the invisible anniversary

my daughter turned four recently (frightening thought, but undeniable) - which tells me that the blog turned five round about the same time. i realised several weeks ago that this was coming up, and - in one of my bursts of enthusiasm - came up with an idea of how to celebrate it, but just a day or two later the idea was gone... and the enthusiasm went with it. (i genuinely can't think for the life of me what i was planning to do.) at the moment i have less time than ever to work on this project and find it very difficult to focus on it for any length of time. that, i'm sure, will pass - though whether i'll get the time back remains to be seen. but the business os trying to get a tape player back in the house is becoming farcical: just over a week ago i found myself unexpectedly near a car-boot sale, so popped in the off-chance, and sure enough, i managed to pick up a portable double-cassette player for just a few quid. so caught up was i in the excitement of my purchase that i failed to notice until afterwards that it lacked the right power adapter -! subsequent investigations revealed that the device was evidently imported from somewhere in europe, and now i'm not even sure what sort of adapter it requires for a british electrical supply. the previous moves to get my old machine repaired came to nothing as my new schedule makes it very difficult to arrange a time for it to be picked up and delivered back again... so i currently have *two* unusable players and STILL can't play any of my fucken tapes!!!  *

ok, so i can and will overcome that problem - i will eventually find someone with more technical savvy than me, who can set me straight on what sort of adapter i need. but somehow this just seems perfectly emblematic of my recent lack of activity on the blog. there's more, too: even as i write, the maestro is in the middle of a nine-date european tour, and as usual, there are no british concerts on the schedule. (as usual: british promoters just don't book our guy. haha, maybe in some parallel universe i myself have rectified this. in *this* universe i am nowhere near organised enough.) that's pretty weakening... though hardly surprising. still, look at it another way entirely: it's good that there are still venues in europe which can find a suitable audience for b's music, and i hope the tour is going very well! (same goes for the recent concert at roulette in new york.) it's just a damn shame that i am unable to get to any of the gigs... but this was never an option for me.

ah well... one thing i did get hold of recently is mary halvorson's bending bridges, bought directly from firehouse 12. i will be playing this as many times as i can squeeze it in, with the intention of writing something about it as soon as i can. but for the time being... that's all the news that's fit to print. i do hope that next time i post there will be something a bit more upbeat to write about...

* see comments

2 by 2 (little by little)

ahhh.... much to my (genuine) surprise, people seem to read this blog more now that i am scarcely finding the time - or headspace - to post on it: hits are on the up. [apparently some of you are belatedly attempting to download the pic folder(s)..? ok, if i remember i will try and get round to reposting live links for those.] now that i am no longer able to pretend that i don't even know how many readers i do or don't have - and for years this was absolutely the case, at my own bloody-minded insistence - i have been quite curious to see what sort of attention the blog's been getting... there is some evidence to show that readers are using it as i hoped, i.e. as a reference. (just let's all remember that i very often leave my mistakes in and don't always get round to adding corrections/updates on very timely fashion... nothing you read here should be taken as a fully-formed, crystallised judgement. but then... what can? ahem.)

anyway, as i cryptically hinted (in the comments) last time, i had intended to force myself into getting the details written up, but it just wasn't happening - and, maddeningly, i responded to this self-induced pressure in the end by drifting away from (any) music altogether for a few weeks, scarcely ever even feeling like listening to any (*1)... and getting a quick, visceral "uff, no" from somewhere deep down inside every time i thought about "tackling" something demanding, something with real detail and density to it. but there we are back again, and again: demanding? tackling? that's all just part of the procrastination process... if and when i "surprise" myself by putting some creative music on, usually what results is delight, pure and simple enough (*2). we have been here before.

- but sometimes, for better or worse, it is after all just a matter of waiting until the propitious moment - and suffering the frustrations in the meantime. can't force these things... or perhaps sometimes one can and at others, not... in any case, this time it was just about that: a few days ago it suddenly clikced back into place, and i found myself aware of a pressing need to get the maestro's music into my ears and beyond... and when that came to pass in due course, more thoughts came issuing forth to greet the sounds, as always. as you can see from the picture, the music on this occasion was from the one-off (?) evening of duetitude between b. and buell neidlinger, released just this year on K2B2 (the label co-founded by neidlinger and marty krystall, in case anyone needs that blank filling in). little by little..? well, that's because this is mighty music and not to be trifled with, in terms of detailed analysis; nor am i even tempted to undertake such a thing, never mind a proper "review" or critique. (what, with my recent track record? fuggeddaboudit.) - it's nevertheless long overdue really, to say a few things about this remarkable double-document, which really does stand out even amidst the master's extensive list of recorded duo encounters (as has been claimed on its behalf).

