Variable standards

 

Anthony Braxton & the Fred Simmons Trio
9 Standards (Quartet) 1993 (Leo, 1996)

So, having laid out all my current plans for posts, it need come as no surprise to anybody that the very next thing I put up here is not on that list at all... I mean, why would it be? Still, I did say that things will always just come along and demand - or in this case politely request - to be covered at once. Here, we're dealing with a fairly scarce release (I shan't say rare) which I hadn't even really looked at properly until I came to (re-)examine the Parker Project last April; it being a standards date, and featuring musicians who weren't on my radar at all, I had doubtless skated over it many times in the discography before I finally stopped and paid a bit of attention - and that was really only because of the timing of it, in terms of its recording date* rather than its eventual release.

What I discovered fourteen months ago, then, was that Fred Simmons - a journeyman jazz pianist with a relatively slight CV - taught at Wesleyan during the '80s and '90s**; pretty obviously, this will have been where he and B. encountered each other. (Where I was probably wrong was in assuming that this putative professional connection "certainly occasioned the chance for this recording" - but we'll get to that.) I had never heard the album, had never come across anybody recommending it or even mentioning it, and it never turned up on Leo's seasonal sale lists back in the day - as indeed it wouldn't have done, since it was one of a few of their releases to have sold out its print run. I mentally bookmarked it - but without any serious intent, and more or less forgot about it again, until earlier this year when it turned up on the "items for sale" list of a new Discogs seller; he, however, wanted a rather unrealistic price for it, perhaps overestimating the extent to which its out-of-print status translates to rarity and desirability among B's fans and collectors. I noted it with interest - it's not an album which comes up for sale very often at all - but there was no way I was going to buy it at that price***.

Then a couple of copies turned up randomly on eBay - one of which was selling from the UK, for less than half the price of that other one - and suddenly I found that I "had to have it". Maybe it was just the fact that another copy had suddenly made itself available, and certainly I had no reason to expect this to be an unheralded gem in B's huge discography, but it quickly became clear that I wasn't going to give myself any peace until I had found out, one way or the other. I bought it, it arrived quickly and - here we are.

***

Restructures listed the venue as being Wesleyan, on 23rd February 1993. That information, in turn, will simply have come from the CD release, as it emerges: the CD's rear cover states that the concert was recorded live at Wesleyan University (albeit the date is given here as February 25th, not 23rd), and we know that Jason G. did not have the time or resources to fact-check every single detail: if someone contacted him to say that something was wrong, he printed a correction as soon as he'd verified it, but otherwise a session's details would go up (nearly) as they were given on the official release, as far as possible. But Art Lange's liner notes make much of the idea of this being a club date, and even a cursory listen reveals that this is hugely likely to be accurate. The recording quality is serviceable but decidedly amateurish, the atmosphere definitely clubbish - on the quieter numbers we can hear patrons coughing, even talking over the music on the opener (a sure sign that some audience members were there to eat, drink, socialise and/or be seen, not to listen). Even the piano itself has that depressingly-familiar "club sound": not tuned often enough, with at least half an octave in the upper register sounding between an eighth-tone and a quarter-tone sharp. I have no idea whence the suggestion came that this was recorded at Wesleyan, but it will have seemed a probable enough venue - being the place of employment of both B. and Simmons at that time - that nobody would have seen fit to question it... unless they actually listened to the recording (!).

Almost certainly a club date indeed, then. Simmons' aforementioned bio says that during this period he could be found gigging in Pennsylvania at the weekends - not that this helps to clarify anything, since a glance at the calendar for February 1993 shows that both the 23rd and 25th were weekdays - and it seems more than likely that B. sat in with Simmons' working trio, somewhere or other in the US Northeast, and that both the venue and date are incorrect. Lange himself cites no source for his assertion that this is a club date, and it's quite clear from his wording that he was not present at the concert; very probably he was simply going by his own ears and extensive experience. 

Now, as to the title of the album... a little poetic licence is employed here, because with the best will in the world, Simmons' tune "In Motion" which kicks off proceedings has probably never been played by anybody else, anywhere, ever -  nor is there any good reason why it would be. After a quite promising opening - a floating, mysterious cycling of unresolved chords - the piece coalesces into something quite different: a slowish, completely bog-standard twelve-bar blues, with absolutely nothing to distinguish it. OK, so we know that the term "standards", as it applies to jazz repertoire, is extended by common use to take in any composition by another jazz musician, whether that be Benny Golson's "Killer Joe", Coltrane's "Naima", Ornette's "Lonely Woman"... or something decidedly more obscure such as, for example, "In Motion" by Fred Simmons. But it's an eyebrow-raising way to open the set, and although in theory it would be a good way for the trio to get warmed up - they must surely have been familiar with the piece, even if nobody else was - in practice it comes across as very odd indeed, as the band sounds most uncomfortable playing it. Drummer Leroy Williams, in particular, sounds borderline amateurish on this opening number: leaden, heavy-handed, utterly devoid of swing or any sense of rhythm, or subtlety; in fact he bangs away at his kit in a manner which made me think of nothing so much as a local rock drummer, pressed into service on an emergency basis, with no prior familiarity at all (but reassured beforehand that the band would keep things simple for him). I really found this opening number quite painful to sit through, especially the first time, at least for the first six minutes - during which B. (wisely) lays out completely. At just after 5:55, he makes his first entries in a solo, in which he does his best to sing the blues - and, mercifully, he is very largely successful in this, so that from this point on it starts to become clearer why anyone thought this meeting was worth preserving for posterity.

