a bit, in some circles at least, when I started my work here; some people who had been exploiting B's forbidding reputation to make themselves look cleverer than they were had to cut that out once they realised there someone around who wouldn't stand for it, or let it go unchallenged. I am also sure that one of the things B. liked about what I was doing was the fact that I did voice (considerable... ahem) dissatisfaction with certain critics, and their facile glosses on music which they were not really engaging with before passing judgement on it. Whether those same critics ever knew about that is another matter...

~ I eventually got rid of my fifth-edition paperback copy of The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD - not just because of what those guys were saying about B's music; but my understanding how far they fell short of properly understanding his music was what allowed me to see their more general shortcomings. It must be said, I received a fair amount of resistance from the online community at the time for some of the things I said about those critics, who were still quite revered by most people (apparently). There's no doubt they know jazz; possibly they were unwilling to recognise their own limitations (or more likely still, figured they could get away with a lot when discussing music of strictly minority appeal).

~~ This does not excuse the people who have reached for that lazy assumption, repeatedly, over the years. Assuming that an intellectual must always make cerebral, unemotional music is more or less the same as the very prevalent tendency among the music-buying public to allow their impressions of music to be prejudiced by the appearance of the packaging: if an artist's last album had a dark and sombre cover, and their latest is presented in bright colours, amateur reviewers will immediately and inevitably say that the "new album is much more positive and upbeat" than the last one. 

~~~ I know this because that's what B. told me, shortly after the book's publication, the last time I spoke to him on the phone. It is also the case that Broomer was not exactly trying to unpack or explain B's music anyway; rather he set himself a very specific remit - and one which probably very few people were qualified to judge as regards the results. (Nevertheless, a number of online reviews suggest that not a few readers were largely unimpressed.)

Random rep (Comp. 92)

 

[Another one in an occasional series - except that this time things are rather different: instead of looking at a "cover" of a piece B. already performed, here we have one which had never been recorded prior to the version under consideration...]

The New York Composers Orchestra

First Program in Standard Time 

(New World/Countercurrents 1992)

[see 4 below for link]

1. Background/context

2. Taxonomical nerdery

3. Theory

4. Practice

1. I had skated past this entry in the discography who knows how many times, without ever really registering it properly, before a coincidental listing on Discogs last year (from a seller whose items for sale I was looking at for entirely different reasons) saw me snagging a copy of the CD. It was only at that point that I really took note of why this represents quite a significant (if minor) entry on said discography... but that will be covered under point 2 below.

NYCO was formed in 1986 by the husband-and-wife team of Wayne Horvitz (keyboards) and Robin Holcomb (piano), "as an antidote to the other things (Horvitz) was doing" - the "other things" being his activity on the NYC Downtown scene: "I wanted to see what I could do with something more conservative."* There was an album before this one, in 1990, featuring originals by Holcomb, Horvitz, Marty Ehrlich and (reedman) Doug Wieselman arranged for a big band; we may presume that when Horvitz says "conservative" he means something more obviously in the jazz tradition compared with what he was doing with Zorn et al: no crazy electric guitars, no turntables, no samples, no punk or metal or no wave. Almost inevitably, some fellow-travellers from Horvitz' day job - so to speak - got roped in, so we find Bobby Previte and Steve Bernstein involved from the start, as well as outward-facing players such as Ehrlich and Ray Anderson, but the ensemble as a whole was not just cobbled together from a week's work at the Knitting Factory. Players had to be skilled readers, who were also adept in section playing as well as improvising.

This second (but final) album, then, branches out somewhat in that it already includes pieces by composers from outside the NYCO, played by a fifteen-piece big band**: besides three numbers by Horvitz, one by Holcomb and one by Previte, there is one by Lenny Pickett, one by Elliott Sharp***... and kicking things off, this catchy little number we're examining here.

2. The archival entry for this on Restructures gave the piece the following title: "For Creative Orchestra {Comp. 92 (+ 30 + 32 + 139) + (108 C + 108 D)}", but that's not what it's actually called on the CD. The designation "For Creative Orchestra" is drawn from the composition notes, and is presented as a subtitle. The title of the piece is, correctly, given as the diagram for Comp. 92, followed by NYCO's best attempt to render the materials in a format of which B. would approve: 92 + (30, 32, 139) + (108c, 108d). - a pretty subtle distinction, yes, but if we can't make those here, of all places... anyway. Unlike Ictus and friends, and the Plus-Minus Ensemble (as detailed in the previous two posts), NYCO did not simply call their confection by a generic name.

Leaving aside the ultra-finicky question of whether the titular punctuation could have been improved upon, for once we can see at a glance that we shan't need to worry about where the collaging is worked out, or where one piece ends and another begins, any of that sort of thing. Comps. 30, 32 and 139 are all solo piano pieces - each of which has been used extensively in collaging, as well as being interpreted in toto by several different pianists - whilst the 108 series comprises the first four pulse tracks. We can very safely assume that the contents of the first set of brackets relate to materials played by the two founder-directors, at different times#, and that the second brackets contain materials incorporated by the bass and drums. (Those, at least, we can try to listen out for.) But the main thing is: this is not a medley as such. The whole duration of the recorded piece comprises the premiere reading of Comp. 92, with (what we would now think of as) tertiary materials interpolated by specific players along the way. Of course, quite how much material from (a total of) more than two hundred pages of solo piano music can be shoehorned into these eleven minutes... well, that's something which remains to be seen.

As stated, this was the first time 92 had been recorded by anybody - which is what necessitates the closer look at the theory in point 3 below. (Much later, another star-filled big band would have a crack at it, this time with the maestro himself involved.) That alone makes this quite a significant undertaking, albeit one which is (as I myself have already demonstrated) embarrassingly easy to overlook.

3. As suggested above, the "virgin status" of this piece necessitates reference to the notes - specifically, in this case, to Composition Notes Book D. But first, it's worth just having a quick look at the album's own liners again to see if anything of lasting value was said there...