basically the reason it stands out is very siomple: these are two freakish individuals! neidlinger is still best remembered by history for being a sort of "second charlie haden", the white cat with shades on playing the bass in an ensemble led and totally dominated by a black pioneer-genius (*3); in other words, he's still known to many people primarily known for a gig he landed when he was still in his teens. but this is peculiarly appropriate: the young buell was a child prodigy, not on the contrabass of course but on the 'cello, until that became a source of emotional trauma for him (*4) - much later in life he became as celebrated for his contribution to emotional healing as for his association with creative music, if not more so, and (as i understand it) has co-authored several works on divorce mediation *, wearing his counsellor's hat... but back to music, the voice lost to the smaller instrument found the fullest possible expression in the larger one, once he made the switch. neidlinger's total confidence of attack and tone is matched only by his complete (non-arrogant) refusal to give a fuck about any time schedule other than his own; and this, indeed, may turn out to be the overall emblem of his contribution(s) to the art: as with richard davis, another orchestrally-trained maestro of course, neidlinger was a favourite of stravinsky's - the bassist tells an anecdote of how the composer rushed to meet him after a performance of l'histoire du soldat, declaring it the best rendition he had ever heard, and when asked why this was so, answering "because you go forward" - as the bassist continues to explain, to a player who has properly absorbed the meaning of jazz, and especially of free jazz, there is no time, just a starting point and a journey. nor, of course, is this true solely of time; this musician permits himself complete freedom of address in all directions, and his sureness of utterance immediately provides all the licence he might require (*5).

one of the things i found charming about this trecording when i first played it was the way in which they don't quite sound fully warmed-up at the start; they have not yet fully found each other in the soundspace and b's faster runs tend to misfire at certain points, but this does not last for long - ha, far from it. they are just warming up in public, as it were, using monk to work out any kinks or whatever, and to get into the music; by the time the second piece begins they are both on, and of course this is demonstrable every second after. this piece, which encompasses several moods and textures, has been titled (by neidlinger) "tonight the night" and is here dedicated to xenakis; the liners refer only to the time which has passed and the difficulty of establishing authorship over music which was co-created on the night, but this number sounds suspiciously braxtonesque and begins, indeed, with one of b's signature birdcalls, a prolonged horn line which toys with both linear displacement and pan-tonality. [argh... ok, by now i "should" be able to say definitively which piece this is, or most resembles and i can't. even if i refuse to accept any external pressures on me to provide that information, i have fallen short of my own hopes and expectations in this regard - ! well, i forgive me ;-) ] - the second set includes the same number and sure enough, it begins exactly the same way so i really do wonder whether b. didn't just bring this to the gig, however informally, and then they forgot to sort out the details afterwards... who knows. (if so... it's another paris concert. but in this case they possibly never expected it to get released.)

in any case titles don't mean so very much, here, not when this is ultimately just about two freakishly talented and unique individuals enjoying each other's exalted company and exploring as much ground as they can. that second rendition of "tonight"/comp. #? bleeds back into "off minor", which is where we came in at the beginning of the evening, but buell's been hanging out there for a good couple of minutes anyway: cue up "tonight" on your player, run forward eight mins and you'll hear him just suddenly click into the monk number out of nowhere, as if it had never actually gone away. (and maybe it hadn't. indeed, perhaps it never does... i know myself that monk's music can feel that way, and i don't even play it.) and this, of course, just brings us back to the braxtonesque, since cross-territorial transitions are a part of the maestro's stock-in-trade, at least in a live context.

and you know what/ i think that might be it. i don't really have anything more to say about it, other than: buy it!! b. is a duettist non-pareil, and his discog most emphatically proves it, but this one will always stand out as one of the peaks therein... essential. (*6)

* see comments 
* no he hasn't... see comment dated 16th oct

what i missed last term

despite (what for me was) a brief flurry in june, during (what for me was) an unusually productive week, there's just been nothing going on round here at all. i admit it, currently 75% of my attention that is not already filtered away into the day (and evening) job, the parenting,etc etc... has disappeared mainly into comics (again, damn, there's a lot of very high-quality stuff been produced in that medium and much of it has not yet been fully explicated... rmmmmmarrragggghhhhrrrrmmmmmhhhmmm...) anyway :-






