Thumbscrew pt 1a: the mysterious track 7

 

OK, so in that previous post - specifically in the third part of said post - I highlighted one problematic aspect of the Thumbscrew Braxwerks album: one piece listed thereupon as Comp. 61 has been previously recorded (by B. himself, in duo with Mario Pavone) as Comp. 29a (technically, at the time of release it was listed as being just plain Comp. 29; but that, at any rate, I can categorically say was a mistake - see below). 

I said I would refer to the Composition Notes for guidance on this, and I have done so. Did this clear the matter up, once and for all? Weeeeeell... not exactly :-S

First things first, # 29 is in fact a short series, comprising Comps. 29a-29e - so, clearly whatever this piece is, it's not "Comp. 29" since that doesn't actually exist. (Probably. Let's not forget that B. and Martinelli were putting numbers to many of these pieces retrospectively, in some cases years after they were written, and if the odd detail got confused along the way... that wouldn't be the first time, now would it..?)

Secondly, there is at least some (internal) consistency to be found in the two conflicting recordings: the Pavone duo CD gives a diagram for track 2 which matches the graphic title for Comp. 29a in Composition Notes Book B, and the Thumbscrew CD gives a diagram for track 7 which (nearly) matches the graphic title for Comp. 61 in Composition Notes Book C (very nearly, but not quite: the three numbers which appear in the graphic title on the Thumbscrew CD are 67, 3 & 23 whereas the middle one should properly be 32). So we at least know for sure that the respective artists were clear about which piece they thought they were interpreting.

Thirdly... look, this is all bewilderingly vague and one can see (ish) how such confusion might arise. The notes say that Comp. 29a was composed "in the early seventies", and Comp. 61 dates from "circa 1976"; Composition Notes Books B and C are both copyrighted 1988 (although B's introductions to both books are dated August 2nd, 1984); the Pavone duets were recorded in January 1993... you can see how there is plenty of scope for things going awry here. Just in case it's not already fairly obvious where we're going with this: both pieces have very brief notes, and neither one of them includes any actual formal notation, so it may not be definitively possible to establish from the written notes exactly which recording was correctly attributed. (For all I know, neither of them is correct!) Who knows what the scores look like, or how/when they were produced? The Thumbscrew album (and I may have had a teeny whinge about this already) contains no information whatsoever about how the scores were sourced or where from, even if it seems an obvious inference (from the thanks list) that they were sourced from an official TCF archive with the assistance of Carl Testa. To be honest, I am tempted to say in principle that the Thumbscrew attribution is more likely to have been correct, simply because they will almost certainly have been working from a written score, whereas B. - in leading his own session with a close musical cohort  - might not necessarily have felt the need to do so; it's a simple enough theme, which he could easily have taught Pavone by ear (and then titled from memory after the fact). Unfortunately, it's not that straightforward. (I mean, why would it be?!)

One thing we can say for sure is that Thumbscrew tried to match the music to the written notes, if that is what they were doing: their version of the piece is clearly presented as a march, with Fujiwara rattling out a smart 2/4 line on the snare, and the notes for Comp. 61 do describe the piece precisely as a "march structure". Then again, the notes go on to say "... for extended improvisation", and Thumbscrew's three-minute sprint dispenses with that idea, at least. The rest of the notes are typically opaque, or rather typically Braxtonesque: that is, I'm quite sure they made perfect sense to him (and they probably do to students if he is explaining it all to them, or if they are already thoroughly immersed in B's system of thought), but for the rest of us, with the best will in the world, what are we to make of glosses such as this: "Composition No. 61 is a solidified structural moment that can be utilized as a germ factor for creative interpretation..."? Well, OK, with a bit of squinting we can actually glimpse the idea of what might be meant by that - but the crucial point is that such descriptions tell us only about what the piece might be or could be in the performance, rather than anything concrete about what it is. Still, we are told that it "was probably written in ten seconds (or something)"... so we can't perhaps expect too much in the way of hard detail.

