The 110 series: more questions unanswered

 

A couple of months back I posted about the Black Saint box, which I had just acquired at a bargain price; shortly thereafter, in a post mainly given over to speculation about B's cancelled travel plans, I cleared up a tiny bit of confusion regarding the identity of "Comp. 110", as listed in some sources for the Sound Aspects CD Prag 1984 (Quartet Performance) - although it's not listed that way on the album itself. One of the inclusions in the Black Saint box, Six Compositions (Quartet) 1984, features three of the pieces from the 110 series and it proved straightforward in the end to confirm that the Prague concert did indeed include Comp. 110a, as both the numerical description and the graphic title on the original album had suggested all along*. 

Looking at this even briefly, though, got me thinking that I really needed to make a bit of time with the Composition Notes, to look at the 110 series as a whole. Like I say, three of the individual pieces ended up on that brilliant album; the fourth (110b) cannot be found on any album. And even among the three which did get recorded for posterity, it's not as if they are ostensibly linked by any common feature in the writing - or not according to the notes which appear on the back of the album, anyway: largely driven by the composer's desire to showcase his new pulse track structures, Six Compositions (Quartet) 1984 finds subtly different ways to explore that concept in four of its six tracks, but the remaining two are airily summarised as "impressionistic ballade** structures" by B. in the album's notes***, and bear in mind that these two are themselves part of the 110 series. So, whatever else might characterise that as an entity, it's not simply a counterpart to the 108 series. Or probably not, anyway... I figured I'd better try and nail this down if at all possible.

I didn't get very far...

The Black Saint album's notes say only of 110a that it "seeks to emphasize curve sound dynamics... as a basis for extended improvisation", whilst acknowledging that the latter is limited in this version to a "mosaic of changing impressions (and feelings)", which is rather poetic but not necessarily illuminating; besides this, we are told that that the curve sound dynamics# themselves are "positioned in this context for the bass and percussion"... but we know that the latter two instruments are primarily concerned with the secondary territory 108b, so where does that leave us? Even if we assume that the description here refers to the roles played by the bass and drums before the pulse track kicks in, we'd probably have to admit that the notes raise more questions than they answer; and anyway, in practice, I think 108b starts pretty early on and is then in play for almost the whole length of the piece##. 

As for 110c and 110d, the very simple description quoted above - "impressionistic ballade structures" - is all that B. says about them, except to add that "both of (them) were written for my wife, Nickie" - something we could have inferred from the graphic titles:

- although even this is not quite straightforward, as we will see presently. (As a matter of fact, not even B's assertion in the album's notes that "(a)ll six works are examined in Composition Notes Book E" is straightforwardly true, as it turns out... we're coming to that.)

Because of the way the studio album is itself presented to the attentive listener - showcasing four subtly different approaches to the pulse track, with two "ballade structures" included on top - it's inevitably the case that 110c and 110d come across as "palate cleansers" between more substantial dishes, positioned in the middle of sides one and two of the original vinyl LP. 110c in particular, which lasts four and half minutes, is actually quite dense and complex in this band's hands, but what are you gonna do? - the composer himself has encouraged us to think of these two pieces as inherently lesser works, or at least lighter works. 

So: this is where I was at, before I went to the book for help. Two light ballades, one pulse track structure - or to be more specific, one piece designed to be played against a pulse track - and a conspicuous gap, called 110b, which does not show up anywhere in the recorded canon. Is that even all of them, in this short series? 

That last question, at any rate, does have an answer:

- albeit even here, the date of composition proves somewhat problematic. Actually, numerous aspects of the notes for these four pieces proved to be problematic, when I checked them out; generally characterised by gaps in the text, obviously-missing insertions, typos and in some cases actual errors###, the five-volume Composition Notes are still pretty essential for someone like me, but they can be pretty frustrating if you're looking for answers to questions. Here, we have no overall summary of the 110 series as such^, just the title shown above, and the following: three pages of notes on 110a; four pages of notes, plus two pages of notation, for the mystery piece 110b; approximately five pages of notes on 110c; and no notes at all for 110d, just the graphic title and a couple of pages of very brief notation^^. 

With his synaesthesia in full effect, B. describes 110a as creating the sensation of "blowing winds and trees (on an island experiencing a rain storm)" - then just a few lines later refers to a "whisper" in the space of the music, which itself is rather confusing, since he has not really made clear that he is discussing different sections of the piece (and who knows... maybe he isn't). He confirms that the piece "was quickly written - as a light visual impression", and then follows this up by saying that it can be performed by any instrumentation, "used by itself or in combination with any of the fifty to sixty works that make up my coordinate series of interchangeable works for extended improvisation"; but he does not explain which pieces comprise that "coordinate series", of which the 110 series is, presumably, a part. Not for the first time, we are told that the piece is dedicated to

- with a blank space, just like that, where someone's name was clearly supposed to be.