- that's right, there is a big gap where there was s'posed to be something else, just something in fact, as opposed to nothing. what was scheduled to happen was this: get tape player sorted, start munching through all those fascinating bootlegs, no pressure, just curious to see what does come up (since there is bound to be something, and more than just one thing while we're at it, in this case!)... report back, pref. little and often, (ha!)... well, there were two reasons i think, namely the adjustment(s) which had to take place, stage by stage, as i got used to a completely different working week and also a very different working environment, job conditions, etc etc ad nauseam (*1); the other reason being, when am i ever now near a place where i could get a tape player?, and all that. most "kids" under 25 these days have never even owned a cd player, never mind records or tapes; what was still common enough 15 years ago might now just as well be laserdisc or eight-track.

anyway... gonna get that sorted, i am... just turned 42 last week. the big one, as d.adams would insist on having it (*2). so, gonna be some changes around here (and indeed elsewhere in my life). incidentally, it's come as rather a surprise to find that people do actually read this blog, whether they "still" read it or otherwise... i had ducked for as long as i could the trap of knowing how many page views we wuz gettin, having been a slave to this in my tenure at c#9 (*3), but recently blogger changed completely as we all know (and thus lost at least one of its leading lights, from my point of view anyway... 'bye mr lucky, the blogosphere is not and never could be the same without you *4) - with considerable trepidation i peeked at the figures that were suddenly laid bare on my new blogger dashboard, fearing confirmation that all this time i had been talking quietly, or indeed raving into a void with only the occasional dim and distant echo, or flurry of echoes... but it turns out that more people actually read it, even these days apparently when i don't, haven't been posting much. well, you know, thanks for sticking around and let's try and move things forward again.

- 'cos far from putting the braxtothon back yet again, i am hoping that a renewed energy-blast (such as that to be unleashed from a collection of previously-unheard music) will see me get that done too, since all it lacks now is to get started, really, it's not as if i don't already know more or less what i'm going to say about the duets - ok, so, can i actually pull my finger out and do it, now? i am about to find out ;-)

(admittedly, since i started this post, things have suffered a bit of a setback, in that i tried and failed to locate a source for a "new" tape player in swansea... i may have found a repair service online, though... watch this space)

***

some music, then: like i say, there has been all too little of this recently (*5), but i have found time for some braxton... three very different sets of (friendly!) experiences:

a) large chunk of this hot item, albeit cut off abruptly in media res on this occasion as i got rudely interrupted - this concert, incidentally, was just one of a series of european dates by this "one-off" trio, some (all?) of which are in circulation among traders and collectors. (the aforementioned uranian boot box offers me the tantalising promise of london, angers and two successive nights in aubervilliers, all a little later in march.)

this music represents something very unusual: to wit, b's taking his own music on the road and presenting it in recital form rather than via open-ended exploration; the only thing that will probably have changed is the order in which the primary sets of materials were engaged, since after all the running order for the wuppertal concert is different from that of the album, recorded mid-tour in amiens (*6); but still, the music i heard on this occasion struck me as oddly crystallised, certainly not sterile, but (to a far greater extent than usual) reproduced rather than just, well, produced i suppose. and don't get me wrong, the performances are of the very highest calibre as one would expect, the audience would be in no doubt that they had attended something of considerable artisitic value, but for me there is nonetheless something missing from the music here. or at least, that's how it came across to me on this occasion, and before i was cut off... whatever. it will be interesting (eventually!!) to hear the various tapes. are both nights in aubervilliers the same primary setlist, again? all will (one day) be revealed ;-)

b) on my birthday itself this year i didn't get a lot of music time. and what i did have, i had to grab quickly so i couldn't really pick and choose from my whole collection, it had to be something to hand, which then turned out to be the ninetets. actually i started with vol. 3 disc one, moving on to disc 2 in what turned out to be misplaced optimism (my time ran out, ten minutes in); the next day, with a bit more time, i carried on with both discs of vol. 4.