Where the idea of Thumbscrew's track 7 being Comp. 61 starts to break down, though, is in the second paragraph of the written notes. Here we actually do get some specific detail, just no actual musical notation; the piece is declared* to be "in its most basic sense... a two-part phrase statement", which description does actually fit the tune well enough; but "the first part... is a fifteen-beat phrase grouping construction (actually thirteen and a half beats with one and a half beats rest)", a piece of rubric which really doesn't match the recorded music at all well. You can sort of jam it in sideways, and say that it fits: in march time, the first phrase of the recorded piece does indeed last fifteen beats; only no, it doesn't, because the written phrase includes a rest - which quite clearly occupies a sixteenth beat. In any case, the first written phrase occupies no fewer than fifteen beats, whichever way you look at it - not thirteen and a half. This section repeats, and the second written phrase which follows (played once in Thumbscrew's version, more than once in the original) really does not match the description in the notes at all. This "consists of two sections of pulse (notated) phrase groupings..." and that is where the written rubric definitively deviates from the audio recording. (At least I think it does... sigh...) 

Comp. 29a is another short piece, "written to meet the dictates of whatever project was happening at the time"; we are told it is "simply constructed and easily executed - so as not to be the focus of too much talking or rehearsing", although it, too, is a "material platform for extended improvisation" (...**). Again, we have brief notes which tend to focus on what the piece might be used for in performance - indeed, this piece "was written to express its own form": "the concept form has been superimposed... only as a means to have a criterion to comment on the work... the music came first, then the form".  However, once we get down to the technicalities, these seem a far closer match for the recorded music than do the specifics of Comp. 61. 

Composition No. 29a is a monophonic line* whose form is divided into four basic parts...

*There is one harmonization in the work (on one pitch)

- This neatly matches the music that we hear on the Pavone duo album, at least, down to the single harmonisation in what is otherwise a monophonic line.

Form in this context constitutes phrases, rather than time parameters. This is so because (it) is a short work only consisting of 56 notes in two phrases.

- Again, if I am counting correctly, this a dead match for what we hear in the Pavone duet, at least. Given that there isn't much to go on - and notwithstanding the temptation to suppose, as I did above, that B's acolytes might have taken more trouble to get their primary materials straight than the maestro himself would have done - it's beginning to look as if somehow, whatever their copy of the score might say, Thumbscrew were not playing the piece they thought they were playing. The final nail in that coffin would appear to come in the last paragraph of the notes: 

The work also contains several different levels of operating materials (i.e. short phrases, or fixed long sound beams)...

- In both recordings, the second phrase begins with a long, held note. OK, so that doesn't add up to any conclusive proof, but cumulatively, on balance, I would say that Thumbscrew just got this one wrong. Absent-minded he may occasionally be, but the (future) professor knew what he was taking into the studio. Track 2 on the Pavone duo album and track 7 on the Thumbscrew album are, 100% definitely, the same composition; and that composition is (not 100% definitely) Comp. 29a. There, I'm calling it.

Of course, as I already complained last time out, this means that we can't be overly confident about the attributions of any of the hitherto unrecorded pieces with which Thumbscrew have blessed us, but that's just an annoyance I'm going to have to live with. (Spoiler alert: taken purely as a musical recording, the Thumbscrew album really is a blessing.) - I will, at some point, have a good look at the notes for Comp. 14 as well... but that ain't happening tonight.

It's worth adding one delightful little detail here: the notes for Comp. 29a conclude "(it) is a short delicacy to be served quickly and consumed to whatever depth is possible". (**)

Next time I post about this album, I promise I'll be writing about the actual recorded music...

* I say "declared" advisedly: these parts of the text are presented with every individual word underlined.

** This seems to imply a contradiction, in that the piece is both "short... to be served quickly" and a "platform for extended improvisation". It's not necessarily a contradiction, though: I think B. means that the written, crystallised form of the piece is short - but that it may easily prolong itself in the performance. Whatever we are dealing with here, assuming the recordings represent either Comp. 29a or Comp. 61 and not some other piece entirely (...), they are intended to support extended improvisation. Thumbscrew apparently just didn't have enough time to develop the music as fully as one supposes they must have wished; that observation is certainly not limited to track 7, either.