Don't get me wrong, the maestro sounds perfectly himself here, but he does also endeavour to play inside to a far greater extent than he normally would, and although that might sound dull - especially to the likes of me - it isn't, in the telling. He can play the blues, though (naturally) he plays them his way. Obviously enough, he takes a long solo - either the audience have shut up by this point# or he is playing intensely enough to drown them out - and this brings suitably enthusiastic applause; Simmons has already done his bit##, so all that remains is for the bass and drums to get some - and we can safely gloss over that, and move on. Luckily, at this point, things finally do catch fire; although in principle "Cherokee" represents a far greater musical challenge, it transpires that the band sounds way more confident negotiating this sort of high-octane, high-tempo stuff than they did on the soporific opener. It needn't come as a surprise to anybody that B. blows his head off on this - high-speed music is barely even a challenge to him, after all - but Simmons, following on from that, also manages to play for minutes on end here without flagging, or running out of ideas: he never sounds rushed by the frantic pace, and although the end of each chorus had this listener thinking that it must surely be the last, the pianist succeeds in matching B. for stamina and invention to a surprising extent. Bassist Paul Brown and even drummer Williams sound far more engaged from this point on, too, as if possibly even the trio felt a bit guilty about opening with one of the pianist's "originals" (for want of a better word) and are now free to cut loose on more traditional, familiar material.

"Cherokee" is one of three fast numbers on here, and I will cut to the chase now by admitting that they are the only ones to which I have been able to pay much attention; the other two - Coltrane's "Mr P.C." and "Impressions" - bookend the second disc, and besides the opener, this leaves five hoary old chestnuts which, I'm sorry, just lull me to sleep every time. I can't help it, OK? Mainstream, straight-ahead jazz is not my bag... I really have strictly limited interest in this stuff and would generally never seek it out###. I can tell you that B. plays flute on two numbers, one of which is "On Green Dolphin Street", a standard which I actually rather like - but for me that is all about Dolphy's version... otherwise, I have played the album three times now and most of this material is just wallpaper to me, even with the maestro playing on it. I am not even going to apologise for that, because this stuff is not what I am about - and there are plenty of places readers can go, if straight jazz criticism is what they are looking for! The nine pieces across the two discs total just under two hours of music, but may not have been all that was played: "All the Things You Are" fades out, at the end of disc one, and whilst it's done very subtly, there is an edit following the end of "Mr P.C." and its attendant applause: either an announcement of some sort was cut out, or we are actually missing another number or two.

I do have to admit that the band sounds great on the faster numbers, at least - I don't feel at all qualified to pass judgement on most of the others, since they just slide past my ears without my registering anything much - and if you are looking for precisely this sort of affair, i.e. B. genuinely sitting in with a straight-ahead jazz trio playing modern rep^, this probably is a rather good example of it. Whether it represents what the critics made it out to be is another matter again: Lange makes it sound as if the existence of this album somehow implies a whole extra thread to B's career that we didn't know about, in which he played the "travelling gunslinger" role, sitting in with local bands all over the place (... but we know he didn't); Chris Kelsey, himself a saxophonist, wrote for Allmusic that B. "plays this entire live set as if he's got something to prove, and the result is very possibly the most inspired mainstream playing he's ever put on record". In reality, Lange is just doing what one has to^^ in this situation, finding something nice to say (and probably counting the words at the end of every paragraph); actually, he does admirably, managing to avoid platitudes and cliches almost entirely, but he is still ultimately overselling this. Kelsey, meanwhile, is guilty of the same sin plenty of other critics have committed before and since^^^: that of making out that there is something unusual in the intensity of B's playing on this date - as if he didn't bring exactly the same degree of intensity and focus to bear, every damn time he puts the horn to his mouth. 

So there we are: I did briefly get carried away with the idea of this, but I'm over it now. It will (of course) remain in the collection, but it might be quite some time before it gets another outing... as I say, it is doubtless a good example of its type, it's just not what I myself am looking for. Can I get back to GTM now, please..?

* 1993 was a fairly action-packed year for B., albeit with a conspicuous gap (at least in terms of recording sessions, or live dates which saw official release) between July and October; since I had been looking closely at the activity which had immediately preceded the Parker Project - and even more closely at the beginnings of Joe Fonda's tenure - I suddenly could not ignore this "other standards date"...

** Well, he did if his Discogs bio is to be believed. Given the nature of this very post here, perhaps I had better not take any of this stuff quite for granted...

*** It's still for sale, at £25 plus postage; I don't anticipate its being bought any time soon, but the same seller wants £20 for his copy of Quartet (Dortmund) 1976 - a reissue which is probably rather more actively sought after, to be fair - and will very probably hold out for the listed price (as he is of course perfectly entitled to do)...

# During the opening minutes, when only the core trio is playing, a female voice can be heard so clearly at times that one can almost hear what she is saying: really, there's no way this could have been recorded at the university.

## He does his best here to make this sound Monkish, I suppose - and in fairness, it must be admitted that most if not all of Monk's own blues compositions were, themselves, extremely basic in a formal sense. (His many harder pieces are invariably in 32-bar "song form".) But just because a genius like Monk could get away with that, doesn't mean anyone else can simply come along and copy him... Monk had ways of finding and unlocking hidden dimensions in simple materials; most musicians... well, don't. It's just the way it is.

### I do of course still have some stuff like this in my collection; I even listen to it, from time to time. But those are all top-flight dates featuring legendary players: I have no stomach at all for hearing lesser musicians grapple with this stuff, and that's that.

^ As I've said before, In the Tradition doesn't really count, because B. was filling in for Dexter Gordon (and the other guys were not into it). However, if you're looking for an example of B. sitting in with a straight-ahead trio, I still reckon there is a better one - not least because of the material - but again it's a studio date, and that's a different animal from what we're considering here.