now this stuff just sounds better and better every time i hear it, regardless of how much attention i pay at first... when one looks at the line-up, not just for these performances but for many of the next few years, what is most glaringly missing is at least one brass player (*7) - yet in the listening, one would be hard at work listing many qualities present in the music before ever getting round to the concept of anything missing: the variety of mood, texture, atmosphere, timbral permutation (...) herein must have blown away any of the audience who were alert enough to be aware of how new and fresh this stuff was (and still is, let's face it... it's not as if the rest of the world has exactly caught up), alert enough and therefore paying close enough attention - ideas change hands with such swiftness that spacing out for a few minutes during the performance (which might see one miss a couple of solos at a jazz concert) sees one lose whole sections of a very large overall map. yeah, the only bit i remember now is a perfectly-formed, encapsulated quote from comp. 6k (lasting rather less than one second) which kevin o'neil tosses out there (*8), whether conscious or otherwise of whence he derived the pattern; struck me at the time as being beautifully holographic, a tiny cell expressing something of the totality (in this case - more than usually - a totality of possibilities, beyond the "actual" totality of the performance). i actually have all eight of the ninetets of the mp3 player but i'm not sure what chance i would get to hear the whole lot more or less uninterrupted ;-)

c ) a friend just provided me with a cd rip of this album, which i have been missing up till now (and which in principle is up for examination within the next braxtothon phase). and what do you know, it's remarkable... not that one would expect otherwise, but any of the typical responses to the notion "with strings" can be chucked out the wondow here: some of this is seriously knotty and even aggressive music, absolutely fantastic as far as i am concerned. what the album actually contains is a live (live!) performance (*9) originally broadcast on german radio, (in contrast with the trios from a decade later) a real double-dig exploration of comp. 17, one version with the maestro and one without, the programme fleshed out with six relatively short alto solo pieces.

- the ambience on the string pieces is thrillingly fresh and real, the sound of boundaries being torn back. obviously (as with comp. 22, et al) the pages of the score can be arranged in any order, guaranteeing a different experience each time (which shuffling the pack in '89 perhaps didn't..?), and the musicians just sound as if they can't wait to get their hands on the music. or, well, that's how it came across to me at any rate... the solo performances, it really goes without saying, are of the highest standard, but they inevitably lack a little drama compared to what has taken place amongst the strings. then again... look at it a different way, maybe it's just a perfectly-balanced programme of musical delectation... i must confess i have not (yet) taken in the whole thing, or at least not in its original order. (will definitely be coming back to this, but not too much in case i spoil it for later>>> arf arf)


* see comments

mining deeper...

taylor ho bynum sextet at saalfelden revisited

(first three paras and most of the fourth written months ago - c.)

final wednesmonday - haha - was the occasion of that slightly delirious prior post, but part of what made it psychedelic in the first place was a(nother) return here... having said excitedly at the time that i would be listening to it again, i then did nothing of the sort for a while as it turned out - old friend contacted me again after a long gap and got me back into metal again for a while, catching up with some stuff i'd missed... so no more thb sextet - at least not until that week, at which point i ended up replaying "apparent distance" three times in 24 hrs, extending it to take in the complete concert twice with the addition of the blues, the delightful encore as previously detailed. (and how did i not simply think of mingus for that one, before..? i mean first, last and throughout, never mind anything more recent in vintage... "pussy cat dues" in particular, the whole thing has a beautifully laid-back "ah um" feel to it for sure)

and - well. apart from "encounter" by john carter - which i wrote about once, then revisited later - "apparent distance" is the first non-braxton piece to have passed twice under my microscope here, at whatever degree of magnification; and all i can say up front is that it really merits the extra attention... or, i can spoil my own entrance and tell you right off that the "piece" is nothing less than a profound meditation on human perspectives on time, on temporality-as-construct - in other words it is postgrad-degree standard philosophy delivered within the framework of (fully realised) art... doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, does it (thb won't be soundbiting it for the cd inlay) - but it's probably the highest sort of praise i know how to give. and, you know, i still haven't "finished" understanding it yet (by any means). (*1)

first off, it was (i trust) made clear before that i was not listening in close detail, merely recording my lasting impressions; so, no need to apologise for having missed stuff, particularly deep or long-range strategic stuff, the first time around. really this is the point (i hope) of what i'm doing here: relating the private autopsy in public so that the learning process is actually exposed for all to see... it is a myth that once one arrives at lofty criticdom, one merely has to be within half a block of an artistic event or presentation for the detailed schematics on said happening to be transmitted to one's back-library instantly, via osmosis... and of course it's a total crock, and the guys who try to pull that particular trick on you are indeed just bullshitting. nobody's ears just work like magic. if you were sitting there with it on in the background, doing several different things at once, flirting online etc etc then regardless of your hardware setup, and listening experience, your account of proceedings ain't gonna stand up to scrutiny. in truth there isn't a problem with that, the problem comes when one is still being asked to believe - for the sake of social nicety - that the opinions volunteered after such "listening" are actually worth something.