The third page of notes does at least clarify the reference to the "whisper" - that is, I think it does: a core element is a five-note phrase "that appears each time in a new (different) key (or in a different voicing)" and which is "offered as a 'hush' in the sound space of the music - something that can be felt (seen) and then disappears". The notes do confirm that the piece was first played by this very quartet - although there is nothing in the notes to indicate that it was specifically intended  to showcase the pulse track, rather mentioning almost in passing that "on that occasion the work was coupled with Comp. No. 108d", as if this were a one-off; in practice, we know that the piece became wedded to this type of interpretation, first in the studio, and then live in Prague with the same band; if 108d in the notes is not in itself a typo, B. changed his mind about which pulse track to use with this piece after he debuted it^^^.

Comp. 110b, then, has an intriguing graphic title:

- and four pages of written notes, like I say, as well as some notation (which I can't read). But given that we don't have a single recording of the piece, it seemed pretty pointless to do more than skim the notes: I have nothing to check them against. I did, however, manage to confirm that this piece, too, was premiered by the same quartet (probably at the very same concert - at Sweet Basil in NYC); and, frustratingly, that this piece actually is an inherently pulse-track-adjacent composition, at least if this description is anything to go by: "a rush of moving sixteenth note sound beams... that is suspended over short pockets of changing rhythmic emphasis". That sure sounds like a sort of pulse track to me, which leaves me wondering: so why was this number not included on the Black Saint studio album? But there we go. Oh, and here once again, the number is dedicated to a blank space...

... which itself is actually a little less confusing than is the case for poor old 110c, for which the notes raise so many further questions that I was left wondering if B. might not have been thinking of an entirely different piece when he wrote the notes, and just didn't get round to correcting them. For a piece summarised as a "ballade structure" on the eventual album, the notes on this one are bewilderingly detailed; but by this point I was sufficiently frustrated by this small undertaking that I didn't really make much effort to unpack the notes or to marry them up with what we hear on the record. Part of that is because although this piece is referred to throughout the notes as 110c, it is also said to have been composed in 1982 (!), or at least first performed then (and possibly therefore composed even earlier); and despite the graphic title referencing the missus, we are told the dedicatee of this number, and it wasn't her, but rather the guitarist Spencer Barefield~. Admittedly, writing a piece for someone is not necessarily the same as then dedicating it to them... but it sort of is, right? To be honest this more or less finished me off, as far as researching this post was concerned: like I say, it left me wondering whether B. had had in mind a different piece altogether, or was at best conflating two different pieces when he wrote the notes. Pretty much for this reason alone, I couldn't face the extra work of trying to see to what extent the written description matches the one recording which we have in the canon.

If I achieved anything at all with this bit of digging, then, it was just about highlighting that even geniuses and visionaries may not always be terribly reliable (indeed, they may perhaps be a class of people in whom such qualities might best not be sought at all)... Not that we have four sets of notes even to work from, but the three which we do have, plus the studio album on which three of the four appear, don't really explain what makes the 110 series a coherent series in the first place. But... that's OK. I can live with that. After all, the recordings which we have of those three pieces are still utterly delightful, and if it seems crashingly obvious in retrospect that 110b "should" have been added to the programme, maybe it was felt that it would have disturbed what is otherwise a near-perfect construction: two sides of three pieces each, with two complex pulse track explorations surrounding two lighter ballade structures. In the CD era especially, the album may feel at least ten minutes short on material - but there is no denying how beautifully balanced it is, and it will never ever feel light on content, rewarding just as much careful attention as the friendly experiencer is prepared to give it. Let's just keep hold of that, and move on...

* At the time I wrote that earlier post, I didn't have a physical copy of the Prag CD, but was working on it; I did manage to get one! [The notes don't add much that the partial scans available didn't already make plain, at least in terms of the primary materials used for the concert; I still don't know where Jason G. got the idea that it's "unclear which composition in the Comp. 110 series" was included. As far as I can tell, only one edition (1990) exists of this album - so it's not as if they initially got it wrong and corrected it later.]

** I did have to check this, but B. is using this specific spelling to denote "a piece of music in romantic style (with dramatic elements), typically for piano" - as opposed to the far more common and exoteric ballad, a term which I'm sure needs no explanation from me (though in practice it doubtless means slightly different things to different people). The musical term ballade can itself be defined in different ways, depending on where you look, but they all seem to agree on the piano as a key element (apparently based on the model provided by Chopin). Part of the reason I had to check this is because in modern French, the term balade (single "l") is quite common, but this is regarded as a completely separate word and is in no way specific to the study of the arts.

*** In order to read these at all, I had to take photos and blow them up - the album covers are reproduced so minutely for the 8-CD box set that I basically can't make the text out with my reading glasses, not that I've tried to do so in strong natural light (not always available, sadly...).