^^ I can't technically say I'm talking from experience, because nobody has ever asked me to write liner notes (thankfully... can you imagine how long I would take?!) - but in my long-ago days as a published reviewer, I did have to carve out acceptable paragraphs on recordings by people I had no wish to offend, without having any real inspiration to work with... so I do pretty much know what this feels like. (I do not miss it.)

^^^ I've said repeatedly - in the past - that critics love this kind of shit: "so-and-so plays better than he has in years"... and it never seems to occur to them how inherently offensive and demeaning it is to come out with this garbage. If this new album / book / picture etc is the best thing in ages, that means that all the other recent stuff was mediocre, doesn't it? I'm pretty sure most artists detest this stuff and have real difficulty accepting it as a "compliment" at all - I know for a fact that the maestro felt that way about it. 

Status report

 

Seemed like the right time for one of these, following the completion of something I had been putting off... Every so often I like to remind myself - and anyone who might happen to be reading in real time, so to speak - of the various different lines of enquiry which I have going on, and what I might have lined up. As always, some of the lines may be placed on indefinite hold, while others may forge ahead; as always, what is listed below won't (can't) take into account the things which suddenly crop up demanding my attention, and which get tackled right away. But that's how it goes around here, and anyone who has paid any degree of attention over the years will know that by now...

1. It's easiest to start where I left off, as it were: the continuing (slow-motion) attempt to lay the groundwork for being able to understand the Roland Dahinden project Ensemble Montaigne (Bau 4) 2013. (I hope I shall be excused for not linking to every previous post where I have mentioned this; most if not all of them were linked in the relevant paragraph of the last one of these "to camera" posts.) Getting to grips with Comp. 136 was really the easy bit - not that one would know that, from how long it took for me to get it done; but at least I am confident that I will recognise this piece when it turns up again, assuming it turns up at all*. How easy it will be to do the same for Comps. 94, 96 & 98 is another matter again. But that's something I need to try and figure out**. 

2. Another recent and therefore obvious line of enquiry: GTM, in a) theory and b) practice. I began the investigations under 2b) last summer, and had always intended to follow these up - but have not managed it. Since then, I have also started making 2a) some sort of serious attempt to understand the theory behind this major development in modern music, and that will also continue - pretty imminently, or at least that is the intention***. In both cases, these wells ought to dry up relatively quickly; but you never know at this point what I may uncover in the process of digging.

3. There is still quite a bit of repertoire to look at, notably four (very) different albums of solo explorations# - but also including an album of duets, and potentially another experiment as well. (Of the six recordings just mentioned, I only own two of them as official releases, but I'm fortunate enough to have reference copies of all of them.) More than enough there to keep me busy for a while, and by the time I've dealt with that lot, hopefully someone else will have brought out more interpretations of BraxRep...

4. Speaking of solo efforts, my gradually-continuing study of B's solo saxophone recitals will eventually bear some sort of fruit as well, although I still haven't really got granular with this stuff (a couple of recent mentions were more along the lines of announcing new developments, although I did at least threaten to get into the details with the latter of those). On the one hand, this kind of material seems in principle to be the sort of stuff which I am not remotely qualified to examine; on the other, given that the vast majority of the solo pieces are not through-composed anyway, it may well be precisely the kind of thing to which I am well suited in practice. I still intend to start (back) at the very beginning, when I get round to it. 

5. I'd forgotten that I even mentioned this last year, but one of my "back-burner" ideas for a little while now has been to make some sort of comparison between B's large-scale projects involving well-known musicians, and those where he is basically directing an orchestra made up of (near-)unknowns. [There are plenty of examples of both, and - again, as with 1. above - anyone who wants the hyperlinks is referred to the relavent paragraph of the post from last August.] Recent thinking on this subject has made me realise that in fact the comparisons will need to be drawn between three approaches, not two: the first type of performance outlined above breaks down into two sub-types, because there are further distinctions to be made between creative orchestra recordings where B. gets to choose his collaborators - no shortage of these - and those meetings where he gets busy with a group already assembled, comprising strong personalities and voices. [This one, if I'm honest, really feels like a possible case of biting off more than I can chew, and is not likely to take shape any time soon. But I do think there is something in there worth exploring...]

6. There are still plenty of videos in my to-watch list, not a few of which were first brought to my attention by McClintic Sphere last summer...

7. ... and I still have some intention of looking at "sideman gigs", or some of them at any rate - again, possibly drawing a distinction there between actual sideman appearances on other artists' work (these are mainly older recordings, of course) and more collaborative efforts, where B's involvement was more integral to proceedings. I quite like the idea of this, but... I dunno, not sure how likely it is to get done. Maybe. 

8. What very possibly will get done is a three-way comparison of the different studio recordings of Comp. 40q - I would really like to do this at some point. (One thing which will definitely get followed up is this business of comparative analysis, maybe starting with Comp. 142...)

That really feels like quite enough to be getting on with, especially given the fact that some of it will remain on the back burner for... who knows how long. Onwards, as they say, and upwards... 

* I mentioned last year that the stated primary - or first? - territory for the 2013 project was Comp. 174, but it clearly isn't that - instead it is very likely to be 147, a simple enough mistake. However, if a mistake can be made there, why not elsewhere? It may turn out that some of the listed tertiaries - if that is indeed what they are, which I will try to determine when the time comes - are wrong as well. It does seem quite plausible that Dahinden would insert 136, though, given its general suitability for such a performance and the fact that he had already tackled it pretty thoroughly on an album of his own. 

** It's not listed in most places, but I do already know that the Swiss project contains material from one of the early GTM territories as well; from memory, this was Comp. 193, which would make sense since Dahinden played on the original reading of that one. (Its presence is very noticeable on the actual album, I do remember that much.) 