Penned by (it says here) Bay Area freelancer Derk Richardson##, these particular notes do manage to say something pungent, by no means a given for this sort of exercise###. "Like Cecil Taylor, Braxton is one of the most restless and probing architects of modern music, absorbed with the possibilities of sound and its implications for culture and consciousness". The phrasing here is so typically don't-examine-this-too-closely journalistic that it would be easy to glide on past the statement without realising how astute an observation is actually being made. Many music writers didn't even notice this about B. and his music, never mind take the trouble to point it out. It is, however, bang on the money - not that it should come as a surprise to anyone reading this, but it is surprising enough to encounter it in a commissioned liner essay that it seems only fair to single it out... as regards the actual piece, mind you, all Richardson manages to say is that "for all its complexity... (it) also swings like mad". This, too, is something that not everyone realised about B's music - so we'd better give that due credit as well. Still, this is not an album of Braxwerks, so it's quickly on to the next number from there.

B's own notes, naturally, are both hyper-detailed and densely abstruse. They are also, in this instance, bestrewn with errata and gaps; for example, "Comp. No. 92 is dedicated to         " (- and this is literally followed by several lines of blank space before the next paragraph). Still, they clear up right away the question of what was meant by "for creative orchestra (1979)" - this subtitle appears right next to the graphic title, at the top of p.429. [This is p1 of the notes for this piece, and from now on I will give only the page numbers for this set of notes, not the volume.] NYCO did nothing wrong by including this wording, nor did they try to turn it into the title of their composite reading. ^ The piece is actually part of a set: Comps. 89-93 inclusive all bear the same subtitle, and were all composed "for Swedish radio". (Exactly what is meant by that is not explained; presumably some sort of commission was involved, although if the works themselves were unrecorded - which all five of them were, prior to 1989^^ - what did "Swedish radio" actually get..?) As regards the notes specific to this single piece, as opposed to all five: these run to nine full pages of text as well as diagrams and extracts from the score. Even were I qualified to analyse all this material in depth - which I'm not - it would not feel appropriate to do that here, in order to assess one individual reading of the piece by an external set of musicians. I'm just going to try and sift through it all, to see what emerges at "top level"...

... and what does can, I reckon, basically be reduced to three categories:

3a. Influences/reference points. In the first section of the notes, 92 is described as "an extended be-bop-like structure"; almost immediately afterwards we are told that the piece is "a music state that seeks to forward the affinity nature of the big band context - so that we can recall the wonder of that music." So, those are our first two references right there; a couple of pages later we hear about "a dynamic strong sound universe that is steeped in the tradition of big band interpretation dynamics". Besides a passing reference to "the music of (Charles Mingus and) Woody Herman", that's about it for big bands as such; on the other hand, the spirit of be-bop is invoked continually, although B. seems at pains to clarify that any formal similarities to bop are not to be taken as emblematic of the essence of the piece (more on this in 3c below): "the nature of (92) only proceeds from a be-bop 'surface housing' (that places the context of the music in what is perceived as a 'known state') as a basis to form fresh moment solutions that emphasise 'known and unknown' variables." Again, further on, we hear of "a be-bop sensibility - but with different apparent tendencies." This is effectively summed up on p5 of the notes, thus: "In the beginning the music is perceived as normal within the tradition of what be-bop is 'supposed to be' - later as the music continues forward it becomes apparent that 'there are other factors happening within the work'."

Two other reference points emerge later on. On p9 we read about a "session 'sound universe' that mechanizes John Coltrane's composition 'Ascensions' (sic) to create a 'construction universe' sound context that breathes fresh light into the vibrancy of creative music" - this being typically obscurantist and, well, deliberately difficult ^^^ - as well as introducing a concept that might feel strange to most readers ("breathing light") but is probably quite natural and intuitive for the synaesthetic maestro. On the following page: "I recall during the construction of this effort that I became very aware of Thelonious Monk's music (and harmonic nature) and some of that awareness was put into the lining of Comp. 92 (but none of this was approached as an empirical directive)." One could posit that Ascension bears a tangential relation to big bands, and Monk to bop, but in both cases this would really be stretching the functional definitions of those terms beyond the point of utility. So: four musical reference points to keep in mind.

3b. Formal structure. 92 "is a series of sequenced material and open parameters" which "unfolds as a nine-part component structure that alternates from written notated materials to extended improvisation." This is codified by B. as A (S) C (S) E (S) G (S) I, where S = solo (i.e. improvised section); these latter are subdivided into "two tempo soloist open parameters and two collective improvisation parameters". These four sections, not being notated by definition, may "position as many solos... as desired... depending on the needs of the moment or intention". The diagram which occupies p3 indicates that the first and third such sections are "tempo solos" and the second and fourth are "collective".

3c. The essential character of the piece. I could go on at quite some length here, quoting the text in numerous places - but I already took rather longer than planned over 3a above, and I really did want to avoid getting bogged down in this. As I understand it, the animus (as it were) of the piece is encapsulated in the phrase which is found on p2: "a series of simultaneous events"~. There are (of course... why would there not be) at least two different aspects to this: at any given time during the notated parts, the different sections - in the traditional sense of reeds, brass, etc (in keeping with the spirit of the big band era, at least up to the time of Ellington~~) play long written lines which overlap, but which act independently of one another; and the rhythm section has its own duality going on, alternating between a "swinging role function (in the traditional sense" and acting as a "fourth line variable"~~~. In other words, the entire flavour of the piece is contrapuntal, in a rather radically extended sense of that term, and the rhythm section plays a very active part in this: alternately, the rhythmic contours may "appear 'off' of the principal pulse of the music" or may "emphasize (their) relationship to the principal pulse". This being the case, it makes perfect sense for  NYCO to have collaged in the two pulse tracks; it even feels like an inspired decision. @

There are a few other bits worth quoting from the notes, before we (finally) move on...

Comp. 92 "is a non-harmonic (not atonal) be-bop sound structure" ( - this distinction is not clarified at all, but it is obviously a significant one for the composer, and must therefore be borne in mind)

"Nothing is emphasized and nothing is repeated"

