Much to my surprise, it seems that a small handful of people still read anything I post on here - what little that currently is, in other words. This despite a) my continuing overwhelming inactivity, b) my failure to respond to comments as I used to (there is a reason for that - see below*), and c) the difficulty in locating Blogger material via a web-search these days.
To anyone who is still checking in: thank you for your (seemingly-infinite) patience ;-)
Now...
... as any Braxtonhead must know by now, an unofficial bootleg CD emerged a few years back on the Cypriot label Hi Hat. This is credited solely to AB and bears the title Live At The Rainbow Gallery '79; it claims to be taken from a radio broadcast from "the end of the decade", implying - sort of - that the 1979 date refers to the year of the broadcast, not necessarily the date of the actual performance. It gives the personnel as being Lewis, Holland and Altschul plus Muhal Richard Abrams, which makes it massively unlikely that it was recorded any later than 1976; but of course, that's assuming the personnel are credited correctly, which perhaps we had better not assume at all (hence my caveat "sort of" in the previous sentence: given the inherently-dubious nature of the release, it's probably best not to assume anything which we can't actually verify).
So, let's posit for the sake of argument that at least the venue is correct, and that the broadcast presents a performance at the Rainbow Gallery (in Minneapolis, apparently; even more confusingly, the entry for this item on Discogs adds the note "...in September 1987.(?)" - which would of course indicate that the performance was broadcast at least seven years before it actually took place! - where this unhelpful note originates (i.e. on the CD liners or with Discogs' members) is unclear). A pretty recent comment (from user "fetidwheeze") reads: "I had a painting exhibition during Braxton's residency at Rainbow Gallery and can assure you that the date was 1976... The group was there for several nights."
-This, in turn, appears to be at least partly in response to an earlier (and much longer) comment by user "senorton", which provides some quite detailed info, but which suggests that the "date" (?/?/79) is correct and the personnel wrong, rather than the other way around, as most people had previously assumed. The commentator supposes then that the line-up actually comprises John Lindberg and Thurman Barker, as per the 1979 working quartet, but with Lewis in for Ray Anderson - senorton reckons this sounds more like Lewis (but is confident it's not Altschul on drums) - and "Muhal Richard Abrams is definitely the likely choice for the pianist."
I have no intention of buying this illegal release myself - never did - and haven't yet heard it. What I'm interested to know, therefore, is whether anyone who might be reading this has listened to the performance, and if so what conclusions were drawn, if any? (My curiosity is however sufficiently piqued at this point that one way or another, I will probably go looking for an online audio rip and see what I can deduce about it... so if anyone does want to beat me to the punch and share their thoughts on this little mystery, they are encouraged to do so in the next few days..!)
[senorton provides a tracklist, too, having stated in passing that "the titles are ludicrous for a Braxton date"; that is not actually strictly true - the release lists the four pieces just as "Free Jazz Improv. 1-4", which is not completely implausible, though highly unlikely to be accurate for either the '76 working group or its '79 counterpart - but in any case he reckons that he can name all four pieces: the last three are given by him as Comps. 23d, 23e and 40f, while he lists the first as being "Cherokee" (but incorrectly gives Charlie Parker a co-credit for it, and in turn uses that as evidence of this being Lewis playing, since the two duo sets from 1976 with Lewis both include (brief) Parker covers... "Cherokee" was published in 1938, at which time Parker would have been around 18 years old; he is credited with the contrafact "KoKo", based on the "Cherokee" changes, and did play the earlier song, but he most certainly didn't co-write it. Does this undermine our commentator's credentials..?). For what it's worth, a later comment by user "SSRI_Guy" says instead that the first number is "Marshmallow" by Warne Marsh. - Regardless of which number it actually was that opened the broadcast, it was evidently a standard; but the rest of the set, if senorton is right about it, would be a very strange tracklist indeed for 1979. I'm already angling towards 1976, myself...]
***
If anyone doesn't yet have the reissued (remastered) Willisau (1991) Studio 2xCD on hatOLOGY... now is an excellent time to snap it up, since - unlike most commodities - its price seems to have fallen dramatically. A year or so ago you would have been lucky to find this for sale for less than twenty pounds (GBP; I can't vouch for what it would have cost in euros or dollars), but I just picked it up for five-and-a-half quid, brand new and still factory-sealed. Nobody reading this will need to be told what an essential release this was/is. The question is... where is the Live equivalent? Liner notes say it was slated for release in 2019, but we know that never materialised...
* One of the frustrations which has kept me away from here lately is the fact that I currently rely on a device - I can't really call it a laptop - which my wife originally bought, hence it "thinks" by default that I am her. Even when signed into my own email, if I load Blogger it tries to log me in as my wife - and the last time I tried to reply to a comment, I gave up because even though I had (eventually) succeeded in logging into the site / the blog as myself, when I went to the comments it reverted back to my wife's account. - To the gracious person who told me recently about the need to celebrate living musicians - my thoughts exactly - and who recommended one of Roscoe Mitchell's recent groups, I had tried to respond as follows: Yes indeed, we absolutely do... I haven't heard this particular small group of Mitchell's (love Tomeka Reid) and will try to hunt down some recordings. Thanks for the tip :-D (NB: I didn't yet manage to find any recordings by that group. I do really like Tomeka Reid - especially her first album as a leader. I love Roscoe Mitchell)