*** ... but then I did originally intend to do the 136 post at least ten months before I actually wrote it. No promises :-S

# The Heffley album is so obscure that Discogs does not even have a listing for it - at least, not one that I can find. (It may turn out to be one of those things which is there, somewhere, but with a misleading title and/or artist credit, and thus "unsearchable" by any usual means.)

Comparative analysis: Composition 136

This is something which I've been leading up to for months and months already - nothing unusual there, of course - and for that matter, this post is itself only preparatory work for something else, when it comes down to it. I said something in passing last autumn about this being very nearly ready, then when I wasn't able to follow up on that, just stopped mentioning it - and kept putting it off (even though on my "rolling schedule" it was never more than two or three posts in the future - supposedly). The background work for it was done a long time ago, so much so in fact that I had to redo it when the time finally came to write this; last year, I just didn't feel like writing it, and I think part of the problem there was knowing (semi-consciously) that once I've got this exercise out of the way, the next phase is much harder: carrying out similar research on those compositions in the 9x range, beginning with Comp. 94. How far I will get with that, very much remains to be seen; still, in the meantime I may as well set down what I found out about the various versions of Comp. 136 which I listened to in preparation for this.

The archived version of Restructures lists no fewer than ten recordings of this piece (in various different contexts - not always straight-up readings). Two of these were ruled out right away: the Roland Dahinden project Concept of Freedom - credited to Anthony Braxton (+ Duke Ellington) - is not something I have in any format at time of writing, and only snippets of it seem to be available online*; and although I do have the Rastascan release Nine Compositions (DVD) 2003**, this is not immediately playable with my current setup. I'm not overly worried about either omission: in both cases, 136 appears as one of numerous tertiary materials interpolated into a much larger and broader structure, and although my main aim in the present case is to be satisfied that I can always recognise the piece when it crops up in precisely these circumstances, it won't be necessary to check out existing examples of this beforehand - rather, these will prove useful "checkers" when I encounter them later on (by giving me the opportunity to identify 136 in a "collaged" context***).

The other eight recordings listed on Restructures# are all in my collection - in one format or another - and all of them were examined for this post (plus one further recording, of much more recent vintage). It's not easy to find the graphic title for the piece reproduced clearly online; luckily, the booklet for the duo album with Gino Robair includes (slightly randomly) a large-scale reproduction of the same, which I am therefore able to show here:

As we can see, this playful diagram (depicting what appears to be a downhill skiing race on a sunny day) cleverly uses the line denoting the slope of the hill in a secondary aspect - the "satellites" which frequently turn up in these graphic titles are attached to it in this instance. 

Needless to say, I don't have access to the score - not that I would really know what to make of it if I did! - and the five-volume Composition Notes do not go this far##. I am reliant on my own ears and listening experience for any conclusions which follow; it seems obvious from several of the versions examined here that the piece in its full glory is fairly long and comprises several sections, but of these, one in particular is what will enable to curious listener to recognise the piece whenever it crops up in a live set, or in the middle of something else. This is not always the first section played, as we will see; but the overall consensus implied by the majority of the recordings available is that it is probably the opening section of the score: it centres around what I have come to think of as a sort of "woodpecker" motif, in which a single note is played repeatedly, attacked staccato, in rapid succession but also increasing in speed each time - in the manner of a bouncing ball. From some of the more orthodox readings available, it would seem that this is only a rather small part of the overall composition, but it's nevertheless the part which is most readily identifiable; and in some cases it is more or less the only part which gets quoted at all, so that it will come ultimately to serve as the "theme". (The staccato nature of the motif may or may not indicate that this written section belongs to language type 4; not all of the written composition has the same character.)

Whether what follows is really classifiable as a "comparative analysis" is of course open to question: but I have already laboured the point quite enough when it comes to outlining my own limitations as a commentator, and I see no great need to reprise all that here. In any case I shan't attempt to undertake a full dissection of any of the versions described below; rather it's more a case of reporting any significant impressions gained while listening, and any observations which I made. Following Restructures, the recordings are described in chronological order.

***

1. Gino Robair / Anthony Braxton### Duets 1987 (Rastascan / Music & Arts)

This reading - the earliest we have on record - plays like an authentic duet (which may sound redundant, but it's not quite true of all the duo readings - as we will find out). It begins with the "woodpecker" section as noted above, and almost all passages are played in unison; the exception to this rule is in Robair's percussion solo, which itself has to have been taken from Comp. 96 (the track is - in its corrected form### - entitled "Composition No. 136 (+ 96)", and this is really the only place where the tertiary material could be located). Robair's playing on this is interesting enough in its own right that it is possible to listen to the track just focusing on him; nor is this any reflection on B., who plays just as well as we would expect, whether on alto (to begin with), contrabass sax in the middle of the piece, or sopranino to conclude. The last section is characterised by long, sustained tones (language type 1). The drum solo, meanwhile, features a lot of press-rolls on various surfaces, which should in turn make it easier to identify 96 when it comes up in other contexts^. 

2. London Jazz Composers Orchestra Zurich Concerts (Intakt)

The second iteration of the piece occurs as part of the second half of this star-studded orchestral album, which (as a whole) contains two separate performances organised by Barry Guy (whose brainchild the LJCO was to begin with). The performance we are concerned with^^ took place on 27th March 1988, conducted by B., who himself does not play on it; reedmen include Trevor Watts and Evan Parker, among others. (The whole orchestra is of a ridiculously high standard.) As can be seen from the setlist, 136 is the second of three (or four^^^) primary territories, each of which is subject to collaging. There are no breaks as such, but the liners for the album helpfully list all the featured soloists, in order, which makes it very easy to follow as one listens - and in any case, now that we know what 136 sounds like, it is very easy to pick out here. Before the last notes of Alan Tomlinson's trombone solo have decayed into silence, the familiar staccato 136 motif starts up, and there we are underway again. Once more the tertiary material is specified as 96, which simplifies things for the listener. The written theme here is of course played by at least a dozen instruments at once, with a somewhat "staggered" effect (which one must assume was the way B. wanted it, given that he was directing and had such skilled musicians at his disposal), and there is also a dissonant flavour to the proceedings during the unison sections, as if some early version of the diamond clef is in play; the players are all voicing the same relative pitches, but may very well not all be playing the same notes, as far as I can tell.