"This is the blues, my friend" ( - it really isn't what most of us would think of as the blues, but it's very interesting to know that B. thinks of it in that way... he is discussing the principle of tension and release at this point in the notes)

"... a composite linear maze of linear constructions is placed into the space of the music in a manner that allows it to still meet the dictates of a 'swinging' music state" ( - unbeknownst to him, Richardson echoed this statement in his liner notes)

That concludes the theory bit. [I have endeavoured to reproduce the quoted text as accurately as possible, retaining all of B's punctuation, spelling and grammar]

4. Maybe it felt as if we would never get there, but... now for the actual music. (I am not in a position to offer downloads at the moment, but the music - courtesy of the official NYCO Youtube channel - is available here.)

Ehrlich is credited as director for this number - which, as previously mentioned, opens the CD. Of the fifteen players, he was one of (I think) just two who had prior direct experience of B's music: the other was of course Ray Anderson, who spent several years as a member of the actual working band and was in principle far more qualified for the job; Ehrlich is quite strongly associated with B's standards groups, having got the call on more than one occasion, when the maestro fancied playing piano and needed a versatile and technically-robust reedman to step in; but those dates were a couple of years in the future at this point. The only time he had played with B. prior to this, that I can find, was in 1978 - and that was indeed a creative orchestra affair (Anderson also present, right in the middle of his tenure in the working group).

The word "arranged" does not appear anywhere in the liner notes, but we'll have to assume that this job was included in Ehrlich's remit. Then again, with the instrumentation so close to that specified by B., it might be argued that the piece "arranges itself": all that really needs to be worked out is the identity and order of the soloists, the manner of linking up the structural phases, the precise allocation to the three main sections (Ehrlich has at his disposal five woodwinds including himself - he will take the first solo - plus three trumpets, two trombones and french horn; the two keyboards, bass and drums will presumably more or less take care of themselves)... and the backing for the four solo phases. That sounds like quite a lot of work, come to think of it... maybe "director" is indeed the optimal term.

I played this a few times last week (doing so was what prompted me to write this in the first place), but I have put in a lot of research since then and my understanding of the piece is rather deeper. The main take-away from previous spins was how old-fashioned the horn arrangement sounded, as if any "big band" piece must sound like something from the 1920s (not really, of course) - but then, having looked at the notes I withdraw this observation, and besides: it does also sound pretty similar to the 1976 Arista bash, being (I thought) especially reminiscent of Comp. 55... well before the end of the piece, it gets extremely hot and intense, and generally gives the impression of being a good and worthwhile reading.

Then I wrote most of the above, before returning to the music. Once you know how the horizontal structure is set out, and have an understanding of the ethos or flavour of the piece, it is very easy to follow what's happening in real time - at least, as regards the actual primary territory. There is a very short introduction, establishing the rhythm and tempo while Anderson and one of the trumpets warm up, then at 0.11 we are straight into the A phase. This does exactly what we would (by now) expect: the reeds, trumpets and lower brass start up "three independently superimposed sectional phrase grouping line formations that are cast over a medium to fast tempo driving rhythm section." This phase lasts about forty-five seconds - long enough for the notated material to be played through - and then a brief swelling chord takes us into the S1 phase, where Ehrlich takes his solo@@. This consists exclusively of fast runs and assorted extended techniques, entirely in the spirit of the music and not in the least bit "jazzy", and it sounds fine if at times maybe a little hesitant. Backing statements are provided principally by Anderson, with Holcomb mainly laying down sporadic (dis)chords and Previte providing a steady beat, which nevertheless sounds at times as if it might be edging towards a pulse track.

An organ phrase from Horvitz at 2.08 signals the switch to the C phase, and we're back to the threefold notated material. This time, Previte - with Horvitz and (bassist) Lindsey Horner - is definitely laying down a pulse track as opposed to a steady beat. Here, then, is the "fourth line" strategy we read about earlier. Anyone who isn't really paying attention would miss this altogether in the maelstrom of sound; by 3.04, Anderson has begun flexing his way into the S2 phase, and this begins properly at 3.11. His solo is complemented by crazy, queasy swirls from Horvitz over a backing in which Horner plugs away at a walking bass line while Previte pretty much plays as a second soloist. At 4.14, more written unison material tells us we are now already in the E phase. The rhythm section "behaves itself" again here, reinforcing the tempo rather than disrupting it, but as we approach the end of the fifth minute the mood is very intense, and stabbing chords from Holcomb see her getting ready for her solo, ushered in by Horner's switching to arco bass at 5.10. 

This S3 phase sees Holcomb playing (I would guess) more freely than she ever did in her whole career, taking her cue perhaps from Marilyn Crispell (though without MC's preternatural fluency) - while (second trombone) Art Baron interjects and Horner and Previte both break things up. This does not sound like a pulse track as such, not least because the bass and drums play completely independently of one another at this point. Previte keeps foot to throttle, but there is not really a steady beat during this very open phase. At around 6.20 Holcomb signs off and at once the G phase is underway; from around 6.30 a long roll on Previte's snare seems to cue up the second pulse track, both he and Horner now once more taking the "fourth line" approach. This is a brief phase, and it precedes what is easily the longest: the S4 phase, which comes closest of all to the "collective solos" specified in B's original plan, begins at 7.06 and lasts almost three minutes.

A sustained organ note ties the G and S4 phases together, during which time the bass and drums suddenly start playing at furious speed. The featured soloists in this final open phase are the three trumpeters, in the order Jack Walrath - Eddie Allen - Steve Bernstein, but what that really reflects is the order in which they start, since improvised phrases from all three get traded back and forth as this phase progresses. The pickup of the pace, in the meantime, sounds so natural and subtle that it could go completely unnoticed - until one eventually realises how fast Horner and Previte are playing: as the trumpets continue to trade phrases over increasingly intense backing, the mood becomes terrifically exciting, and this is underlined by the "traffic noise" interpolations from the other horns and the keys, which build little by little to an almost unbearable pitch. This phase really does feel like a sort of tightly-marshalled chaos, if that makes any sense; by 9.20 there are effectively as many as seven or eight "soloists" all doing their thing at once, and the intensity is sustained all the way until 9.56, when the final I phase begins. This is preceded (just) by a quick press roll from Previte, signalling what is then a seamless switch from a furious flat-out sprint to the badass swing of the closing written statements, leading up at last to a six-second crescendo attack from the horns, whipped home with a few final snaps on the snare. 