# These may or may not be equivalent to (what would now be) language type 9, "legato formings", though I would guess they probably are.

## While I'm at it, the Restructures entry for this album also makes the confusing observation that "108 A & 108 B are not listed on CD documentation". In this case, I don't have the benefit of an original CD for reference - but as far as I can see from scans available online, the pulse tracks were always listed. Jason would not have pulled these notes out of thin air, and must have had some reason for adding them - but I honestly don't know what he meant by them.

### In the case of Book E, for example, pp. 517-8 comprise the first two pages of notes for Comp. 69k, ported in from an earlier volume. This is in the middle of an interview by Ronald Radano, two pages of which are therefore lost to the reader.

^ There is, however, one in the Catalog(ue) of Works: "A set of four short (and relatively easy) structures for extended improvisation. Originally written for my quartet, this material can be used for any context - or positive purpose." For what it's worth, only 110d is described here as a ballad (sic) structure.

^^ Turning the page in search of written notes, the reader finds just further confusion: p. 367 probably is meant to list the opus number 111, followed by some detail - but instead all it contains is the engimatic heading ENVIRONMENT STROLLS (1970-1984), and a two-line summary pasted in from the catalog(ue) of works (where the exact same entry appears, though here it is at least confirmed to be Comp. 111). Some stuff is definitely missing from this fifth volume in particular. 

^^^ Later versions of 110a in Birmingham (1985) or with Oxley and Roidinger (1989) also collage the piece with 108b. 

~ A. Spencer Barefield, to give him his full(er) name, is more closely associated with Roscoe Mitchell - and so are the other musicians present for (what is stated to be) the premiere performance of 110c, if that is indeed what it was: they are listed in the notes as Toni Tabel (!) and Jaribu, but we would know them as Tani Tabbal and Jaribu Shahid. (Goodness knows what was going on with the copy editing at this point.)

Comp. 94, round one

 

I posted recently about a video of a 1979 trio concert in which B. was confirmed to have played tenor sax - but was only concerned, at the time, with that very specific aspect of the performance. Just by looking at the line-up and the date, it was obvious to me - from previous research - that the material for the concert was the larval form of Comp. 94, which I was already planning to study at some point in the not-too-far future; I earmarked it, left a tab open for it in my browser, and... actually, by my standards, I didn't leave it that long at all before I watched it ;-)  - but it took me a further week to get round to writing it up.

Comp. 94 itself is going to require quite a long run-up, from my point of view, before I can attempt to listen out for references to it in a collaged piece* such as, say, Ensemble Montaigne (Bau 4) 2013. This is not like many of the works from the four creative ensemble books, or (for example) something like Comp. 136 which has a very recognisable motif (which itself is far from being the whole of the written material for that piece, but which we can always expect to be quoted more or less straight away, when that piece is worked into another set of materials). Luckily - or unluckily, depending on how you look at it - I anticipate getting plenty of practice, since I have several different versions of 94 to work through, culminating in the version which (eventually) made it onto an album. 

The video seemed like a good place to start. It's one of quite a few from a YT channel run by Jay Korber**, and is typically excellent in quality; the music, once I started watching and listening, just blew me away. I knew already, from previous digging, that B. was presenting audiences with an unfinished piece on the 1979 trio tour of Europe - that he was still working on 94 even as the three players were allowing audiences into the laboratory - but if anything this just adds to the excitement for the modern viewer of the video. Fuelled by Richard Teitelbaum's outer-space synths***, B. and Ray Anderson treat the appreciative crowd to a performance of wholly unpredictable, entirely new and forward-facing music with not a single jazz cliche in sight.

From the outset, the material sounds more like what we would come to expect from B's '80s output than much of his music from the '70s - although one must always be careful about making such generalisations# - and the written parts which B. plays on sopranino sax early on (the music starts at 0:40 in the video) are filled with the wide interval leaps characteristic of the melody lines which will go on to preoccupy him for much of the next decade, seemingly quite divorced from concepts like key or tonality. 

Having established that B. played tenor sax at this concert, we would naturally assume that although he may start on sopranino, he won't stick to it for very long; what we wouldn't necessarily expect is for a trombone specialist like Anderson to be similarly restless, but he flits between alto and tenor trombones, and tuba, throughout the set, starting within the very first minute. Teitelbaum, stuck behind his banks of synths, doesn't have this option - but of course he can vary his sounds considerably, and he certainly does exactly that: when the camera focuses on him, which is fairly often, he pretty much always seems to be switching things around, altering the sounds and effects from his larger keyboard in particular. Variety of voicings is very much a key feature of this performance.

