Another ZIM video

 

Anthony Braxton: ZIM Sextet

Théâtre Jean Vilar

Vitry-sur-Seine, France, 15th February 2019

Composition(s) unknown

video here

An unofficial video, this time, but with obvious kinship to this previous one which I wrote about last November... here we are reliant upon a single audience member filming the proceedings on a single device from a single fixed viewpoint: that has its own drawbacks and is a bit of a grey area ethically (something I have zero intention of delving into, being myself grateful to have such a recording available; perhaps if the poster were likely to make money from the video, things would be different... but this is creative music we're talking about, and nobody ever really got to give up the day job because of their involvement with that*), but the sound is well captured and seamless, and that is the main thing after all. [There are some issues arising from the fact that we are stuck with the viewpoint of the person filming: at times the most curious sounds may seem to be those we can't see being produced, and this is of course where a professional TV crew/editor/producer etc would be able to switch cameras for us; that's not what we're dealing with here, so like it or lump it. But bear in mind that performances like this aren't exactly easy to come by... as far as I am concerned we are very lucky to have this at all.]

Besides the source of the recording itself, the most obvious difference between this performance and the other ZIM recordings I've come across so far lies in the personnel. We can see straight away that it's a ZIM sextet just from the configuration of the players onstage, with the double harps and so on; but there was no THB on this occasion. That may very well not have been a first, but it's definitely unusual, and it's just worth noting that in the absence of B's right-hand man, the stage-left "lieutenant role" is taken by Ingrid Laubrock. To an old lag like me, it scarcely seems like five minutes** since the tenorist was first hooking up with the maestro in his expanded GTM 'tets, but in practice, she was easily the most experienced of the five players present for this concert, and although it is possibly the case that Jacqui Kerrod had had more in-depth preparation for the ZIM strategies specifically***, Laubrock herself is not untested in these conditions (having been special guest at Moers in 2017 as we know, and having also participated in the two August 2017 recording sessions at Firehouse 12, which produced four of the pieces presented on the ZIM Blu-ray #), and had plenty of "Brax-mileage" clocked up in various other contexts. 

Kerrod occupies the harp position at stage right, which is to say, next to the leader; unfortunately she is seldom directly seen during the video, since the angle from which the audience member is filming means that there are almost always two music-stands between us and JK's head; at one point she bends down and is clearly visible, but otherwise, the only time we get a good view of her is when the musicians stop playing and stand up. The harp at stage left, seated at Laubrock's right, is played here by Miriam Overlach, who had played this (type of) music in London, in May 2018 ##; also present on the latter trip was violinist Jean Cook, at centre-right onstage (i.e. third from the viewer's left). This is my first proper look at this remarkable musician, who first came to my attention when I listened to Comp. 419 (as reported here); she really can play the hell out of her instrument. Finally, I am completely dependent upon Youtuber Boris Niavet for the identification of the tubist, Carl Ludwig Hübsch ###; this is a significant substitution, inasmuch as all previous ZIM performances that I'm aware of feature Dan Peck. So, a couple of notable absences for this concert; but one would scarcely notice, so skilfully is the demanding material negotiated. (Hübsch, an experienced musician in his own right, appears to be entirely new to B's music but is well suited to it: one thing he is especially good at is forcing the breath through his instrument, something which frequently crops up in B's music, and basically always sounds great in these contexts ^.)

Much as it feels unnecessary to bring it up, it is nonetheless relevant that besides the leader, the tubist is the only male musician present here. That is, in an ideal world it would not be necessary to comment on this at all, but in the here and now, we know that B. has long endeavoured to encourage more women to participate in creative music, and as a bandleader, he has done as much as anybody to help bring that equality about. Nevertheless, it's a rare occasion even within B's groups that the girls outnumber the guys; this is one of them.

A quick word here about the maestro. Nobody reading these words is likely to need telling, but it struck me quite forcefully (albeit not for the first time) while watching this video how lazy and inaccurate it is of critics - and music listeners generally - to characterise B's approach to playing the saxophone as "cerebral". People know, of course, that he is an intellectual, and looks like one; that he was for much of his adult life a professional academic, and talks like one; that he was formatively influenced by (among others) Paul Desmond and Warne Marsh. Oh, and of course his music is famously complex and nobody (...) can make much sense of it. Hence, for years, critics would beat him with the stick that his playing was cerebral, cold, passionless. It's complete bollocks, of course, and one hopes that such casual misrepresentations are finally dying out even among professional critics. But if anybody did need convincing, they have only to watch him play: it is a whole-body exercise for him, and always has been. Even when laying out, indeed, he can frequently be seen moving his head and body according to a complex count that (in all probability) only he can fully hear/feel. Again, this really "shouldn't" need saying at all; but it might, regardless.