The first written section is followed by a drum solo, played by Paul Lytton and (with the benefit of the Robair duet for comparison) almost certainly taken from 96, again heavily featuring rolls on numerous different membranophones. This is followed by another unison section, which in turn gives way to another drum solo, this one recognisable to me at once as being played by Tony Oxley (but which may or may not be part of 96 this time). A third written section is followed by yet another drum solo, this one by Lytton again - unless it features both drummers at once~~, but if that's the case it makes an awful lot less noise than one might expect. A fourth and final unison section yields to an intriguing double-horn part, in which only Henry Lowther (on trumpet) and Steve Wick (tuba) are heard - although it's a little dubious as to whether these count as "solos" since both are playing at once. In any case both play complex lines which could very well be in some part informed by the written score - or may not be. I still can't be sure of that... but in any case, as soon as Dave Holland enters on bass, closely followed by Radu Malfatti on trombone, we have moved on to the next set of materials, and that's that. [Extraordinary though this performance is, it is possible to emerge from it wondering whether the other approach - that is, where the orchestra is made up not of star improvisers but of journeyman readers and players - might not ultimately work better for B's larger-scale musics... to be continued. (Maybe.)]

3. Anthony Braxton / Marilyn Crispell Duets Vancouver 1989 (Music & Arts)

This performance, from the following June, sees B. reunited with the pianist from his quartet, of course; it's the second time that a duo rendition of 136 will have been captured for posterity. It opens proceedings, in this case, and with B. on flute for a change; if this at times seemed like the maestro's weakest axe, that is certainly not the case here as he appears to have been sharpening up his flute chops in readiness, perhaps feeling that he has something of a point to prove... Again, this reading begins exactly as we would expect, with the "woodpecker" motif salient in the written line, both players in unison as the music evolves to a difficult part with the same staccato figure included as a constant, a holographic fragment in which one may glimpse the essence of the piece. (If it seems hard to envisage some of these lines being written out rather than improvised, they way they are played by the duo makes it clear that they are; perhaps, as was so often the case with the music of Cecil Taylor, many listeners cannot reconcile themselves to the idea of music being written out which does not have a "hummable tune".) Crispell's nimble pianism lights this reading up, of course, and when B. returns on sopranino it really completes the picture. Again, some long held notes make themselves heard in due course, interspersed with tricky fast runs: this was noted in the 1987 recording. It's as if a crucial feature of the piece is to introduce key "language-units" amidst flowing written lines which evince different characteristics entirely - but where those same morphemes stand out in such a way as to predominate in the listening ear.

What appears to be the second section of the theme sees Crispell playing two different parts simultaneously, her left hand working away at something quite distinct from the runs at the top end of the keyboard. Possibly a third section of the written material starts around two minutes in; but without the ability to write music and make a real note of what I'm hearing, I found it too difficult to trace the progress of the piece much beyond this. As noted above, there are numerous moments of playing in unison which can only mean the two players are working from the score; when it sounds as if B. has taken flight into a solo, this still does not have the sense of a "solo with accompaniment" precisely, as Crispell continues to contribute actively. As with Robair in the '87 recording detailed above, one could focus entirely on the piano while listening to this version of the piece. [When I first listened to this again last year, I forgot about the limitations of this version of the album~ and carried on thinking I was still hearing 136 long after it had switched over to Comp. 140; this time, I was ready for it and timing the music while playing it, and found that if you are paying close attention and looking for it, there is a brief but clear pause between territories as 136 closes.]

4. Anthony Braxton with Ted Reichman Duo (Leipzig) 1993 (Music & Arts)

More than four years elapse before the next (released) version turns up, another duet - and a long one: the running order is wrong on Restructures~~~, but the timings are correct, and this lasts more than fourteen minutes. Once again, the piece begins with the familiar motif, the written line now very quickly recognisable. Reichman begins on piano, switching to accordion later; once the piece is properly up and running, B. takes off into incredible flights of virtuosity, but as with the 1989 recording with Crispell, this reading never has the feel of a solo with mere backing. Reichman always seems to be contributing, whichever instrument he is on: when B. takes off, the pianist seems to be working away still at elements of the written material, not just laying down chords. The protracted opening section, played in unison, gives a sense of how long the written passages really are - though, again, I found it difficult to sustain full concentration after a certain point and would really struggle to describe the entire composition (or even to know how much of this is written out). 

5. Anthony Braxton Small Ensemble Music (Wesleyan) 1994 (Splasc(h) World Series)

This intriguing one-off album catches B. giving (presumably) some sort of recital concert, featuring various students playing with him in a number of very different settings. The fourth and last cut is also (slightly) the longest, and showcases what will very nearly be the working sextet, a year later: Jason (Kao) Hwang on violin (here miscredited as Jason Wong), Ted Reichman on accordion, Joe Fonda on bass and Kevin Norton on percussion; the only change to personnel as regards the following year's Istanbul concert - effectively the debut of GTM for the world at large - is that Roland Dahinden (who appeared here in a reading of the trio piece Comp. 107) would take over the trombone role which is played on this occasion by Mike Heffley@. The rubric for this sextet performance is a little complex, and will be reproduced here exactly as it was given on Restructures:

Comp. 44 (+ 108 D + 96) + 168         [21:13]

Comp. 136

Comp. 43 + (96) + 168     

- which is potentially rather confusing, and I could certainly come up with a more consistent/plausible way of rendering it (according to the traditional methods of reproducing collaged titles), but the important part for us here is easy enough: the performance breaks down into three separate segments, of which 136 is the second, and unlike the segments which precede it and follow it, it is not collaged. In practice, it is very easy to hear that this section begins at 9:10, after a short pause; it's not quite so simple to establish how long it lasts, and when it ends. Naturally, what makes it so easy to spot the beginning of the piece is the fact that it again begins with the familiar motif; somewhat after the fashion of the LJCO concert, the effect during the written lines is "staggered" slightly, the players not strictly in rigid time with each other, and again one has to presume this was intentional (it is, in any case, rather effective). Once the first parts are done with, Reichman and Hwang freak out completely, leading a very active and busy passage in which the general mood is very hot and exciting; as they dial it down a bit, Heffley makes his presence felt (with a somewhat heavier, fatter tone than Dahinden normally has). Almost imperceptibly, the music drifts into a more meditative, lyrical phase - which does display some of the long tones already identified as pertinent to this piece in previous versions - and it is hard to be sure when the third section starts. At 16:16, a new theme is heard which is definitely "something else"; but this sounds very like 168, which is supposedly not the bit we would expect to hear next@@. Still - from this point on, it is certainly the third segment of the performance and no longer of relevance to us today. The part which is, as described above, is quite action-packed and gives a lot of freedom to most if not all of the players - B. absolutely does not dominate proceedings on this - but it does meander a bit as it moves towards the next territory, and it can be quite difficult to stay focused as a listener beyond a certain point.

6. Roland Dahinden Trios Naima (Mode 62)

This 1997 release gathers recordings from two years earlier@@@, and is credited the way it is because it features two different trios, both led by Dahinden and both featuring the drum talents of Art Fuller - more artful than the average drummer, evidently - but with Joe Fonda again in one case, and the maestro himself in the other. What is easy to forget, and must be borne in mind, is that B. plays on the two long pieces composed by the young leader, and not on the number which he wrote himself.

Staring once again with the familiar "woodpecker" motif, the music seems to move quite quickly into something else, but then tends to return to that same language unit - as we might think of it - fairly frequently. It's another long reading, and must presumably cover the entire written score, though it does also very much sound as if that same score is used as the springboard for some very intense, spirited improvisation; the impression I was left with in my recent listening was of a group exercise in tone colour, all three musicians very much sounding together rather than simply playing at once. Dahinden's interplay with Fuller is terrific on this, but Fonda - playing arco for most of the piece - is consistently interesting too. At first, the trombone plays the line as written while the bass sort of echoes it, and the drums "accent" it; eventually, Dahinden launches into an extraordinary display of speed and technical skill, displaying imagination, finesse and subtlety in a dynamite solo which incorporates a sort of growling, multiphonic timbre at one point (setting up another dip back into the opening thematic material). Come to think of it, this approach - periodically touching base with the materials, then taking off into the ether in between times - is not at all dissimilar to the way B. himself is prone to treat standards, as I have noted before, so if that is indeed what RD was doing here, there is good precedent for it. No trouble whatsoever marvelling at the virtuosity on display here - Fuller is brilliant on this, by the way - but detecting the overall shape of it, and trying to establish what proportion is written and what improvised... is beyond my present abilities, such as they are.

7. Anthony Braxton with Joe Fonda 10 Compositions (Duet) 1995 (Konnex)$

Chronologically speaking, this is the last of the duets - and it's also something of an outlier in more than one respect: it initially took me longer than it "ought" to have to get a proper feel for the piece, largely because last year, I began with this version (for reasons which seemed to make sense at the time, but I can no longer recall). The most identifiable section of the written line only begins quite late on in this version, and it's also not really what I would call a duet, albeit it is clearly a duo performance. For much of its duration, it has the feel of a "solo with backing" - precisely what I have already said that the other three duet readings aren't - rather than anything truly interactive, and although that solo is itself suitably eye-watering in its virtuosity, it still seems a little odd to be hearing the bass take such an unassuming role here. Beginning with string plunks and a few long tones, we soon find ourselves in (what is presumably) a later section of the score, swooping arpeggios and arco bass eventually birthing a repeating figure, and interspersed fast runs with long, sustained (LM1) tones, as observed during the latter phase of many of the versions described above. Eventually this gives way to the motif which forms the beginning of (basically) all the earlier readings, though when this does appear, it doesn't last long before B. takes off into the stratosphere. The expected written parts are still of course taken in unison, but the whole reading seems to have been "flipped" and played in reverse order; after B's solo, more unison parts do occur at the end. It's - let's see - not inherently strange that B. should choose to interpret one of his pieces in such a way, and the temptation to reorder it structurally is certainly understandable after numerous "straight" versions during the previous few years... but to relegate the album's duo partner to an accompanist's role does feel a little perverse, almost unfair. We know that Fonda could offer more than this. [I probably need to relisten to the whole album, sooner rather than later.]