At 3:00, the camera behind Anderson locks in on his music stand and slowly zooms in, giving us a great view of his sheet music - and giving me a great opportunity to "nerd out" (as I believe they say across the pond), because as well as a couple of pages in fairly typical (for the time) Braxtonian notation, RA has a separate sheet peeking out from the top of his score with what is clearly a list of the basic language types on it, and these are not exactly the same ones which have become standardised since. The first four items on the list have not changed: long sounds, accented long sounds, trills and staccato (formings##). But the next entries on RA's list differ from what later became standard: high sounds, curve sounds, short accented sounds, extreme register shifts, multiphonic sounds. (Number 10 is hidden behind the score, and of course so is anything after that.) For what it's worth, the later list will place multiphonics at 6; intervallic formings (we may presume this is what was meant by "extreme register shifts") is now at 5; gradient formings - which may or may not be exactly what was signified by "curve sounds" - can now be found at 11 on the list. There is no mention of "high sounds" these days; but number 7 is still occupied by short attacks, and we may reasonably presume this refers specifically to "short accented sounds", since if this were not the case, these would fall into the category of staccato formings and there would be no need for two separate entries on the list.

At 3:45, all three players sound as if they are working the same material, although this is way out for 1979..! The piece is characterised by these periodic convergences, usually fairly brief, with longer phases of individual expression in between. At 4:40, B. picks up the alto for the first time, and over the next few minutes he will end up delivering a typical masterclass with it, eventually deviating from the written score entirely and developing his own ideas - though within the framework which the three musicians have set up; Anderson is (of course) worked very hard, continually called upon to prove that he can hold down the role in B's music originated by George Lewis, and Teitelbaum isn't just making spacy noises either: around the six-minute mark, he is even playing quite lyrically, and it's obvious that when he cedes his own role in this piece to guitarist James Emery, the latter will really have his work cut out for him. 

B's alto solo makes much use of force, which is to say, accented attacks, something he has always been very good at (giving the impression of stepping down hard on some notes more than others, to great effect). Of course, this is just one of the tools he uses in his increasingly-wild solo: even before he was an actual college professor, B. already resembled one, lacking only the elbow patches to complete the look - but he just tears that sax apart. By 9:40 he is back to reading from the score, and it looks at first as if Anderson will now head out on an excursion of his own; but not quite yet, as it turns out. Instead, we enter (seamlessly) a completely

new phase of the composition, with B. switching to clarinet, RA picking up the tuba, and B. in turn following him into the depths with the paperclip seamonster. As RT drops into the lower registers too, we are well and truly out in the depths of space at this point - with this phase still very much in effect at 13:00 and beyond, it will be interesting to listen out for this in other renditions of the piece. 

Around 13:46, RT conjures some sort of whistling feedback, though I'm not sure (after repeated viewings) how he does it - B. and RA are otherwise accounted for, still on contrabass clarinet and tuba respectively, and the leader's preternatural control over what is supposed to be an unwieldy instrument is astounding in this section. Approaching fifteen minutes, we have somehow ended up at the other end of the sonic register altogether, without any drastic change having taken place in the basic tessitura - these presumably will be emblematic of the "high sounds" at 5. on RA's list, and of course it has long been established that the maestro can produce very high squeaks on the contrabass clarinet; although in this case, as Anderson forces the breath through his tuba and Teitelbaum picks out some far-out tones, the piercing altissimo attacks emanating from B. are actually being produced on soprano sax, as is eventually revealed at 14:54 (the leader having switched axes again while the camera was fixed on Anderson). 

Heading towards 16:00, it is now time for RA - back on trombone at last - to get forceful in turn, and he really starts to tear it up. Indeed, so inspired and impressive is his solo here that both B. and RT lay out completely - until 18:35, when a new section - quieter, sweeter - of written material is commenced. Subtlety and restraint are the watchwords now: with squeaks from the soprano, ethereal keys - and Anderson playing what is either a detached mouthpiece or some sort of pocket whistle, we are gradually guided through this sparse new territory towards somewhere denser and hotter, B. now on tenor (which he first starts playing at 20:48) and RA on muted trombone. By degrees, the music becomes fiercer and more intense, gradually building until by 25:00 it's gone "full crazy", with all three players cooking like mad. RT plays both his synths at once, then turns to the bigger one and gives it his full attention, throwing in a whole range of effects. 

At 28 minutes, B. is tormenting his sopranino, alternating gentle notes with harsh overbreathing, and RA does something not dissimilar; but by 29:15 we're out in some deep-space nebula again, and the ease and rapidity with which the trio can change mood and ambience as they navigate this modular score### is just as amazing as the stamina they evince in sustained phases of wild intensity. Around 31 minutes, there is another brief snatch of written material from B., but although we know that parts of the score are written out as actual thematic content, this piece is also one composed in segments, each focusing on particular concepts of sound production; as far as I can tell, actual moments of reading directly from the score are relatively few and far between here. In any case, by 32:30 it's time for Teitelbaum's own solo, and here we really get treated to some mad stuff: the larger synthesiser doesn't seem to have a standard keyboard register, but instead the keys generate different sounds rather than variable pitches, unless perhaps that is driven by the performer's choices with the many wires and switches at his disposal; however it's realised, there is no doubting the wild creativity and effectiveness of the improvisation. 