I would be most reluctant to attempt any sort of full-tissue dissection of such a performance, even if I were properly capable of such a thing; but I do tend to make notes while watching these longer videos, and some observations-in-passing follow below.

***

Different approaches and musical strategies are set up in different ways, some specified by the score, some cued up by the players. The music begins with flurries and clusters of sound from all sides, but very early on, Cook lays out and starts rearranging her sheet music, apparently awaiting a suitable cue; this latter is very possibly provided by B., but if so, this takes place out of the viewer's sight. What we actually see: Cook stands watching B. closely, then at 2.45, having apparently got the cue she was waiting for, she begins to play a single sustained note. This is picked up and emulated by all three aerophones, in turn (the harps offer no such option really, and Kerrod and Overlach continue doing their own thing). It is an early example of how prearranged elements are dropped into play.

At 8.19, Cook begins an extraordinary series of scrabbling pizzicato attacks, a controlled burst of impossible-to-notate noise which Leroy Jenkins would have been proud of. Others join the fray after their own fashion, specifically Hübsch, who unleashes a chain of low-frequency parps (which again one won't find on a stave). This passage really flags up something which all friendly experiencers (and any fans of free improv) already know: that anything at all can be a valid and viable sound source, if it's deployed intelligently and with control.

Starting just before 14.40, the harpists get in on the same act, using detuned bottom strings to create unearthly twangs.

At 19.00, several players begin repeating the same descending three-note phrase, which is clearly written out on the score, although one presumes (from the abrasiveness of some of the attacks) that there are other symbols besides notes on the chart at this point. The harps continue the descending figure as the others lay out, and B. quietly switches his alto for his sopranino, upon which he executes a gorgeous series of "bent", vibrato-laden attacks; the vibrato is picked up briefly by Cook, and we can presume that such an approach is indicated on the score. 

(These moments are mostly quite fleeting, and before one knows it, each passage has mutated into something quite different. The soundscape rarely crystallises for more than a few seconds at a time: this - along with a near-complete absence of rhythm - would appear to be a defining feature of the ZIM methodology.)

At 21.15ish, a natural pause is reached, at which point B. looks over towards Laubrock and gestures decisively, bringing his right arm down sharply as if opening a large and heavy book. This confuses the audience, who begin to clap hesitantly but are quickly silenced by the musicians who resume playing: Laubrock's next attacks take the form of percussive, staccato tonguing, perhaps in direct response to the hand-signal, perhaps just the beginning of a new phase in the score. (It seems that the ZIM compositions are not designed to flow continuously, but rather comprise modular segments which can presumably be transposed ad hoc. This is particularly noticeable later on, as we will see.)

At 24.38, B. is on soprano and embarks on what could almost be deemed a solo, providing a nice little microcosm of both his (yes) lyricism and his comprehensive technique, using quite a wide variety and range of attacks within one evocative passage. 

At 27.07, the seamonster makes its first entrance. This sets up what is arguably one of the more "stable" phases of the piece, during which the soundscape assumes a certain "shape" and doesn't vary it too much. Around the 29-minute mark, some peculiar knocks or taps don't seem to be coming from any of the three players at stage right (which is where our camera is pointing at that moment). As always when the low-end equipment is out, there are some fascinating sounds here.

By 30.50, B. is back on alto, and Cook plays some heart-stoppingly beautiful phrases, quite simple really, but executed with stupendous authority and control.

Around 34.10, B. makes a sort of box with his fingers and the ensemble embarks on a short (less than a minute) prearranged section comprising long, sustained tones - it's in fact the kind of passage which very often brings these longer compositions to a close, and indeed there is a natural pause after this, except that this time the audience knows better than to clap; and the performance can't be over yet, because instead of introducing the band, B. signals again and stands there silently dancing in place, still hearing something the rest of us cannot. This is then followed by a passage for the strings, in which the two harpists - eventually joined sparingly by the violin - play a very free series of phrases, Kerrod in particular knocking on the frame of her instrument as well as using its strings. 

Around 37.00, something from (almost) nothing: a quiet passage is allowed to lapse briefly into silence, and in response to another signal from B., a furiously intense phase begins, with the leader on soprano and the others right with him, as if we have suddenly been flung into a farmyard full of squawking geese (but with a lot more inherent musicality than that image implies..!). 