- And that's that. We might quibble: the S4 phase is clearly along the lines of a "collective solo", but is there really enough of a distinction drawn between "tempo solos" and "collective" in the other three S phases? For that matter, the piece is really quite short and could in principle have been developed quite a lot further. But as regards the second point, it's not an album of B-rep as such, and a really long and involved reading could have unbalanced the overall programme; trust me, most of the rest of the album does NOT sound like this. Besides, as regards both quibbles: some (most?) of these players were not used to negotiating material of this level of complexity or ambition, and within certain inescapable limitations, the orchestra delivered the most successful outcome which could have been expected. Nor is that intended as faint praise: Ehrlich and Anderson do a great job, Holcomb and Horvitz do too, and both Horner and (especially) Previte just tear the place up. The rest of the ensemble acquits itself extremely well on this highly challenging material, and everyone could be justifiably proud of this reading.

The one legitimate gripe concerns the use of the solo piano music. Even if we assume that Holcomb's solo consists exclusively of excerpts from all three of those scores, and for that matter if we assume further that every note played by both keyboardists originated from somewhere in amongst them - which is unlikely - that still adds up to a vanishingly small percentage of the actual total available to them, and one is left wondering if maybe it wouldn't have been more honest to cite just one of the three piano pieces (- even then, only a tiny portion could actually have been used). As it is, the impression is given that this rendition utilised collage elements from five different pieces equally, which simply cannot have been the case. But if that is the only real demerit here - and I would say it is - then we can easily find it in our hearts to overlook it. I really enjoyed this delightful one-off, and the effort I put into making sense of it definitely helped me to appreciate it more.

If you've read this far, thank you, and well done! I hope that it aids you, too, in enjoying this intriguing addition to the discography.

* As one would hopefully infer from the inverted commas, these are direct quotes attributed to Horvitz, included in the liner notes for the CD. (Just to confirm that I am not putting words into his mouth: "antidote" and "conservative" would both sound highly inflammatory if said by anybody else...)

** One of the Horvitz pieces, "Paper Money", uses a slimmed-down nonet, featuring Butch Morris (making what by then must have been a rare appearance on cornet); he does not play on the rest of the album.

*** I don't mind saying that the album as a whole is rather too "conservative" for my tastes: there are plenty of charming details if one pays close attention, but it's all too easy to use (most of) the album as background music, and the majority of the pieces sound... a little unambitious. To my (admittedly warped) ears, Sharp's knotty and dissonant "Skew" is easily the most interesting thing on here (with the obvious exception of the opener).

# This is about as precise as I am ever likely to get: I could live to be 150 and I doubt I would ever reach the point where I could confidently say which solo piano piece is being quoted when. (Indeed we might go further: given that at least two of the three pieces used here consist of multiple written pages to be assembled in whatever order the performer chooses, we can infer that even pianists who have played these works might not necessarily be able to say for sure "these fifteen seconds are from page ten of 32... these eight seconds are from page sixty-five of 30", etc. The task is almost unimaginably difficult: more than three decades later, I doubt really that Horvitz or Holcomb could tell us either, unless of course they made exceptionally detailed notes at the time of performance.)

## This is not a typo: he is actually credited as Derk, not Derek (or Dirk). New one on me.

### I say this as someone who did write music reviews for a magazine for a few years, a long time ago - albeit not professionally. It can be extraordinarily difficult to find things to say under these circumstances, unless the writer is actually powerfully impressed by what s/he is hearing. You do end up racking your brains to avoid simply repeating the same stuff ad nauseam.... I could never have done it full-time. 

^ Restructures also included the following rubric for Comp. 92: Twenty-six pages of notated music with improvisation, for the creative orchestra. Instrumentation: 3 reeds (alto, tenor, bass), 3 tpt, 3 trom, b. trom, TB, guitar, piano, SB, Per (set). This is not from the full notes as such, but rather from the Catalog of Works - I feel obliged to use the US spelling there, which I would not normally do - at the end of the book. The instrumentation is not precisely replicated by NYCO, although they come pretty damn close, and do (coincidentally) comprise a quindectet, as specified here! In any case, whilst B. often wrote with specific instrumentation in mind, it was very seldom (if ever) the case that a given interpretation would not be "valid" if it didn't stick to the prescribed instrumentation. (Quite the contrary, if anything.)

^^ The earliest recording I can find of any of these five pieces is on Eugene (1989) on Black Saint, which includes both 91 and 93. (The exact same programme was of course later replicated by the official bootleg BL024/-025 Creative Orchestra (Portland) 1989.) The album was actually released in 1991 - twelve years after these works were composed, and one year before NYCO's sophomore effort (which would appear to be less than coincidental); Jump or Die was also recorded in 1992, including Comp. 90 (in collage form), and again this doesn't feel like a coincidence. The upshot is, none of these five works were officially recorded until 1989, though naturally this does not mean that none of them was performed before then; who knows, some Swedish collectors may have airshot recordings which would prove that they were..? (What a tantalising possibility that is...)

^^^ This is not a criticism, nor is it said in irony: B. has every right to make his writings difficult, and demanding of close and careful reading. I have been thinking quite a lot about this, and will make it the subject of another post, later this month (at least, that's the idea...)

~ This phrase, which I wrote down and underlined as I was working through the notes, is taken directly from the text; but I have exercised some considerable licence in using it, since the phrase appears in the middle of a much longer sentence, in which the "series... of events" is not strictly a definition of the actual piece. 

~~ To say this is not my strong suit would be an understatement, but one detail I have retained from the jazz history books which I read twenty or so years ago is that prior to Ellington, big band arrangers routinely played sections off against one another, voicing one individual written part for reeds then giving the next to the brass, etc; Ellington is (as I recall) credited with being the first leader to use the innovative technique of "scoring across sections" (in works such as "Mood Indigo") by pairing, say, a clarinet with a trombone. [This is all unpacked a bit further in the next footnote.]