Another change of mood of course follows this, with B. on clarinet leading the trio at 35:05 into a new phase with his "crying horn", RA and RT melding with this as best they can. By 36:20 Anderson has the tuba strapped on again, and B. switches up clarinet for soprano sax at once, producing around 36:42 a marvellously subtle effect by "woodpecking" a single note and then a lower note, mimicking in the process the effect of a delay or echo pedal - it's there and it's gone, but it stood out for me in the listening. From here, B. undertakes another solo, starting out by singing away on his soprano, but rapidly moving away from this into a performance which transforms the instrument into something quite different in character - different, especially, from what most players do with it. Alternating effortlessly between "straight", uninflected lines and harsh breathing / multiphonic attacks, again leaning down hard on certain notes to terrific effect, some of what he ends up playing here sounds remarkably similar to renditions of (Kelvin repetition series) Comp. 6f from several years earlier, but he runs on and on without ever running out of variations or fresh ideas, leaving nobody in any doubt as to his virtuosity.

This alternating of attacks, in turn, is not just something peculiar to B's solo, because a shortish ensemble passage exploring mainly isolated, broken-up and disjointed sounds is followed by another showcase for Anderson, who employs his own varied inflections in his playing, "bending" a lot of his attacks and playing with sudden changes in dynamics much as B. has just done. Anderson has a "lighter", less serious reputation than George Lewis, and sometimes gets overlooked as a result, but his technique is compendious and he is a very imaginative and creative player - another ideal foil for B., really. It's surely no accident that B. ended up writing a lot more "circus-style" pieces for the quartet while Anderson was in the band, this playing entirely to his strengths; but it's also surely not a "making-do" decision to have selected the same player for the extremely demanding piece we are presently considering. And besides: if anyone should ever be tempted to consider the maestro as a "competitive" musician, let us rather be mindful of his much-proven ability to inspire others, elevating their playing to new heights.

From around 47 minutes, we are more or less straight into another feature spot for Teitelbaum, with just some brief written phrases in between. This solo is not quite so far out as the first, but there is no faulting his level of concentration - unpredictable though the playing continues to be, there is nothing remotely random about it at all. As the leader stands with the contrabass clarinet at the ready, the synths get wilder and freakier, and heading into the beginning of the closing section (around 51:20) Anderson is now playing what appears to be a cornet (? - whatever this is, it's uncredited), and B. once more switches out his lowest for his highest instrument, contrabass clarinet for sopranino sax, with no change in the overall feel of the territory at this point. Somewhat mournful, or perhaps just contemplative, the three players draw out their sounds in unison, turning up the dynamics together as they approach the very end of the piece.

That's it! It's a fantastic video, and I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the piece: much as we might like to think otherwise, it's just not possible that everyone in the audience had any real idea what was going on here; but there will have been those present who were able to follow the music closely and continuously, and what a rare excitement it must have been, to be there to hear this music and know that one was witnessing the sound of the future, now. 

* I've said before that "collage" is a potentially misleading term in this context, since B. himself regarded it as a phase or period within his ('80s) work, the underlying principles of which were retained and developed later in an ever-more sophisticated manner; when it comes to arrangements or performances of his music by others, though, it still seems to be the appropriate term to employ.

** These videos are attracting quite a lot of attention, relatively speaking, but as far as I can tell the person who posts them has resisted any temptation to respond to questions from viewers about who he is or where he's getting this fabulous footage. It seems very likely that he's German, probably a resident of Berlin - where most of the performances took place... and beyond that, it may not be very helpful to speculate. Did he / does he work for a German TV station, or as an archivist? He seems to prefer these questions unanswered, and I'll respect that.

*** Frequently visible on RT's left is a Moog, which is no surprise at all. But the larger instrument which gets most of his attention during the performance -? I don't know what this is, and although I have tried to find out what equipment the electronic pioneer was using back then, I haven't yet been able to get an answer. My best guess is that it's something Teitelbaum either built himself, or had built for him to his own specifications - or perhaps it was some sort of electric keyboard which then underwent extensive modification. Whatever it was, he sure knew what to do with it...

# It's very easy to think of the four creative ensemble books as representing B's "seventies music" - whereas in fact, of course, they form just a part of that. Like Sun Ra, this composer was always not so much ahead of his time, as working to a timeline entirely of his own.

## Actually, number 4 on RA's sheet simply reads "staccatto" (sic). The term staccato line formings appears on what we would now regard as the official list, as published by TCF. 