Something curious and interesting occurs around 45 minutes: Laubrock is worrying away at another descending three-note phrase, and while she has paused briefly, at 45.15ish Overlach gets her attention and signals "flip it over", suggesting that she invert the order of the intervals in the phrase, which Laubrock promptly does, also upping the tempo of these new ascending phrases. Overlach quickly runs with this, but within a few seconds, the whole ensemble is already doing something different. That's how quickly the soundscape can shift and change.

The very same three-note descending figure is persistent, however, and around 47.35 Cook can be heard repeating it. This comes very shortly before a total pause, and although we can't see what the leader is doing at this point, it's clear from watching the other faces that B. signals a complete change of some sort: everyone turns over the pages of their sheet music, and at 48.00 B. counts them off into a specific new phase, almost as if they were starting another composition from scratch. (More likely, what he is actually doing is signalling the beginning of the final movement; the composition as a whole has got less than fifteen minutes to run at this point, as it will turn out... but what do I know? Less than them, obviously.)

From about the 54-minute mark, B. is back on sopranino (which is pretty much his second-favourite axe, and has been for quite some time really), playing some marvellous stuff, and just after 55.00 he subvocalises some crazy sounds - which Kerrod and Cook are only too happy to pile in and support, Cook tapping her bow fiercely against the strings and Kerrod knuckle-rapping the frame of her harp with both fists. 

Within the next couple of minutes B. has switched back to alto, and we gradually move towards a conclusion. For whatever reason - maybe just because she no longer needs to refer to the score - Laubrock removes her glasses for this bit; around 61 minutes, as another pause arrives, B. gives a large and decisive hand signal and a few seconds later - after a few more breath-blasts from the tuba - we begin what clearly feels like a concluding phase. For a few seconds it almost feels as if they are tuning up, although this seamlessly transitions into a passage of considerable beauty, and there is still time for a last rip of the alto, B. really leaning hard into the phrasing, which dissipates into a sequence of isolated, staccato "chops" from the whole band, before one final sustained tone at 64.13 which marks the end of the piece.

As always, B. gets in there with the names of the band straight away, before the audience can drown him out: the audience are very patient as the maestro struggles mightily with some of the names on this occasion, but as always in these cases, the applause when it does come is vigorous and enthusiastic. The taps on the arm which B. gives to Hübsch as they walk off suggests that, indeed, this may well be the first time he has played with him.

And as usual, the players are only offstage for a few seconds before they come back for a short encore, and as usual this is filled with such variety, so many disparate elements, that one can use it as a holographic fragment of the whole concept. Both reed players are on soprano for this and B. briefly cuts loose with some of his fantastic harsh-breathing attacks; this time, the ending comes via a written sequence of short notes interspersed with pauses, and we're done. The maestro takes the time to congratulate each player individually as they walk off for the last time. 

***

As I've said before, this stuff really is (was; no, is) new and different. The complete absence of rhythm players alone, as well as the doubled harps, sees to that. The soundscapes are both incredibly rich and formidably strange, almost entirely devoid of any of the elements which most people would expect to find in Western art music. Overall I am continually reminded of gazing at a large-scale surrealist painting, where every detail is either essentially unfamiliar or placed in an unfamiliar context, and in which one can lose oneself for an unmeasured length of time. A listener approaching this with anything other than completely closed ears (and folded arms) could be left utterly and permanently changed by this music.

This is not just hyperbole or metaphor: we know that the neuroplasticity of the brain allows for new stimuli to foster entirely new neural connections, open up pathways where none existed before. Anthony Braxton knows this for sure. We may be relatively few, but it's no wonder his collaborators and true fans love him and his work so much.

* Of course, B. himself did eventually give up the day job. By that point he had a MacArthur "genius" grant under his belt, as well some other similar recognitions. So it is just about possible. But he had reached retirement age anyway - and let's not presume that he taught professionally for all those years purely because he loved teaching. (In the meantime, anyone who really needs the lowdown on how difficult it is to make money out of this kind of stuff could do worse than check out A.B. Spellman's Four Lives in the Bebop Business.)

** It's actually a good few years ago now, but I vividly remember hearing Laubrock's first Radio 3 commission - and several of us bitching about it on the R3 jazz "messagebored". The German-born player "came up" in London, as part of the F-ire Collective, and honed her skills in some school or other (presumably the Guildhall - but I'm not going to check that). I don't think it unfair to say that her playing was a lot more interesting than her writing at this time I'm thinking of - and in fairness I think it took some time for B's influence to rub off in that regard, even after she had started working with him. (Considering how many different musicians passed through the F-ire Collective I always thought the writing that came out of that scene had a very samey and stale feel to it, endlessly recycling the same pool of influences...)