~~~ Fourth, because in B's original chart, the three sections which voice the written lines comprise the reeds, the trumpets and the trombones. Bass trombone was presumably included in the latter group, whilst I would guess the tuba was intended to be in the rhythm section (as a brass bass, to complement the string bass). This is all notional of course, since we don't have any recordings of B's own arrangement(s), and NYCO's instrumentation does not include either of those voices. - As we can see, B's chart gives the sections of the orchestra their own parts, and of course Ellington very often would have continued to do this as well; I don't mean to imply that he always scored across sections, once he had begun to experiment with that. 

@ It is a creative choice which wouldn't have been available to the composer, in 1979: the pulse track per se had not yet been invented, although of course it was foreshadowed in 1975, by Comp. 23g... [Incidentally, if anyone - besides the present writer - has ever wondered why B. used the term "pulse track" for rhythmic lines which are generally irregular, the answer is found in the Glossary of Terms (one of the numerous appendices in the books of Composition Notes): pulse "is my term for tempo when the actual tempo is removed and the force of the operative is retained". OK, so that may not exactly explain things, but... it helps?]

@@ I thought that the lower notes - and general tone - sounded more like a tenor sax, but the liner notes say the solo is on alto. (Ehrlich plays both, plus soprano sax and two clarinets, over the course of the album.)