### I have retained some memory of both the Composition Notes, as such, and the (fairly extensive) liner notes for the eventual Leo / Golden Years of New Jazz CD which finally saw this piece officially released, and they lay out the structure of the composition in detail - but I have deliberately resisted re-reading them at this stage (time for that, in due course).

Vox humana

 

I've just - finally - read Henry Threadgill's excellent Easily Slip into Another World - A Life in Music*, which I acquired more than a year ago; when I first got the book, I did start it, but the first few pages of "early domestic life" detail didn't grab me by the scruff of the neck, and other distractions gradually pushed the book further down my to-read pile. This past week was obviously the right time to come back to it: I had no trouble getting into it this time, and ended up devouring it. 

Of course, the reason soon became clear for the inclusion of the same domestic detail that failed to capture my attention the first time around: for this creator, 

(A)ny art is tied to its historical moment. And tied to the life

of the artist, and all the social, psychological and spiritual

content that molded that life. Music is everything that makes

the musician: family, friends, hardships, joys, the sounds on the

street, how tight you buckle your belt, the person who happens

to be sitting across from you in the subway car, what you ate for

breakfast -- all of it. **

I completely agree with this position, and I'm well aware that there is a strong element of confirmation bias at play in my agreement: having once reached the conclusion - inescapable, as it seemed to me at the time - that of course an artist's work cannot help but be informed and influenced by the experiences that artist has had in life, I was not in the least receptive to the counter-argument: that this is only one school of thought, and that whole critical systems have been built on the foundation that "art is separate from life"***. I was convinced as an undergraduate - and time has done nothing to change my mind on this point - that such systems are symptomatic of everything which is wrong, or can go wrong, with academic thought: people who spend their whole lives cloistered away in their studies and libraries and lecture halls, removed from mundane (i.e. real) life as far as is humanly possible, cannot be trusted to reach reasonable opinions on the nature of that life, much as they might like to maintain otherwise#. 

But back to Mr Threadgill: it stands to reason that the biographical details related in those early pages are deeply relevant to him, and thus to the reader - and it really didn't take long, once I was actually reading the book, for this to become quite clear.

I'm not about to delve into every single thing I found interesting in this book - there are dozens of them, and I would rather recommend that anyone reading this seek out their own copy - and it need not come as a surprise to anyone that most of what I will highlight here touches on Threadgill's connection(s) to B., such as they are: HT, being a titanic figure in creative music in his own right, doesn't feel the need to spend much time "bigging up" his peers, or even many of his elders (with some exceptions: Leroy Jenkins and Muhal Richard Abrams are both singled out for extensive praise, as are HT's early touchstones Sonny Rollins and Gene Ammons), and most of the mentions of B. which do occur in the book## are rather made in passing. But there are several topics touched on which nonetheless brought me straight back to B. in terms of my  conclusions as a reader...

... starting with this one: when he first began to play saxophone, it was a tenor, and this continued for a while, culminating in a (literal) religious experience. HT had become heavily involved with a local sanctified church, albeit it would seem that his initial motivation had more to do with wanting to keep company with a certain young female churchgoer than it did any truly spiritual concerns; he would play his saxophone during services, and served "as a de facto musical director". One day he was asked to take a solo, on the hymn "His Eye Is on the Sparrow", and he was amazed that "there was hardly any reaction at all. The matronly church ladies sat there watching me blow my heart out, and they barely stirred." This was not at all a typical reaction from the congregation, to put it mildly; but the reverend took young Henry aside afterwards, saying that he, too, had an old horn around somewhere which was doubtless in need of repair. He proceeded to fetch an old alto sax, and asked HT to get it fixed up, saying that he would cover the cost. HT got this done, and when he brought it back, the reverend asked him to play again at the next Sunday service, suggesting the same piece, but politely requesting that it be played on the alto:

... this time, the response was completely different. The congregation 

was buzzing... (with) unrestrained interjections  of spontaneous approval.

A rippling cascade of Amens as I reached the bridge...

- And of course the reverend congratulated him afterwards with a sly smile: "I knew it... You just didn't have the right horn."