136 disappears for a good few years after that, and then this happens:

8. Anthony Braxton / Sonny Simmons / Brandon Evans / Andre Vida / Shanir Blumenkranz / Mike Pride (untitled album)

This insane one-off recording was cut at Wesleyan on 8th February 2003, and originally released later the same year, as a double-CDr on Evans' Parallactic label$$; it is hugely exciting (almost overwhelming at times) to listen to, and more or less useless when it comes to the task at hand. This is partly down to the same factors that make it so invigorating, i.e. the personnel involved almost inevitably leads the date to become a sort of free-for-all; but it's also because it's really quite hard to work out what we are hearing, in formal terms. One of two Braxton compositions on the eight-track album, the piece under the microscope is presented under the "enigmatic" (i.e. meaningless) title "508M (+ Comp. 136)", and whatever the main body of the piece is supposed to be, it obviously isn't Comp. 508m (which does not exist and never has). Something got garbled, somewhere along the line, which is rather odd when we consider that Evans was a senior student of B's and one would think that he would have got this right$$$. The best guess - prima facie, but also backed up (ish) by the actual music - is that one of the 108 series was intended to be noted, though presumably not as the "primary" territory, and in any case, that series runs only a-d and therefore gets nowhere near "108m". Who knows, really..?

In terms of identifiable landmarks, we can at least clearly hear 136 itself, or the famous bit, at any rate: teased and hinted at before 3:00 is on the clock, it is then played (sort of) properly from around 3:30, but amidst the ensuing mayhem it's pretty much impossible to decipher how much else of what's played is written out. What comes at the beginning, for that matter, may be some sort of lead-up (in the manner of the Antilles reading of 40b, perhaps, but longer) or may be something else again; the only other real thematic clue comes around the twelve-minute mark, when a brief pause is followed by something that does sound like a pulse track, even though if that's what is going on there, the whole band should surely not be playing it in unison. It doesn't last long, anyway, and most of the remainder of the (seventeen-minute) piece is - well, again, who knows what it is. So much for the specifics; the main interest in the album as a whole lies of course in hearing all these guys together, especially B. and Simmons (who only met on this one date, as far as I know) - and they both make their presence felt on this track in several places. B's is indeed the first voice we hear, with just some light skittering from Pride, and he is clearly audible from around 7:55, for example, as well as at several points beforehand; Simmons tears through the mix at 5:38, instantly identifiable with his pungent, biting tone and exceptionally fast articulation (and again can be clearly heard at other times too). In a way the most remarkable thing about the mix is how prominent the bass and drums are, and how loudly they were recorded (possibly to ensure they did not get drowned out); Blumenkranz in particular sounds thunderous on this, so one can only infer that (what Bob Rusch would regard as) forbidden studio trickery was employed: the bass on this album is the polar opposite of what one hears - or doesn't hear - on a CIMP release, and reminds us how powerful an instrument the contrabass really is. Oh, and look! - four saxophones. Those Italian guys really did get a little carried away with the idea that the 2022 Lorraine dates represented something formally groundbreaking for B. (And why the need for hype..? the music on that box set is more than interesting enough in its right.)

I did say in the second paragraph of this post than a ninth version of the piece was consulted, to wit:

9. Payton MacDonald Explorations 16 (Music Of Anthony Braxton) (self-released)

Mallet percussionist Payton MacDonald was already on my radar by the time I found about this four-track Bandcamp release: back in November 2022 I wrote briefly about a duo recording he made with (reedman) Gideon Forbes of B's Comp. 305, a piece which he reprised for this project, released in 2021. One of many, many instalments in this prolific player's Explorations series, this one also includes Comps. 304, 142% and - of course - 136, which closes out proceedings on this occasion. Credited as a solo marimba performance, this certainly appears to be multi-tracked (although with these four-mallet wizards, one is seldom sure). It's an intriguing listen for certain, but if I'd originally thought it might be a useful point of reference - on the grounds that the interpreter is likely to adhere quite closely to the score - I ultimately changed my mind about that, simply because it's a long reading at sixteen minutes, and following its twists and turns is rather beyond my ability as a semi-informed listener. As is almost the case, the piece begins with the best-known section of the theme, and as with the Roland Dahinden version described in 6. above, MacDonald seems to gravitate back to the staccato "woodpecker" motif at regular intervals throughout, but other than being firmly convinced that this is a serious musician to be reckoned with, I failed to draw any meaningful new conclusions. 

It would be fascinating to see the written score at some point: not that I could read it (!), but it would still be really interesting to see how long it is - and how many of these complicated fast sections (which the longer readings have in common, besides the obvious motif) were actually through-composed. In the meantime, I am finally done with 136 for the time being... and can at long last move on to something even more challenging..!

* - in any case my (fragmentary) understanding of this album is that it's somewhat like a patchwork quilt, pieced together from various works by the two master composers, rather than a "reading" of Comp. 257 with numerous tertiaries folded in. I had previously noted that the album gives equal status to B. and Ellington, but it's actually more the case (from the way the release is credited) that B. is given precedence here - not that I would infer from this that B. is to be considered the superior composer, as such. (By the way, 257 is not included on my recent GTM list, nor is it on smartpatrol's list - except as the subject of this specific album. I don't know what type of work it is, though I would guess it's GTM... I do have to get hold of this recording at some point, obviously.) [I am perilously close to needing footnotes for my footnotes, at this stage...]

** In this case, 136 appears as one of no fewer than fourteen tertiary materials worked into the main territory, Comp. 190. (This latter was identified recently as one of three "probable" GTM works which I cannot presently confirm, all of which appear on this same six-hour monster.)

*** The reason for the inverted commas here: although I tend to use the term "collage" quite freely in my posts, technically it applies only to the strategies employed by the "Forces quartet" in the mid-eighties and early nineties. Even if the same principle seems to have been used continually ever since, it's a little doubtful whether B. or his collaborators would recognise the term as being correct in any later context. 

# smartpatrol lists nine, of which one is there by mistake. The Rastascan DVD is not included for some reason (probably because it would have been too much work to comb through every single release in search of tertiaries), nor is Naima, an album not credited to B., and thus not one we would expect to see on this particular list. Ensemble Montaigne (Bau 4) 2013 is included, simply because this list was compiled later than the version of the Restructures discography available in archived form; the other anomaly here highlights one of this person's rare errors, as 136 is linked incorrectly to the Hildegard Kleeb piano box (which does of course include the solo piano work Comp. 139), but not to the duo album with Marilyn Crispell. (This is presumably just a slip, the result of temporarily confusing one pianist with another - if smartpatrol actually did not know the difference between 136 and 139, various other albums would also show up erroneously on this list.)