anyway... first time out, i picked up a number of useful signposts, so to speak, which enabled me to follow some of the energetic flow of the work and even to remember it, to recognise it next time; and helped encapsulate it to some extent (all the while taking care to state that i was not trying to summarise it); and i sure as hell enjoyed it, and moved along with it... but there was plenty i didn't take in or pick up at all. indeed, the process of non-pickupage began right at the outset, since i (must have) heard a few seconds of solo cornet, slipped at once into a semi-reverie state and did not notice the second horn's entry, never mind the third. so - and admittedly i am leaving it rather late to say this (about an article i published five months ago) - any references to thb playing a series of solo cadenzas throughout the performance are not exactly accurate... though, again, it remains the case that i did pick up something of value at least: the returns to unaccompanied horns (where horns directly represent human voices relating individual experiences) do mark the insterstices between sections, and very quickly come to represent a self-reflexive, dignified examination of accumulated experience - this, again, is what it means to be here, alive... and with each headlong dash through a phase of experience, the knowledge deepens ("like a coastal shelf" indeed *2) and the quiet miracle can occur, as youthful arrogance and brashness subsides to humility and wonder at the ever-increasing understanding of what it means to be human.

the hot free jazz section which follows the first exposition from the horns contains all sorts of subtle and complex details - something which i completely failed to capture on my first listen. rhythmically, what occurs in this section is as difficult to learn and replicate as anything by meshuggah or the dillinger escape plan (*3), or to bring it back to something more familiar to listeners here, as anything by tim berne; yet the casual ear remembers it, as mine did, as being as simple and effortlessly groove-based as one could wish, allowing the lazy listener to be swept off in an irresistible tide of rhythm. this, don't forget, is the part which reminded me of messrs tyler and reid. (with no disrespect to them at all, but they are not especially known for (post-)deconstructed rhythm, excelling, as they do, precisely at creating fabulous free jazz rhythm-n-soundscapes which can carry the listener away, ... )  - the core building block in this phase is three bars of hard-swung fours, followed by - well, that didn't half surprise the shit out of me when i listened more closely, next time around. first time, the fourth measure comprises literally one beat. the second, two, so that it comes as no great surprise when the third lasts for three and the fourth seems now oddly predictable - back as you were, then, yes? 1,2,3,4 like that - whoops, no, hang on. the second time this whole small sequence is enjoined, the order of the "tail" bars is switched up - and in fact from this very moment on in, there is no point is trying to second-guess the sequence as one would only miss everything else that's happening in a maddeningly futile attempt to follow the count - which meanwhile, and throughout, shifts and changes time after time, endless permutations opening up amidst this constant basic (near-)repetition; this again being the way in which we live our lives, let's be clear about this. (how this very demanding effect is achieved - when this sort of music rarely requires the sort of "robotic" precision of advanced rock and metal strategies - and when it doesn't sound remotely robotic anyway, feeling indeed as natural as breathing... which is why the lazy ear remembers it as regular rhythm - god only knows, but taylor is obviously not kidding when he confides to the audience that the piece is hard to play - !)

right, so, next time we get the (greek) chorus we have learned a lot more, right? that hectic, blurred-vision sweep through a chunk of our lives, it takes some silence and space to reflect upon it. - this the horns proceed to tell us, again. 

note that i am not attempting a full tissue dissection of this piece (not yet anyway..! who knows) - so with the depth of ambition established and the hermeneutic parameters set, one can fill in the blanks for oneself as regards individual sections of the piece (*4). in terms of my own relistening so far it was enough to get more of a handle on the half-formed impression i'd grasped at before, which was to do with "solos which are more than just solos", something i later found out was very deliberately part of the design. (not just here... thb is known apparently to be very deeply inspired by ellington, which i didn't know until recently - though of course it instantly made sense, was indeed only not obvious to me because of my relative unfamiliarity with the duke's work; the acknowledged influence places bynum in very good company of course, and situates him very much on a direct line with regard to mingus, again.) so yes, each section basically showcases one of the individuals which make up this remarkably versatile small ensemble, and as such each is constructed according to that individual's strengths (if that choice of vocabulary doesn't sound too macho by this point in our contemplations..!).