*** I am basing this assumption on the fact that Kerrod is the only harpist who plays on every ZIM recording (and that she cut a duo album with B. as well). The second harp chair is of the revolving variety.

# I still don't have a copy of this extraordinary release (or indeed the hardware on which to play it), but the music is available to hear online. Several of the blog pieces from last September discuss it, in more or less excitable fashion...

## During the video, I worked quite hard at times to figure out which harpist was where onstage, given that we can only see one of them. Kerrod and Overlach have quite similar features really and their profiles especially are not all that different. Kerrod, however, has darker hair and a lot more of it. I had eventually decided that the visible harpist was MO and that JK is largely obscured from our view... which was eventually confirmed when they all stood up at the end. (B. of course also names them in order, starting from stage left.)

### M. Niavet hyphenates the two forenames, French-style; but various sources online confirm that they are two separate forenames, and that the tubist simply uses both of them (like John Philip Sousa). CLH is not a young man at all, indeed he was born in 1966 - he just happens to have taken a long route to working with B.

^ I am always, always reminded of the opening of side two of the first BYG album, or (what is now known as) Comp. 6g. The thing is, a careful ear can immediately hear when this sort of thing is being done with precision and control, and when it's just a noise slung in there as a gimmick, or for laughs. For my sins I sat through Polar Bear's support set at the 2007 "Feel Trio meets AB" summit in London, and saw the difference right there. Done properly, simply expelling air can sound amazing... and it's a device which B. has used on many occasions, always to great effect.

A request

 An album which I have never heard - or come across, except in passing - has suddenly become available (well, at least one copy of it has turned up for sale): Four Compositions (Duets) 2000, with Alex Horwitz.

B's duo partner in this instance is a vocalist, which is already not a great start from my point of view (some readers of longer acquaintance will recall my fussiness with vocals, especially those of the jazz variety). For every Anne Rhodes or Lauren Newton* there are many more that I just can't listen to; yep, it's a problem of mine, but not one I have ever been in a desperate hurry to fix. And male jazz singers, just don't get me started. However, in this case, the problem is a bit more complicated than that: Discogs lists the album, confusingly, as Jazz, Non-Music - and subcategorises it thus:

Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation, Spoken Word

- Let's assume here that the "Jazz" bit refers to B's contribution (hardly accurate, in most cases, but hardly surprising either - since most sites don't recognise Creative Music as a genre, and if we were looking for B's stuff in a music shop, we would have to go to the Jazz section... assuming there is one) and that "Non-Music" relates to Mr Horwitz. (Rightly or wrongly, I am presuming that Alex Horwitz is/was male. Discogs is no help, providing zero information about this person - who has no other recording credits of any description. Google nudges me only towards a guy involved with film, connected in some way to the musical Hamilton - he doesn't look old enough to have done an album with B. in 2000.) 

Spoken word..?

There is one "review" of this album on Discogs, evidently by a friendly experiencer, granting one solitary star to the album. Horwitz is characterised as a "woefully unfunny comedian". The overall impression is that the album is "just painful".

So, not a ringing endorsement then...

If that's what is going on here, it explains the rather weird Genre/ Style tags, and I'm inclined to explore no further. But: before I give up on this idea completely... has anyone actually heard this album, or part of it? 

***

UPDATE - see comments

* Lauren Newton is, I trust, too well-known for me to have to explain who she is. Anne Rhodes is possibly unknown except to serious fans of B's music, having been intrinsically involved with the Syntactical Ghost Trance Choir, and represented on official recordings here (with her name unfortunately misspelled) and here; way back in Feb 2012 I wrote a bit about the Leo release, and the chanteuse was gracious enough to pop in and say hello. [She was also Mrs Carl Testa at the time, though I have no idea whether this "Braxblessed" union is still intact. Relationships are complicated, and one never likes to presume.]

Thumbscrew pt 1a(a): the mysterious track 7, continued

Having finally set down some detailed thoughts on the actual album, I can now do something I always planned to do afterwards, which is to say: return to the vexed question of the trio's interpretation of Comp. 61. (After all: as far as the trio was concerned - and let's include Carl Testa as well, acting on behalf of TCF - this is precisely what they were doing, i.e. premiering a work that had been "left over" from the seventies and was unrepresented in the recorded catalogue.)