What Reverend Morris had realized...was that the tenor saxophone

didn't register in this music. The tenor is a blues horn... But the people

at church just didn't hear the tenor. There's something about the similarity

between the range and timbre of the alto and the human voice... soon the 

alto came to be at the centre of my musical world.###

This is really the first time I've come across anyone talking in detail about this, something which I have thought about myself in the past. Atanase, who is older than me - and who was already well-versed in free jazz and related musics when I properly began to immerse myself in this stuff in my mid-thirties - is very much a tenor guy, I know. It was always the case for him (and as far as I know it still is) that the twin gods of this music are John Coltrane and Albert Ayler, with some daylight beneath, and next in the hierarchy would be players like (Rev.) Frank Wright, Charles Gayle and Peter Brötzmann; I know too that Arthur Doyle is very much in the mix, though I suspect he does not so much fit into Avto's hierarchy as occupy a space all of his own. When Avto himself began playing, it was of course the tenor sax (though he has also been known to dabble a little in shehnai and bass clarinet). For my part, though, I have long known that if I did want to learn a horn it would undoubtedly be the alto, and with no disrespect at all to the aforementioned giants, or to any other tenor players, my own route towards this stuff came via an early fascination with Ornette Coleman and, especially, Eric Dolphy. Besides my continuing obsession with Braxton, I have long held Threadgill and Roscoe Mitchell in the same esteem; other favourite voices of mine would include Julius Hemphill, Marshall Allen, John Zorn... Mike Osborne, Joe Harriott... Oliver Lake, Marion Brown... Arthur Blythe... Jemeel Moondoc... I could of course go on^, and this preference for alto saxophonists continues into the present, when my favourite current players include Steve Lehman and Angelika Niescier^^. From all this, we might deduce that there must be two entirely different traditions within free and avant-garde jazz, centred around these two pivotal single-reed voices. Like I say, I have thought about this quite a bit on and off, but HT is the first person I have known to make any sort of attempt towards explaining it; is it, then, a matter of resemblance to the human voice for me, too? I am still not sure about that, but although I can't claim any sort of religious epiphany^^^, this passage struck me powerfully. After all my repeated defences of B. (in particular) against charges of being a "cerebral" player, it would feel entirely inappropriate to pursue too closely the description in the book of the tenor as "... a rhythm-and-blues horn... (with a) Saturday-night, big-bellied heft to its sound", lest the inevitable distinction take us too far along the path of emotion vs intellect (a misleading path, after all). But: there is something there, for sure.

***

Amidst all of the "war stories" that one might expect to get from a seasoned professional musician, I hadn't anticipated any actual war stories - but they are indeed present here, and HT's harrowing experiences in Vietnam form what is without doubt one of the most compelling sections of the book (occupying the whole of chapter four, plus at least half of chapter three), not least because one is left to infer that this is really the first time the author has ever set about describing these experiences in detail to anyone. However, what really knocked me sideways was the account of how he ended up there in the first place: as the head arranger of the Post Band at Fort Riley in Kansas, playing for special events involving visiting dignitaries and the like, HT should in principle have been out of consideration for posting to an active theatre, but found himself shipped out after his advanced (and doubtless quite dissonant) arrangement of "the great American national songs"~ was met with outrage by a gathering of military brass and senior religious figures. Having initially been told he would not be transferred to France or Panama because his status as arranger and clarinettist made him too valuable to the band stationed in Fort Riley, HT now found himself sent packing to Vietnam, apparently as punishment for having offended the various VIPs who had turned up for this big concert - shipped "off to war because of a piece of music"~~. It has often seemed to me that B. has been treated as something of an outcast for his refusal to compromise in his music - but as far as I know he has never found himself in literal danger of losing his life over it - ! The third and fourth chapters of this book really ought to be considered required reading.

Meanwhile, the fact that the remaining sections of the book are less - weighty, in terms of their subject matter, does not make them any less readable. Back in the States, aware that the experience of war has - among other things - transformed and heightened his sense of hearing, the composer proceeds to live a most interesting and varied life. The rest of the book contains far more worthwhile observations than I would ever seek to discuss here, but (as noted above) there were quite a few things which resonated with me, as a "Braxton-specialist": the AACM's collective dissatisfaction with the state of music criticism, and their refusal to be intimidated by "having to become the historians and explicators of (their) own creativity" (p. 162); the limitations of teaching music in a classroom environment (p. 174), and the determination to escape the confines of the conservatory (p. 185); the absolute necessity for HT of leading his own groups~~~ (p. 204); the desire (with Air, in this instance) "to kill the idea of accompaniment altogether" (p. 228); the technical difficulty of switching between instruments, especially different wind instruments (p. 229) - which helped me to a new level of appreciation of B's own virtuosity, something I didn't think was still possible at this point (!); HT's frustration at others' "rush to affix a pseudo-generic label (as) nothing more than an excuse not to listen" (p. 292); his finding it "productive compositionally to... shift (his) focus from one sound world to another" (p. 310); his further frustration at the "prejudices and limitations" of the US classical concert scene, both on its own terms and in its reluctance to allow outsiders in (pp. 327-30, p. 368); above all, perhaps, the composer's refreshed conception of "harmony... still based on the foundation of the twelve tones of the equally tempered octave, but which approache(s) organization through intervallic relationships rather than through tonal centers" (p. 371) really sounded like something which B. could have come up with - but given that the project under consideration at this point is Zooid, it's nonetheless delightful to know that a similar-in-theory foundation has led to a musical system which still sounds completely different. (The encapsulation of this later system as "harmony (which) is chromatic rather than diatonic" seems like a fair summary of much of B's own work from about 1980 onwards - although I daresay the maestro would think that to be a grotesque oversimplification.)