no, but with the whole, partially-filled-in map stretching out to both sides of my vision, what does the overall configuration seem to tell me? what is the meaning of the title, "apparent distance"? this can (and doubtless does) have many possible interpretations, and we could spend a good long time unpacking it, i'm sure... for the time being, two main threads of meaning emerged for me when i began to ask this question. in (quasi-)linear terms, according to the illusion of (finite) continuation within time, or living a life as we blithely call it, each long-sighted, questioning perspective on one's own existence will have a quality of apparent distance, since as humans (as kant knew full well, though his followers tend to forget it all too easily *5) we are trapped within a basic matrix of spatio-temporality and our consciousness at least cannot ever truly escape it: every viewpoint is situated within a framework of relative distance. but from the point of view of the universe? no distance, anywhere. and of course... the other one is to do with the apparent distance which grows up everywhere between questing souls, incarnate in the learning maze we call this earth, encountering each other daily, yet held in reserve behind layer upon layer of personal, social and societal boundaries as manifold as a gypsy bride's skirts. but here is another miracle: in eye contact, one soul directly encounters another on a different plane altogether (or more probably several at once), and once again, the "apparent distance" is annihilated at once. lack of distance, at this stage, is what becomes truly apparent.

(ok, this is not braxtothon as such... i'm getting out while i still can, lacking a suitably pithy final sentence or two and wanting oh-so-much to get this thing published now i have actually succeeding it getting it down in words!! peace)

* see second comment

a "great moment in jazz"

i don't watch a lot of video online - actually i don't watch a lot full stop these days, have long since lost touch with new movies (cinema used to be one of my great interests, and was for a long time one of the things mrs c. and i had in common) and rarely sit still for live footage of concerts etc. i've just never really been into it for some reason. so when people forward things to me or otherwise tip me off about live clips, even of our man, it can take ages for me to get round to seeing them... heh... ages and ages (ahem). the artist formerly known as king kennytone sent me something last year (i think - damn these months are flying by..!) which i always intended to write about, but of course i never even got round to watching it (yet). similarly, i stumbled across this page some time ago now and just didn't do anything about it (*1).  however, in this instance i did get there in the end ;-)

the clip is from "spain, 1983" (and evidently represents a teaser from some trader's personal collection), featuring the not-yet-quite-great quartet with piano (as opposed to trombone).since - like i say - i don't see much of this stuff in the normal course of events, it was a fascinating watch for me. just the sight of the diminutive ms crispell, bouncing around like a possessed glove puppet during her more animated moments (late in the clip, after the maestro's "metal-stripping" freak-out) was remarkable - and memorable, not so much for any potential comedic value as for the knowledge that that is how close and precise her control: she can seemingly jerk around in her seat, arms floppy from the elbow down, and yet strike exactly the right key at the appropriate angle, depth of attack, etc etc (because, as always - and allowing for the freakish moments of genuine stochasticity which emerge betimes from these obsessive, self-scratching-in-public-and-private, exercises in personal repetition we might call creative working -  there is nothing much "random" about any of this music, contrary to initial appearance). it's interesting also to watch the maestro in full flight, but of course this is one sight i have witnessed before, and indeed first-hand on a couple of occasions (*2).

- now, the group, not yet quite great? damning with faint praise, obviously, but i'm only reflecting the way this incarnation of the band must inevitably be viewed. in this clip (and i can't identify the piece, nor am i gonna break my back trying just yet *3), hemingway is now indentifiable to me within a couple of seconds, his sound completely imprinted on my ear-memory - really, no-one else sounds like that (*4) - and of course the piano dominates a large portion of the soundscape from the word go, but lindberg is barely audible until the others drop out at the end of the clip (this presumably signals a transition phase approaching, as so often in a live set)... and it's simply this, above all, that elevates dresser because he, too, dominates his portion of the soundscape whenever he's playing and it's really, really not everyone who can do that in this fast fluid, highly volatile company.