Here's how this has panned out so far, from the point of view of the blog:

1. Early in 2021 (or was it very late 2020?) I bought the Thumbscrew CD - this now seems about two hundred years ago, although I didn't buy it as soon as it came out, or even as soon as I was aware of it. Nothing remains in my memory now of the first couple of listens - but I did register straight away that the piece listed here as Comp. 61 was already known to this listener as Comp. 29(a). (As previously mentioned, this latter is not massively well known, and was presumably not known to the band - or to Testa - at all. It just happens to be a piece which charmed me the first time I heard it, enough that I stuck it on a playlist back in 2008; hence, notwithstanding the completely different voicings in this trio arrangement, I recognised the tune at once.)

2. After an inordinate amount of faffing around (even by my standards), I finally got some frustrations related to the album out of my system, preparatory to saying something (hopefully) constructive about it. I flagged up the confusion (under point 3 of that post) and explained why this had been causing me to have nagging doubts about the reliability of the numbering in the case of previously-unrecorded pieces. I also said that I would delve into the published Composition Notes for the two works before writing anything else on the subject.

3. Using said reference material - but without even attempting to look anywhere else (such as on TCF) - I made an assessment of which opus number is more likely represented by the short interpretation on the album. Given that in neither case do the (brief) Composition Notes include any actual sheet music, I concluded that the written description of Comp. 29a is a closer match for the recorded music than the entry for Comp. 61.

4. I was almost immediately "set straight" on this in a comment by Jeff Schwartz (who had previously commented on the first Thumbscrew post - although he didn't mention anything about TCF at that time, or indeed anything about the album itself). Jeff pointed me to Carl Testa's short essay, which confirms that the original idea behind Thumbscrew's Braxton project was to showcase previously unrecorded material; and sure enough, right at the top of the article, a few staves of hand-written sheet music are reproduced, with "61" scribbled above them - this "matches what's on the record" as Jeff confirmed.

This did have a very deflating effect on me, once I'd properly taken in what the comment contained and had looked at Testa's article. I'd just put my name to a firm declaration that of the two compositions in question, Comp. 29a was a closer match and more likely to be a correct attribution - and immediately I was being shown proof that I was wrong. 

Or was I..?

Let's be clear: all the article actually establishes for sure is something I never seriously doubted to begin with, namely that the band acted in good faith when they put the title Comp. 61 to their recording. I even said explicitly in my first article that they "genuinely believed that they were reading and playing Comp. 61, even while B. himself had already recorded it under a completely different premise". What's more, they must not have been aware that they were doing anything potentially controversial in the process, since there is no mention - either on the CD or in Testa's article - of any sort of "revised numbering" taking place here. Apparently, none of them were familiar with the earlier duo recording. What the article does confirm is the exact same thing I had previously inferred by an educated guess: that the scores were sourced via TCF, with Testa's help. (I did not actually know about Carl's official role within the foundation, but it was pretty obvious just from the wording of the band's thanks that he was directly involved in locating and selecting the materials.)

So, we know that the band was provided with a written score marked "61" and that they were also given copies of the composition notes. Between the two, they arrived in this case at a recording which uses elements of both without being fully explained by either: whilst I am happy to take Jeff's word for it that the written theme "matches what's on the record" - I don't read music, as I have already made very clear, but I can muddle through it well enough to be able to work out that he's right, it does - but the notes refer very explicitly to some things which don't appear on the score at all. The recorded piece is a march, as confirmed by Tomas Fujiwara's rattling, military-style snare drum; but this element of the recording comes purely from the composition notes, not from the score (which includes no time signature). The written score also contains no bar lines, despite the fact that the composition notes include extremely specific instructions regarding this (as I have previously explained). Testa's article rather implies - though does not explicitly state - that the written score and the composition notes are contemporaneous; but if that had been the case, why was the score (which is after all very short) not included with the published notes?

There is really no firm indication of where the "score" comes from at all, and I think it very unlikely that it dates from the same time as the notes, and even less likely that it dates from the actual time of composition. 

