Did I mention new and beautiful?

 

I've very nearly finished my (first) journey through the ZIM recordings, as previously reported - actually I have just the last one to go. Not all of the performances captivated me in the same way as the first few did; but then. all that really proves is that this sort of stuff generally makes lousy background music, which is not exactly news. On the occasions which saw me able to give the music a decent proportion of my attention, I found it utterly fascinating. But for whatever reason, my time spent with Comp. 419 today was particularly enthralling.

I can do nothing about the fact that I could have been present for those last three performances, recorded live at Cafe Oto in London - a venue which opened only after I moved away from the capital in 2003, and which has hosted tons of great artists, almost none of whom I managed to see (the one exception to this was eventually written up some months after the event). [In truth, I was so cut off from what was happening in creative music at the time - this little residency took place in the last week of May 2018, just before the maestro's birthday - that I had no idea B. was even in the UK. I had had no direct communication with him since 2015, and he had probably (and very understandably) given up on me... ironically I posted my usual birthday card just a few days later, with no clue what a significant event I had just missed*.]

What I can do is not allow regrets and missed opportunities to spoil my enjoyment of the music, now that I am hearing it. I listened to Comp. 418 yesterday and enjoyed it a lot, but for whatever reason, Comp. 419 - comfortably the longest of the twelve performances - really blew my mind. Within seconds I was drawn right inside the music, the shape of which seemed completely clear at the time of listening, even though I would never have been able to articulate it; the total focus and commitment of the musicians to B's vision had a really profound effect on me. Some absolutely incredible sounds came from this performance. Seven minutes in, I already felt as if I had been listening for much longer, so "fast" is the music**. 

One thing which is a bit unusual for me in my listening to these pieces so far has been the fact that although I was aware of different performances featuring slightly different personnel (as recorded on different occasions), I hadn't bothered to check on that while I was listening to the music - until today. (Of course, given the discrepancy between the published tracklist and the running order presented on Youtube, it would have led to some frustration if I had bothered. Mind you, listening closely to the instrumentation would make definitive identification of the pieces that much easier...) The London concerts were performed by a septet, including a player I am not familiar with at all, Jean Cook on violin (eight of the remaining nine performances included Tomeka Reid on 'cello, but otherwise the strings in these groups are mainly provided by the twin harps). But looking over the details of the players - the full personnel lists appear on the back of the Blu-Ray, evidently - I was suddenly struck by something: this may be the first time I can remember a group of B's using exclusively a brass bass. Tubist Dan Peck is one of four players, including of course the leader, who plays on all twelve pieces: for a number of years, B's GTM ensembles routinely featured a tubist called Jay Rozen (not to be confused with Jay Rosen, the longstanding house drummer at CIMP), but those same groups always also included either Chris Dahlgren or (usually) Carl Testa on string bass***. 

In any case, Peck's role is less that of a bass player than - than just another voice, another player: his fleet and fluid runs on this number, at least, reminded me of Joe Daley (who made such memorable contributions to those mid-70s recordings by Sam Rivers, and in whose hands the tuba  - often thought of as a cumbersome "oompah" intrument - sounded like something entirely new, expressive and tremendously versatile). For whatever reason - and I'm not saying that this is not true of the other performances; this may have been more down to the fact that I was truly paying attention today - all the players really did something special here. Jean Cook, whoever she is, goes completely crazy around the 28-minute mark, and it just sounds incredible. Needless to say I was not makiing any detailed notes today - I am still warming up here, after all, getting myself broken in gently! - but I did find myself rapt for much of the extended playing time of this piece, unable to do anything except listen intently to it. I've said before, and am happy to repeat: this was something new. Amazing, in principle, that B. is still pushing himself to explore new territories well into his eighth decade; in practice, it's not amazing at all because no-one who is even passingly familiar with the man and his music(s) would expect anything else. 

If anyone happens to be reading this but hasn't yet heard any of the ZIM recordings, what are you waiting for? and why not start with this one?

***

One of the truly heartening, not-at-all-surprising aspects to the ZIM recordings for me has been hearing the evidence of B's own continuing practice as a player. Despite having achieved a level of mastery on his main axe that players can only dream about before the 1960s were out#, this man has been well known ever since for his dedication to daily practice, and if the proof of the pudding is in the eating, we lucky experiencers can gorge ourselves sick with every recording he makes. Still instantly-identifiable after all these decades by what I dubbed (very early in the days of this blog) his "master-tag" - a brisk descending/ascending run which peaks on a high note followed by a slightly lower one (sorry, my own lack of formal musical education is jarringly obvious at times like these), B. delights and inspires continually with his gongfu## every time he puts mouthpiece to lips. This extraordinary skill is, of course, evident throughout the ZIM recordings; but I have also been listening - via the same Youtube channel - to a solo recording cut a few days after the maestro turned 72. The fact that he hasn't retired into composing-and-conducting only, or into coasting through standards (as if), but still takes his craft as seriously as his art and is able to keep giving such performances, still presenting new music - opus numbers here in the 390 range - really is pretty astonishing. You can even still hear him working at it: at least one of these numbers, Comp. 393e, sounds as if it is really quite tough to play. Imagine setting oneself such tasks, in one's seventies..! and more to the point... imagine meeting such challenges :-O

* It's even more ironic that the photo I used today - chosen hours before the post itself was constructed - is from the very same day as the one I used for that self-same birthday card, in 2018. None of this was at all conscious or deliberate

** I am remembering here a comment made by Stuart Broomer - years ago, and in the context of an article about Marilyn Crispell (off the top of my head, I don't know where I came across this or how quickly I would now be able to find it... I am not about to look right now). Broomer noted that it is no surprise that Crispell had associations with the two "fastest" groups of the day: he meant Braxton's quartet and Parker/Guy/Lytton, and by "fastest" he was referring to "most complex musical events per minute", which does actually make some sense. (The fact that Crispell was intimately involved with B's music for a number of years, but guested with P/G/L only once (?) is neither here nor there: she kept fast company, as they say.)

*** A rare opportunity here to use the term "string bass" in its correct, i.e. original sense: most people, including many who "should know better" - and including B. himself on occasion, for that matter - use the term "string bass" to refer to the contrabass violin, as opposed to the electric bass; as if "string" were somehow an antonym for "electric", and as if the electric bass itself were anything other than a species of guitar (definitely a chordophone, last time I checked). Of course, in both (pre-modern) jazz and orchestral music, string bass is a term which came about to indicate that a double-bass is being used as opposed to a brass bass, i.e. a tuba or euphonium. (In very early jazz, marching bands could hardly have used anything other than a brass bass.)

# For Alto: recorded 1969, released 1971. Memory told me '60s, but I had to check: the absence of Restructures is proving a constant pain in the neck while I'm trying to get my shit back together... and although its pages are supposedly available via the Wayback Machine, I seem to be having some difficulty using that. Little help, anyone..?

## Thanks to Hong Kong Cantonese and a hugely-successful movie industry, almost all westerners think that Kung Fu is a martial art. But as I understand it, the term essentially refers to the concept of improvement through dedicated practice over time, and is absolutely not limited to the practice of martial arts, Chinese or otherwise. A gardener may be said to possess gongfu (kung fu) - or a carpenter, or a calligrapher. Or a musician, of course