Preview of happened attractions

So, I did say last time that this post should really have come first, but never mind ( - quite apart from anything else, it feels rather delightfully Braxtonesque to be doing these things out of order - and it's only appropriate in this instance, as will become clear).

McClintic Sphere - who does tend to keep a closer eye on such developments than I do - tipped me off about these two events in the middle of January, but what with one thing and another, it's taken me until now to get round to documenting them here...

The first event has definitely already taken place, over two nights in November last year. The Brussels Philharmonic, conducted by Ilan Volkov, joined forces with a sextet representing Ictus (including the blog's "new best friend" Kobe Van Cauwenberghe* and keyboardist Jean-Luc Plouvier, as seen here) on 16th and 17th November to present an ambitious programme including a piece which they appear to have entitled simply "Creative Orchestra", based around readings of B's Comps. 151 and 147. Sharp-eyed readers will note that these were the two works presented on the hatART CD 2 Compositions (Ensemble) 1989/1991, released in 1992; mind, in that instance the two works were recorded by very different orchestras in different venues and in different years, whilst last year's Belgian extravaganza incorporated material from both scores - and more: the Ictus website (as linked in the first line of this para) only details those two works, but this teaser trailer suggests that Comp. 63 was also represented. The very brief - but rather mouth-watering - video clip in fact suggests that even still yet further materials may have been involved; KVC was apparently present in the capacity of second conductor, besides (presumably) playing the guitar at some point**, or at least he was when this footage was shot, in Bruges on the first night (16th). Confusingly, the audio track heard on the video appears to have been recorded on the second night, in Antwerp. 

The website also includes a brilliant excerpt from (what I presume are) B's composition notes for 151, explained as a high-speed car chase, with two police officers pursuing two fleeing felons into and around the territory which represents the structure of the composition itself. I have never seen this written text before, and can only hope that when I eventually get a physical copy of the 1992 hat CD mentioned above, the full text will be in the liners. (The published Composition Notes vols. A-E do not go anywhere near this far.) In the meantime, it's well worth checking out the programme's Ictus page. 

The concerts, then, have already happened. However, the fact that this "teaser" was uploaded to Youtube in mid-December rather implies that something longer and more substantial will be made available at some point...

The second event is pretty similar, being a trailer - or series of trailers - relating to something which already happened, the difference being that in this case, there definitely is a major release forthcoming: the trailers are teasing that, rather than the original event. The first clip was shot in Prague, on 1st August 2023, on the occasion of the world premiere of the five-hour operatic marathon Trillium X. Clips two and three were shot in Darmstadt during B's residency there from 3rd-5th August. Roland Dahinden (him again!***) is conducting. The footage would seem to be part of the "making of Trillium X" documentary, which is intended to be part of PMP's future release of the opera itself, on eight CDs - and a Blu-ray. Yes, so - this project (unlike the Belgian one) was very much carried out with the maestro present, and by the looks of the blurb which accompanies these videos, was extremely well received. One critic described the premiere as "the cultural event of 2023" (which is certainly not something we would be likely to hear from a British or American publication, alas). But although the event was of course recorded and the documentary has (presumably) already been made, the actual physical release requires further funding - at time of writing they are only 12% of the way towards their crowd-funding goal. It's not clear what will become of this undertaking if that goal is not reached; I shall be genuinely fascinated to see whether they get there. Given that PMP releases generally don't seem to be properly distributed outside the Czech Republic, and that the prospective audience for this stuff is still pretty rarefied, I'd say it's touch and go whether or not they achieve their target. Good luck to them. You never know, this may finally make an opera convert out of me ;-)

***

I had intended to flag up something else I mentioned in passing (in a footnote) last time out, namely the fact that French guitarist and composer Noël Akchoté has been very busy issuing a ton of music on his own digital label, including a ludicrous amount of Braxton. But the above took longer than expected to write, and besides, I haven't actually found time to listen to any of this stuff yet. I'm not even sure how one would go about it (besides, you know, buying it from his website, something which my budget wouldn't really permit) - although given that I found out about this accidentally, on Youtube, I would guess that a fair amount of it is available on there. So much..! Dare I say it, this stuff is really beginning to catch on... whether or not the human race will survive to manifest this promised flourishing of possibilities is, I fear, very much up for debate...