I don't even know for sure whether that's B's handwriting; but let's just say for the time being that I'm happy to take it on trust that it is. I also know, however, that B. has never pretended to be infallible when it comes to this sort of thing and it's entirely plausible that he might at some point (years after the fact) have scribbled down this fragment of melody and put "61" on it, as a "best guess", having forgotten that he ever recorded the same piece as something else. Stated baldly like that, this sounds faintly ridiculous, even insulting, but two points about that: first, B. has been a hugely - relentlessly - prolific composer for more than five decades, and (as we know!) not all of his work has been recorded, nor was all of it properly written down at the time it was composed; even the numbering system itself was only applied retrospectively, to anything which now bears an opus number below (about) 90; and second, how the hell else are we to explain the facts as we now find them?! It's all very well pointing out that the band were working from a scribbled score with "61" on it, but this completely overlooks the fact that the exact same tune* was already recorded under a different opus number, and no explanation for this has been given. As far as I can see, nobody other than me is even aware of the issue, never mind attempting (probably badly, in my case) to sort it out. No; in a sort of inversion of the "Sherlock Holmes principle": however unlikely the above hypothesis may sound, I cannot think of any other way of explaining the existing facts. It's a lousy theory, in other words... but it's also an inference to the best explanation, as they say in academic philosophy.

What TCF are now doing is great, and I wish Carl Testa himself every success in curating the written material. But we can hardly rely on him for an accurate account of what went down at the time, given that his own involvement with B's music begins in the present century - and in this case, we are talking about music which was composed several years before he himself was even born**. Unfortunately, records of B's considerable output before he began work with Martinelli to draw up the present numbering system can be a little sketchy at times; and even the published Composition Notes were not necessarily written at the same time as the actual music was composed. Memories may fail, and details can be confused or even lost, over time; even a composer such as B. - who does not just plunge remorselessly onwards, leaving the past behind, but who continually returns to his own prior work for inspiration*** - can be excused if he occasionally gets certain details mixed up, just as was (after all) the case with one of his most famous albums #. The matter has not, in fact, been definitively cleared up at all; the only person who can realistically shed any further light on it is the maestro himself... and until such time as he does that, I think this is as far as we can go with this discussion. 

* It's very frustrating, but my current technical set-up does not permit me to upload an audio recording of the duet with Mario Pavone in support of my argument. I am aware that in the absence of this, readers may presume that I am mistaken - that I am just mixing up two somewhat similar themes. I'm not; but for the time being you will all have to take my word for it. (That needn't actually be as hard as it sounds. Flawed scholar though I most definitely am, if my ears were once deemed good enough for B., they are good enough for everyone else.)

** As far as I can determine, Carl was born in 1984 in Chicago. (The waters were muddied somewhat by the presence of another professional musician of the same name, a pianist from Atlanta; but it wasn't overly hard to figure out who was who.)

*** - and why wouldn't he? He also regularly returns to jazz standards. (The only aspect of his playing, as far as I can tell, which marches (almost) exclusively forwards is his solo saxophone work.)

# Discogs perpetuates the familiar mistake with this album, and Restructures is (alas, alas) no longer around to correct it, but as I've previously discussed, the dedications for the individual pieces here were a bit mixed up on the original release. Notably, the furious firestorm (which got Phil Woods all hot under the collar, causing him to lose all perspective) now designated Comp. 8f is dedicated to Cecil Taylor, not to John Cage. 

Thumbscrew pt 2: the (other) details

 

Thumbscrew, The Anthony Braxton Project (Cuneiform, 2020)

(Stop me, as they say, if you've heard this one before...)

Anyone actually keeping an eye on the blog recently will have started to wonder if this post would ever appear... so just in case: this post continues from the original pt 1, and from its follow-up; and I can tell you right now that there will eventually be at least two further posts trailing along behind this one, like cans tied to the back of a car: I need to do yet a further follow-up on the whole bamboozling business of Comp. 61 aka Comp. 29a, in the light of the official written material on the TCF site (link provided by commenter Jeff Schwartz, q.v.); and at some point I will essay a comparative study of the three different solo interpretations of Comp. 14 which are included on this here album, with reference to B's composition notes - but don't hold your breath for that one (as if anyone reading this needed to be told that...).

The first thing that needs to be said regarding the content of this post, then: it won't contain any more than passing consideration of those same three versions of Comp. 14, because they really deserve a post all of their own.

The second thing, cutting to the chase: taken purely out of context, as a listening experience (with the proviso that the listener be already somewhat familiar with creative music in general, and preferably with B's music particularly), this album is very enjoyable and does repay repeat visits. It seems important to state that clearly at (or near) the outset, given that I have previously led up to this point by airing all manner of gripes and grumbles and grievances: over the last year, the more I have listened to the album, the more enjoyable I have found it. It's also worth saying right now that the album has made me see (hear) Tomas Fujiwara in a whole new light (= audio equivalent thereof). It's not that I didn't rate him as a drummer, but until recently I had never considered him to be an ideal interpreter of B's music; I absolutely think of him that way now, as a result of repeated listens to this recording.