## Even the catalog(ue) of works only goes as far as Comp. 132, in any of my sources.

### This (Robair's name first) is how the album is credited on Restructures, reflecting the original LP release on Robair's own label (which also lists the present piece incorrectly as 134). When Music & Arts reissued the album on CD in 1998, they reversed the order of the artists, added two extra tracks and revised the running order. All of this is laid out in more detail in my post from last September (which also rather optimistically suggested that this very article was to be the "next post"... only eight months late! who's counting?!).

^ It is very common to see 96 listed as a tertiary, especially during the "Forces" quartet's original collage phase, and very often when one of the 3x-range piano pieces is also listed within the same set of brackets; the temptation is to assume that this generally means Gerry Hemingway plays the drum solo from 96 while Crispell plays pages from 30 (or 31, etc) and B. continues exploring the primary territory - Mark Dresser meanwhile may be doing something else entirely. 

^^ No disrespect is intended to Guy's own "Polyhymnia", which is a fascinating piece in its own right (and besides - with that line-up, the results are pretty much guaranteed to be worth hearing). [This is a fascinating album, and well worth tracking down - I myself only bought a copy last year, and had not heard it before then.]

^^^ Whether the pulse track 108b counts as a primary territory or not is rather subject to debate, I would say - but that is the way it's listed on the album, i.e. as the third piece in a continuous performance.

~ There are two versions of this album, with the same content, but indexed differently. The original version on Music & Arts, which is the one I have on CD, comprises one long track, although the individual timings for the primary territories are provided as a guide. The second version - issued only in Japan, under licence from M&A but on the Another Side (Of Jazz) imprint - is indexed into separate tracks. (Part of me would quite like to have both, of course.)

~~ The liner notes list the soloists thus: Lytton, Oxley, Lytton, Oxley, Lowther and Wick. As I say, the second drum solo is immediately identifiable as Oxley (to anyone who has heard much of this highly idiosyncratic player); but there are only three drum solos, not four, so either there is a misprint in the liners or the third solo has both men playing together. I don't think so - I reckon it's probably a mistake. (But admittedly I haven't heard this album through headphones yet.)

~~~ This caused real confusion when I first came back to this album last year: playing track three, I could only conclude that it was totally unrecognisable, and sounded like a different piece altogether. Of course, I eventually realised that it was a different piece altogether, namely Comp. 167; as noted above, the corrective details are provided in a post from September last year. (Further to that post, I can confirm that the last track on the album - contrary to its graphic title, which is that for Comp. 100 - is definitely Comp. 86.)

@ Heffley's name may strike some readers as familiar, even if they can't immediately place it, and may be unknown to others; but he occupies quite a special place in this work nevertheless. A student of B's, he not only recorded an (unfortunately obscure) album of Brax-rep, he also published a book - which I don't own myself, but I know was highly regarded by the maestro. (Whether all the players were in fact also students at Wesleyan at the time of the 1994 performance is uncertain - Fonda in particular very probably wasn't - but it's pretty obviously the case that the majority of them were.)

@@ The problem with that expectation is: Comp. 43 is not officially recorded anywhere else, so comparisons are unavailable :(   However, it is decribed in the catalog(ue) of works as a "Medium fast pulse multi-structure", so it would seem unlikely that the dreamy couple of minutes leading up to 16:16 are representative of this piece.

@@@ Restructures - which was always scrupulous about such things (the part of the site we are concerned with called itself a Braxton Discography, but would more accurately be called a sessionography) - gives the date only as "1995 - May & December", implying that one session took place in May 1995 and the other in December of the same year, but lacking certainty as to which was which, and without any precise dates given at all. I don't own the album as such, but scans available online confirm that incomplete information is provided on it; we do know that December 27th saw B. in a New York studio waxing eighteen solo piano numbers, so it's quite feasible that he was in New Jersey earlier that same month, or even in the few days following; but we know that he gets around, even now, so that is not much to go on...

$ These are of course the details for the original release. I actually have the 2007 reissue on Clean Feed, simply entitled Duets 1995. [2007..! that was a good year ;-) ]

$$ As Restructures noted, Evans later reissued it digitally on his Bandcamp page in 2013, under the title Complete Sessions / Parallactic 54; the same page lists the album as (still) available in hard copy, though Discogs lists the latter as a 2017 release on a label called Human Plastic (which would also appear to be something to do with Evans). 

$$$ Evans first appears in the discography, along with Vida, on that same Splasc(h) release discussed in 5. above - but not in the same piece, of course. He crops up frequently between then and 2000, sometimes as one of many saxophonists, sometimes as a featured soloist. By 2003 he could definitely be considered a senior (ex-)student, of equivalent status to James Fei, Jackson Moore et al. (He evidently had some sort of close working relationship with Simmons, but I don't know the details.)

% 304 was unveiled on the same duo album with THB which originally shared 305 with the world... whilst 142 originally appeared as the encore of Ensemble (Victoriaville) 1988, and was later covered on Jump or Die... and will eventually be the subject of another comparison post, when I get round to it..!

(Late) birthday card

 

I missed the day!!*

Nevertheless the blog wishes a Happy birthday (for yesterday) to Maestro Anthony Braxton, a continued inspiration to us all.

Long may you flourish and prosper, sir...

C x

* Unfortunately June 4th has acquired a new significance in my household, since last year - but the date was nagging at me, and it wasn't until this morning that I realised :-S