Repertoire

Guess what? My CD from Belgium finally arrived   {{{*********}}} - which, in all honesty, is more of a relief than anything else at this point. 

Still, eventually the cellular memory of never knowing if it was going to turn up will wear off... and I shall be free just to enjoy the CD. Right? I'm certain that will prove to be the case... It's a pretty nice item, for sure: a double-CD in a slimline digipak, with the graphic titles for the four primary territories on separate panels, and a 16-page booklet inside. The label has definitely gone to some lengths to make this a desirable purchase (... something which is more or less essential for any label, in these days of readily-available downloads - both legal and otherwise) - so it's a real shame that their customer service is so poor*. I really wish I could recommend buying directly from them, but it hasn't been the greatest or most encouraging experience... and if I hadn't eventually got PayPal involved I doubt I would be holding the actual CD in my hands at all :(

Still, I've got it now and I'm really looking forward to playing it, a little later in the week...

Until fairly recently, as we well know, it was a rarity even to get the odd cover-version here and there when it came to B's voluminous book of wonders; B's old AACM cohort Roscoe Mitchell might toss in the odd tune occasionally, and there were some real obscurities which might be carefully extracted from perusal of online discographies and the like. Was the music just thought too hard, too abstruse? Whatever the rationale for this marginalising of such a significant composer, it was a very rare occasion indeed that the listening public was treated to a whole album of B's music, in the vein of Jump or Die. 

About a decade ago now (jeez, really? wow...) Tzadik gave us something else to get reasonably excited about, although that almost didn't count since the three musicians involved were very much working the music from the inside. It was very nearly the same as B. releasing the album himself... Still, never look a gift horse in the mouth and all that: I had no hesitation in buying that one. (By the time I went through and counted all its teeth there was no question of sending it back again...)

Things are gradually changing, though - people are slowly catching on. Within the last two or three years we got the Thumbscrew album (yes yes I know) and the one by The Locals (admittedly, performed live in 2006... not released until last year). And now there is this guy from Belgium, this young guitarist who made a whole solo guitar album of GTM interpretations, and followed it up with the project that started off this post. Slowly but surely, creative musicians are proving that the world is (just about) ready for this stuff. About fuckin' time.

So, anyway, I've been teasing for well over a year the idea of writing about the Thumbscrew project, and that is one of the next handful of posts I will be writing (honest! it is!!). I also got hold of the Locals CD just last week, which is a much more satisfying listen that I thought it might be - so I shall be writing about that too, in due course. Oh, and then there is this one of course. (I don't seem to be able to stop myself at the moment, so I scored a copy of that Affinity collection** just today - of course I shall have to wait for that one to arrive now, but I don't anticipate any issues with that... not one but two Braxton numbers on that baby, so I daresay I might see my way to posting a bit about that too, eventually.)

What the world needs now... is Braxton, sweet Braxton... it may not quite roll off the tongue, but wouldn't it be great if the idea caught on?

:-D

* Sigh... I gave it a couple of weeks before chasing them, although even then, I had given them a chance to acknowledge my order because I needed to check that I'd paid the right shipping rates. At least, I thought I did: I emailed the only contact address they provided, but didn't get a reply. OK, so I let that go and left it a couple of weeks, like I say; by that point I really wanted to know that my order had at least been received - I wasn't convinced that the CD had even been released, frankly. No answer. Again, a week or so and another email, with a very clear subject heading in both English and French (just in case) saying that I wanted a reply; no answer. Finally I got PayPal on the case and oh, suddenly I heard back within 24 hours: a sort of apology, and a vague supposition that the order had probably been sent, but they would send it again (??) since it clearly hadn't turned up; I did reply to that email too, but funnily enough, no response to that one either. Fine, I have the CD now so I'm happy(ish) - but I shan't be buying from them again. Like I say, that's a real shame because I'm quite sure they could use the business. 

** For some reason I had never got round to hunting down a copy before, and indeed had forgotten all about it until today. I bought their Eric Dolphy tribute CD years and years ago.