[- 'Cos apparently repeated listens is what it took. The first two or three plays, whenever they took place (sometime in 2020... 2021) almost might as well not have happened at all, because however much I may have "enjoyed" them - and what does one call it, when a certain amount of pleasure seems to have been obtained from listening to something of which nothing much is nevertheless retained? - I failed to carry forward some rather significant details about it. The album begins with Comp. 52, an old favourite of mine*, and yet somehow when I returned to the CD last autumn, I was surprised to see title that staring back at me from the track listing on the back cover: I had completely forgotten it was on here**. When writing the introductory post for this album, I was reduced (in the first footnote) to saying that Comp. 274 "must presumably be GTM", simply because at that point, I couldn't remember that either (and didn't want to have to interrupt my train of thought in order to check***). The one thing which I had never forgotten about the album was that it contained a renumbered piece which I already knew as Comp. 29a... but various other details, some of which are pretty salient, had disappeared from my memory altogether. #]

So much for the top-level "pros"; as regards the "cons", well, it remains the case that what I said previously (that "it is just not possible to conclude that this project turned out exactly the way the musicians had hoped, or anywhere near it") may have sounded terribly harsh, but I'm going to stick with that. At least two of the interpretations here border on the perfunctory; and since there can't possibly have been anything lacking in terms of will or good intention, I'll presume that it was ultimately down to there being less rehearsal time available than originally hoped, necessitating some corners being cut with the material. As it turns out, the ideal way to listen to this album is with your ears turned on, for sure; but perhaps not all the way on, since the more closely one listens, the harder it is to avoid hearing where those gaps are.

Now that I am finally at the point of dealing with the album as a whole, I have decided to free myself from the tyranny of writing about it track-by-track; this was something I found myself unable to avoid doing, back in the "old days", largely because there was simply so much to say about every piece; but I often felt like a terrible hypocrite, since I have extremely limited patience for that kind of review as a reader ##. As I've already said, I will basically skate over (the three different interpretations of) Comp. 14 here anyway - that cuts down to just eight the number of pieces under consideration. Those eight will get covered, one way or another; but it won't necessarily be one-second-to-the-next, as in the days of the Braxtothon.

The packaging

I do just want to address the question of the cover(s), the design etc at this point because I'm not sure this is an issue which generally gets its due share of attention. In an era where digital music is not widely available but is really the norm (at least as far as listeners under a certain age are concerned), it falls to labels to give potential buyers a good enough incentive to want to own something in physical form to begin with. Yes, the sound quality is better, that's true - but this is not something that people in general are really aware of ###, and even if they are, they may not care all that much. Most people can now play on their phone something that at least sounds good enough for them - and they get to carry that around wherever they go. Who needs clunky hard media? 

Even fans of creative music - who are (arguably) more likely to be concerned about audio fidelity and hence potentially less likely to make do with listening to a recording via a streaming service - might still require persuasion, to part with their money for this product as opposed to that one. Of course the labels have problems of their own (or so I understand it), with rising overheads versus diminished profit margins, and labels specialising in niche markets such as this one are never likely to see much in the way of profit at the best of times; how do they make their product attractive to the consumer, without bankrupting themselves? Different labels come up with different solutions to that problem: older, more established ones like Leo or Emanem still use old-style jewel cases, with the associated "J-cards" and all the rest of it, but keep their design as basic and spartan as possible, spending no more on this than they have to (nothing at all, in some cases - by the looks of it); newer labels such as Clean Feed or RareNoise always take care over the cover design, but use more slimline packaging and don't always include much - if anything at all - by way of liner notes. (Those labels - such as Hat or ECM - which have both elevated aesthetics and detailed liners are presumably privately funded in some way that the others are not. As for Tzadik... I have no idea how Zorn does what he does, and I never did. ^)

Cuneiform takes the latter route, as evidenced by this album. It's a slimline CD, with a transparent tray glued to the rear cover, and no insert. But I have to say, the design of the cover and packaging, basic though it is, has actually been achieved quite carefully and tastefully; and although the cover concept itself is a pretty obvious one, with elements of B's graphic titles etc scattered around piecemeal, it works pretty well^^. Lack of liner notes is always a bit of a disappointment (and in the case of this particular project, I felt I could have done with some proper explanation as to how it was realised and what limitations were faced), but I didn't feel ripped off^^^ by this purchase, and the CD - with its mainly black and white packaging and bright blue disc - is quite a nice item to have.