* I have never been in contact with Kobe at all, you understand - I just seem to be writing about him rather a lot. He has rather successfully established himself as a specialist Doctor Braxtoniensis, as one might say, and his expertise is apparently sought almost as keenly as that of Herr Dahinden...

** The credits given on the Ictus site are for the entire concert, rather than for the Braxton piece specifically. It is possible, therefore, that KVC was present on the latter only as a specialist co-conductor. Or something. (All will perhaps become clear, at some point.)

*** This is someone else I seem to keep tripping over. As laid out in the main post, the biggest difference between the Swiss and the Belgian is that the former has "direct lineage" to B., having not only played with him, toured and studied under him, but (apparently) acted as his assistant at Wesleyan for several years. KVC has not done any of this - but it seems undeniable that he has built up a real understanding of the music and its associated systems, and as one of the photos seen here would imply, his endeavours do have the maestro's blessing. (And why would they not?)

Slowly going viral

 

Now look - I know what "going viral" means. Hell, I have a teenage daughter! I am not that out of touch... so of course I understand that what is going to be discussed here today - the gradual spread of B's music and ideas across the wider musical community - does not really represent what we would usually mean by "viral" in the internet craze sense. Quite the opposite, probably... nevertheless, there is a real sense that this stuff is actually, finally, beginning to catch on. The metaphor was irresistible.

This post is somewhat out of sequence, in that the site which led me to the two videos I'm about to share with you is one to which I was led by McClintic Sphere, and the event he was telling me about is one which is not going to fit into this article... so there will still need to be a little follow-up. But you see, that page led me to quite an exciting video, and that in turn led to another one, and this all just feels as if it needs to be taken care of first...

What we have here is two separate, unrelated GTM performances, both recent, neither of which had (as far as I know) anything to do with the maestro. This is good, because it proves that the message is at last getting spread among musicians (if it wasn't already - and I'm not totally convinced that it was). Something else which is good, and which I know would greatly please the man himself, is that women are much represented in both groups: it's an established imperative for B. to try and encourage more women into creative music, and I can't help thinking that the well-balanced ensembles we're going to look at here are a sign that this plan, too, is working*.

***

The first video is undated (as yet, although I have asked Ictus if they can provide this information - so we'll see); but given that it was posted on 6th July 2022, it must be of a performance earlier than that. I found the video on the "Watch & Listen" page of Ictus' site; the institution itself is a Belgian enterprise, founded in 1994 as the live band for a dance company, but which has grown steadily ever since. Anyone who has been reading this blog since I resumed posting on it will not be surprised to learn that guitarist Kobe Van Cauwenberghe is currently one of the (many) members; a quick scan down that list reveals that trumpeter Susana Santos Silva, one of B's most recent touring musicians, is also involved. Anyway, the video we're concerned with here is "the result of a 2 day workshop where Advanced Master students from the School of Arts Gent join forces with a squad of Ictus musicians" - and the workshop in question was given by Kobe Van C., drawing on what is by now a fair bit of time and experience working with B's music. He can't claim to the same sort of direct lineage as Roland Dahinden; unlike the trombonist, the Belgian has never studied under B. or collaborated with him. But he has immersed himself in the maestro's music to a degree that few "outsiders" can match: he leads a group which plays only GTM, and has himself recorded a solo album of GTM pieces, using tape loops and electronics for accompaniment**. It doesn't seem at all arrogant or inappropriate for him to be hosting GTM workshops - he has clocked up the mileage and established his credentials beyond doubt***.

The main territory for this triumphant performance, then, is Comp. 255 - a Syntactical GTM work which, in principle, is an eccentric choice for an all-instrumental ensemble. But although the syllabic content of the score must necessarily be missing, there is no other reason why any one work should not be undertaken by any grouping of voices, human or otherwise; and KVC's septet has already tackled this piece, so it's a score he presumably knows pretty well. He will have had his own reasons for preferring this territory for the ensemble to work from. As for the ensemble, it's a very Braxtonian tentet, albeit with rather unfamiliar instrumentation: two electric guitars, three woodwinds, one brass, keyboards, two drum kits plus one mallet percussion. (The full line-up is given on the website, although the instrument credits are not all that complete: Berndt plays piccolo as well as flute, (Dirk) Descheemaeker more than one clarinet; the leader switches from guitar to electric bass at one point.) As for who represented Ictus, and who came from School of Arts Gent: besides the leader here, Plouvier, Messler and Dirk Descheemaeker are all listed as being part of the Ictus roster, so let's assume for the time being that the others had attended the workshop as students.