obviously the music itself is already pretty complex by this point, although not as complex as it would become later - no collaging here yet, just a dense piece being explored (fully opened up in public actually!), and even then the performance does take the form of solo-plus backing for the duration of the clip (hence the legitimacy of labelling this as jazz - besides the usual flag-of-convenience stuff; though as we know, many older and more conservative jazzers consider braxton to be offically worthless after 1978-9... erm, to say this is their loss would be putting it mildly). but, i mean, 1983... who else was digging this deep at the time? the usual suspects, of course... and a handful of others, in europe, but really, this is advanced music without a doubt. and the band playing it... - is very very advanced indeed. it's just that... it becomes that much more fully great with the addition of the white-haired wonder, mr oak-and-granite-tones (*5) himself, mark dresser. please note that in stressing this (all over again, and somewhat prematurely since i will eventually have so much more to say about all of this business, assuming the braxtothon ever gets there..!) i am not looking to belittle john lindberg, who gave such good and hard-working service over several years, until whatever happened, happened; but (in hindsight it's strikingly obvious that) his relevance to the music extends backwards in time from this point, not forwards. the lack of audibility he suffers here may well just be a flaw inherent to the medium, an unfortunate side-effect of watching a compressed clip on a computer without an amp etc (...), but it seems decidedly appropriate.

- incidentally, if you are curious to learn about metal-stripping and for some reason have not already watched the clip, just forward it to the 5.30 mark and go from there. it's not even one of b's better efforts in that regard, just good-as-always, but it sure feels good anyway, urgent and hot and intense.

***

[as for the article - well, surprise surprise, mr fordham does not really say anything much: indeed the most telling two words occur when he falls back on the epithet "impenetrably complex" to describe b's music - well, phew, that's all you critics off the hook then... bear in mind that this was put together for broadsheet readers in britain (and presumably beyond), meaning it will meet its target audience amongst uni graduates whose idea of a good time socially is to drop educated references casually into the conversation, scoring extra points for a couple of sentences of factoids to back up ones assertions, immediately preceding a hasty change of subject if any searching questions are asked... takes one to know one? well, i don't hang out there any more, at any rate... look, john fordham seems decent enough really, always comes across as affable and largely unpretentious (which is quite an achievement for a jazz critic) but - like i say - he makes a point of not actually telling you anything here. this is what they always do... and - like i say! - they all allow each other to get away with it. so it goes... anyway, no, i haven't looked at the other 49 entries funnily enough, but i did enjoy this one, at least the musical part thereof. and hey, john chucks in a link to his namesake's zornfest right at the end there; but that's another story..! coming... soon??]


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birthday card (LATE AGAIN - !!)

shocking state of affairs. where the hell is my head at anyway?! granted, the maestro himself probably attaches little importance to these occasions, but still... if a thing's worth doing... and the worst of it is, i realised a couple of days ago that i'd missed the actual day (which was the fourth, i.e. last monday), then somehow managed to forget again until just now. wtf??  *

enough moaning... late or otherwise, this is supposed to be a celebratory post! so i will do as i usually do, and wish our guy all the best, and

 ***many happy returns of the day***

 - !

this was meant to be a year of change... well, so far it's been that, for sure, and i'm not just talking about myself here; it's still not clear exactly how far-reaching or how radical that change is going to be. but b. himself (in a brief email to me at the start of the year) was very optimistic about 2012 as a year of new opportunities in music, and i trust that this optimism will be borne out in due course. the concerts of last october (link still good at time of writing!) saw a number of new projects launched: the syntactical ghost trance choir, echo echo mirror house music, pine top aerial music... ok, the second of those is a term which has been drifting around for a few years now, but i'm not aware of any actual public performance of it prior to last year. the point: those concerts represent a very wide variety of approaches to one man's conception of music (a conception which is admittedly pretty wide to begin with), and some of them have not yet been captured in recorded form. this must surely be rectified in the near future..? what's more, i am guessing that still more new ideas, new approaches, have yet to be unveiled. so here's hoping that this year (and those to come) will witness plenty in the way of new music... keep it up, sir, we are counting on you :))