- And of course, there are many, many more where these came from, more than enough to persuade anyone who's read this far that this book merits their closer attention. Whether it's clarifying the derivation of the names Air (not an acronym - pp. 223-4) or the later Sextett (six@ musical parts, not players: "What the drummers were doing... was a single sectional part. It simply took two people to play it" - p.276), or explaining the genesis of the hubkaphone (pp. 182-7), ultimately inspired by the gongs played by Vietnamese montagnards - or holding forth on plenty of other subjects, Threadgill proves to be almost as intriguing and original a storyteller as he is a composer-arranger. Not for the first time recently, I can do no better than to finish up by saying that it all comes down to listening: 

Nothing I can say can mean anything once you start to

listen. It's about the sound, not about the words I might be

able to pin up to preface or accompany whatever the sound

does to you when it goes in your ears.@@

* HT with Brent Hayes Edwards (Alfred A. Knopf, 2023). Any quoted matter in this post retains the US-style spelling of the original, of course.

** Ch. 2, p. 52

*** I had already formed my own opinion on the matter by this time, but the conversation I'm recalling took place when I was a first-year undergrad reading Philosophy and French, and I was being set straight by my French tutor. [I had very probably expressed certain opinions about Sartre, on whom my tutor was a specialist; she was very much under his spell in more ways than one, and her rebuttal of my argument was doubtless (at least partly) born out of pique on his behalf. She did of course also have a point: at the age of eighteen, it would have been more appropriate for me to keep an open mind to all the various possibilities instead of dogmatically insisting upon any one thesis. Still, on this subject, I really wasn't interested in hearing about the "other schools of thought" - and I'm still not. With Threadgill all the way, on this one.]

# Consider Nietzsche's opinions on women, for example. (Did he ever really meet any?!) - You could always spot the philosophy dons a mile off at my alma mater,  if they happened to stray without the college walls: they were the ones hurrying along with their coats clutched shut and their heads resolutely down, dreading the possibility of having to interact with anybody, outside of their loci of power and privilege. (I'm being rather unkind here, but the observations are nonetheless accurate...)

## It would appear that they first met as teenagers, when both were studying privately with Jack Gell (ch. 1, pp. 25-6)

### This passage is all to be found in chapter 2 (pp. 66-7)

^ I really could, but I'm not about to try and list every single altoist that I enjoy listening to; Jarman's name is very obviously missing - this is especially obvious to anyone who has read HT's book, actually - but I have a more active interest in Mitchell's solo work than I do in the Art Ensemble, so I am far less intimately familiar with JJ's sound... while to mention Tim Berne or Steve Coleman, both of whom I really like as players, would mean going into the sort of qualifying detail which is well beyond the scope of the present post.

^^ I don't, of course, mean to imply that I only like listening to alto players. Just off the top of my head, some tenor players I particularly like - other than those already listed in this post - would include Frank Lowe, Sam Rivers, Larry Ochs, Joe McPhee and Evan Parker. (Oh, and I always enjoy listening to Atanase's continued exploits..!) It's also worth pointing out that HT himself continues to play tenor on occasion, as does Mitchell. (B. hardly ever does, but at least we now know beyond doubt that he did at one point...)

^^^ HT's own connection to the church did not last all that long, by the sound of it - and certainly did not withstand his first serious doubts about it. (He does come across in the book - and in his music - as a profoundly spiritual person, but... this is not the same thing.)

~ "America the Beautiful", "The Star-Spangled Banner" and so on. HT had arranged a medley of these songs which impressed the band in rehearsal ("Damn, Henry... this is really sophisticated stuff!"), but the performance itself lasted no more than eight bars before it was shut down in disgrace.

~~ The account of the events leading up to this, and those surrounding the aborted concert and its immediate aftermath, are to be found in the third chapter (pp. 83-8). It really does sound, by the way, as if the brass had every intention of making a permanent example of Threadgill, sending him to what they presumed would be his death: it is later explained that while he was in Vietnam, his papers were "lost", so that he could not even be considered for discharge when the time came - although they miraculously turned up again when the burgeoning Civil Rights movement led to an investigation into racism in the armed forces. Incredible as all this sounds, none of it feels fabricated or exaggerated in the telling. 

~~~ I came to very much this conclusion regarding B's own career, way back in the early days of the Braxtothon - specifically in writing about the trio album Silence. 

@ Even when there were two bassists in the band - before HT found cellist Diedre Murray, in other words - they were playing two separate parts: the omnipresent Fred Hopkins played bass, but Brian Smith played piccolo bass.

@@ Ch. 7, p. 259. (No, the irony is not lost on me that all I can offer - for the time being, at least - is words...)