Kobe Van Cauwenberghe is shown right at the beginning of the video, counting everyone in; a few minutes later, when the second guitarist (playing the red Strat) displays a prominent hand signal, the viewer could get confused as to who is who, but no, that really is him at the outset#. Not all players seem to be fully audible, at first, with the two guitars and two drum sets, plus the piccolo, dominating the sound - as the camera pans slowly around the room, this is if anything emphasised, but as the music develops, everyone gets plenty of chances to make themselves heard. It's not long at all before the written theme gives way to an open space, and from here on, freedom of expression is the order of the day. I have no intention this time of trying to run through the video describing the music - which incorporates secondary and tertiary materials, as one would expect (Comp. 115 is much used##, as well as Comp. 40i, and of course the repetition series Comp 40(o), which just seems to be everyone's favourite###) - but suffice to say, with top-class musicians given the right sort of instruction and encouragement, this is music which one can inhabit, not just hear. 

***

The second video, if anything, excited me even more, because none of the names meant anything to me at all - which potentially implies a completely new set of musicians finding this stuff for themselves (although I did eventually discover connections, as explained below). What we have here is a sextet performance (entitled simply "Ghost Trance Music") given by the Plus-Minus Ensemble, a British group "committed to commissioning new work and placing it alongside recent and landmark modern repertoire". The video was filmed at MINU Festival, Copenhagen, on 18 November 2023 and has only been up on Youtube since December. (The performance was one part of a four-piece programme, and this was the fourth time the programme itself had been presented^.)

It's not a new thing for an ensemble such as this to interpret B's work alongside that of other contemporary composers; but we seem to have come a long way since the Cygnus Ensemble gave a completely-straight reading of the written score of Comp. 186^^. Starting with what sounds like a second-species GTM theme - no opus numbers are provided on the group's website - the group takes us on a twenty-one minute journey through some very free and open territories, with the presence once more of electric guitar and synth (plus piano, bass clarinet and two strings) guaranteeing some pretty fiery and adventurous sounds along the way. Almost inevitably, Comp. 40(o) makes yet another appearance, kicked off by the pianist around 3.15, then played faster and faster by the whole group. What delights me so much about this rendition is the way in which the musicians have fully grasped the music's possibilities, leaving the written material far behind in their willingness to embrace the freedoms coded into the model. I have no idea whether the maestro is aware of what this ensemble has done, but if he is, he must surely be jumping for joy. 

With a little digging, I did discover that these guys didn't exactly find the music all by themselves: guitarist  Primož Sukič is a member of Ictus (although not one of the musicians present for the first video described above), and furthermore, selecting the keyword Braxton on the British group's website reveals that the very first public readings of a work entitled "Ghost Trance Music" were given in February 2022, led by none other than... Kobe van Cauwenberghe. But the fact that they have continued to nurture and develop the music all by themselves is nonetheless hugely encouraging. The human race finds itself in a terribly dark and dangerous place at the time of writing, but it's no exaggeration at all to say that this sort of creative art gives me real hope for the future. 

* There is absolutely nothing new about women playing serious music, if by "serious" we mean classical. The jazz world has tended to be overwhelmingly masculine, though, and B. seems to have been painfully conscious of this - and determined to prevent such an imbalance from spilling over into his ensembles.

** Both the septet's release and the KVC solo album will eventually get covered in these pages. All in good time, etc. (Both these albums include readings of Comp. 255, which is clearly a favourite.)

*** As it turns out, KVC is not the only musician - or even the only guitarist - keen to establish his credentials as a master interpreter of B's works. While preparing this article I stumbled across a recording of Comp. 115 arranged for solo guitar by Noël Akchoté; the Frenchman's is not a new name to me, but what I had no idea about is how prolific he has become in recent years, issuing dozens of recordings as digital downloads on his own label, including a huge range of B's pieces. Once I went looking, I was amazed at how many of these there were. (So much I have missed in recent years, and so many things to catch up on..!)

# If there is one thing we would expect to emerge from a workshop such as this, it's surely an emphasis on musical democracy: section leaders may or may not have been chosen beforehand, but in any case, each player must be at liberty to cue up certain secondary or tertiary materials as the mood takes them. There will of course be times when everyone is required to play from the score, but we know that these scores have extensive pockets of space written into them.

## Well, that's what it sounds like, anyway - although I can't shake the nagging feeling that I have misidentified this one, and that the group is actually playing something else. I am still a bit rusty here. 

### Marilyn Crispell may have been bitten by this number before anyone else was, but in any case, it's long since become an almost mandatory inclusion in any proper examination of B's work. Keyboard players just seem to love it - though evidently KVC does, too.

^ The three previous concerts were given in the last week of October 2023, all in Britain. (The other three pieces played are listed as world premieres - although I wasn't aware that a piece can receive its premiere every time it is played..! I suppose technically the actual premieres must have taken place on October 25th, in Edinburgh...) By the look of it, the Braxton piece was the final selection on the programme, each time. 

^^ The Cygnus Ensemble still exists, by the look of it. None of the current players are familiar to me - and I don't know if the reference (on their main page) to their having "commissioned" work from B. - among numerous others - is just poetic licence. I am not personally aware of their having played any of his music, except for that one time: at that point, the group's roster included violinist Jacqui Carrasco, who did have a previous direct connection to the maestro's music.