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return to the source

(i suppose that shd really be return to the thourthe *1)

finally some nice spring weather. absolutely filthy april. (*2) (don't think may is necessarily gonna bring too much to cheer about either, in that regard.) ok, so in the eventuality it only lasted one day before the rain came back with a vengeance (sigh...), but still, it was a nice morning and i took full advantage of it with a solo walk into the forest (*3)... wave after wave of nourishing, green qi unfurling from the massed vegetation, all just now thinking about expressing itself after weeks of cold rain... i really needed it too, as i have not been well and although my recovery was swift enough in terms of retreating primary symptoms, the foul weather and the full-time employment combined to rob me of chances to do any tai chi (which would surely otherwise have nurtured me back to health /full strength in no time)... that, when set against the noisy background of my continuing struggle to shed some deep-rooted habits and patterns from my own energetic matrix, gives an undesired end result: i still feel as weak as a kitten in the mornings and don't tend to shed that feeling until much later in the day. even then, i am never at more than 50% strength at present. it's weird.

but we'll get there... "we" in this case being the friendly experiencers of this world, because b's music in itself has power to heal... yes, it's true and i don't exaggerate... nor do i suggest that it is only b's music; on the contrary, i'm sure that a lot of free/creative music has this power to some extent, since it (almost) always comes from the heart; but in b's case it is definitely true since the composer has such an advanced understanding of resonance and vibration, and the ways in which sound affects a listener. part of the reason for my weakness (and the above para was actually written a couple of weeks ago...) was that i found myself in one of my "non-musical" phases, just not listening to anything much, and not feeling any desire to do so (despite knowing from experience that i feel better when i do); but eventually i forced myself to overcome this "ear apathy" and just play some damn music, and lo and behold, i did indeed feel much better afterwards. my recovery was much hastened in the end by a couple of days with plenty of creative sounds.

this is not just psychosomatic. i have written before (most notably soon after the birth of my daughter, but also more recently) of this ameliorative effect of b's music, and have noticed generally that it is often enough just to be in the room while the music is playing; but on these recent occasions i tried at times to pay a bit more attention, to go into it a bit more deeply. what i discovered is that the combined frequencies of the music can act directly on the body's energies: it really can make you feel better. this has been particularly noticeable when listening (as i repeatedly have) to gtm (syntax) 2003. now, i never did find out what the precise role is here of the electronics, there being no mention of them on the cd or anywhere else that i can see; but whoever was responsible for them, and however they were generated, they do a lot more than just create a background dreamscape. to a casual ear, the electronic frequencies do not seem to be especially tuneful; they don't even necessarily seem to support what is being played at any time, but this is a misapprehension. if one pays careful attention, it becomes clear that the synthetic sounds provide a perfect foundation for the two musicians at all times - and yes, the overall result provides complex sounds which appear to do more and more, the harder the listener concentrates. tune right into it, you can feel the vibrations raising you up. preoccupied as i was, i only monitored this effect for short periods at a time, and still i felt much better for it. what might the effect have been if i'd kept it up for a whole disc?

***

like i said above, the first part of this article was written a couple of weeks ago, and i had originally intended to finish it and post it right away. what happened in between? well... i was still gradually recovering, but i was also anticipating a week's holiday from work - nine days actually, including two weekends... and had just assumed that i would get plenty of chances to write during that time. didn't happen!! when i think about this i still scratch my head a bit over where it went wrong, as it were, why there was such a gulf between my casual expectations and the eventual reality; for whatever reason, weeks off in my previous (part-time) job seemed to give me more free time... this time around, it may have been nine days without going to work; but i never got more than a couple of hours to myself at any one time, and the disappointment which settled on me as i gradually realised how things were(n't) going to work pretty much ruined the entire week. it's definitely the case that i still don't seize my opportunities, don't tend to make the best use of my time when i do get some; but i expected more, in any case. (yes, i even thought i would get back into the braxtothon after all this time... but i'm tired of hearing myself talk about that project rather than getting on with it, so...)

things have been happening in the musical world: thb has a new sextet album out - actually it's been out for a few months now, i just didn't find out about it until very recently - which comprises the suite which was played at saalfelden (as you can see, i still haven't finished the "revisit" article... it is gonna get done, it is it is it is!); and just in the last week or so, mary halvorson has put out her second quintet release. i have listened to this one (the website allows one to preview the material) and was very impressed indeed: much as i did enjoy saturn sings, it never really had the feel to me of a proper quintet, as such; the music still seemed to be written for the core trio, with horn parts added on top as it were (and only in certain cases; some of the tracks only featured the trio, which very much reinforced my impression). this new one is undeniably quintet music, and a lot more complex and ambitious... fantastic stuff and highly recommended.


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