The band

Though the group is a cooperative trio, it is likely that Mary Halvorson would have had to take the lead here. That is simply because she had so much more experience at studying and playing B's music than did her bandmates; Tomas Fujiwara himself has such long experience of working closely with THB in particular that he may have felt by this point as if he was immersed in Braxtoniana by association, but he had far fewer actual music-miles on the clock than the guitarist did, whilst Michael Formanek, the oldest player here by quite a way, had nonetheless no previous direct links to B's music at all that I am aware of, and thus (I will presume) less experience with material which moves this fast. 

The primary materials

As previously established, the programme begins with (an unfamiliar arrangement of) a well-known and much-recorded piece, Comp. 52. Anybody reading this also presumably knows by now that although track seven purports to be the first recorded interpretation of Comp. 61, the actual music it comprises has in fact previously been recorded, under another opus number. Otherwise, the programme consists largely of premiere recordings (as confirmed by Carl Testa; but see the next para below). Track five is a GTM territory, Comp. 274 (as mentioned above); I did think - when I went and looked at it properly - that the graphic title looked somewhat familiar, but a quick bit of research here shows that these little clips (if that is indeed what they are) crop up frequently in the titles of many other GTM compositions in the 200 range: examples can be found here and here, among other places. As for the opus number itself, the closest I can find to this one numerically is here, on discs three and four (of a 4-CD set which I first wrote excitedly about in the very first month of the blog's existence), where Comps. 277 & 278 can be found; I am not aware of any previous recording of this particular work. As previously discussed, it is dealt with in just six minutes and eleven seconds, which is to say that it's turned into a cameo, a "miniature".

Tracks two and ten are the other choices which are most obviously problematic for me, representing as they do rather skeletal attempts to interpret compositions in the 150 range: these compositions all had similar graphic titles, featuring sketch-style drawings of townscapes or activities, and although they did not necessarily have hugely lengthy scores, they have tended to generate recordings which last at least six minutes. I have not been able to find a previous recording of Comp. 150 itself (track ten - duration 2.57), but Comp. 157 (track two - duration 2.21) has previously been recorded, not once but twice: B's album of duets with the late Peter Niklas Wilson features two takes of this piece~, the shorter of which clocks in at just over seven minutes. (I'm just sayin'.) No attempt will be made at this time to compare the version here with either of the earlier duo recordings.

Otherwise, we know there are three individual interpretations of the purely graphic score retrospectively designated as Comp. 14, previously unrecorded; Comp. 79 - which closes the album - was apparently~~ written specifically for a concert in NYC in which Douglas Ewart sat in with B's working trio (comprising Muhal Richard Abrams and George Lewis), but has not previously been recorded either; Comp. 68 (track four) is another one with a familiar-looking graphic title, but although other compositions in the 60 range have been much used for duets especially, I can't think of any recordings of this piece; and finally we have Comp. 35 (track eight). Opus numbers around this range tend to crop up mainly in the context of solo piano performances, but that could be a complete red herring; if the number sounds vaguely familiar to me now, it's probably only because I'm thinking of piano pieces with close numbers (come to think of it, the "locomotive" piece first recorded in October 1981 is Comp. 34, so there is no reason to think that 35 would be a solo piano work). Again, I'm not aware of any prior recordings. These last two numbers - tracks four and eight - are coincidentally the longest pieces on the album, the only two which break the seven-minute mark.

Finally on this: I say "primary" materials in the spirit of proper Braxton-related analysis, but in fact there are no secondary materials on this album. As brief as most of the performances are, there is no time for collaging.

The music

Hands up who thought I might never get round to this..? (You can't see, but I have my hand up.)

Much as I maintain that really close listening to this album reveals it as being (overall, and especially in certain specific parts) too short, the approach to the material adopted by the trio nevertheless comes really close to working perfectly. Whether or not Mary Halvorson was the de facto leader on this project, as pondered above, it's generally Tomas Fujiwara who drives changes in mood and/or intensity. Whether through study/practice or instinctively, the percussionist seems to have arrived here at an ideal understanding of how to engage with B's work: he pursues the music restlessly from the word go, never settling into one single approach for more than a few seconds at a time but continuously varying and modifying his attacks - and doing so in a way which nevertheless does not clamour for the listener's attention in some vulgar way, but rather seeks to explore and open up different facets and possibilities of the music, always in a most thoughtful manner. He also uses cymbals in a way that borders on the hypnotic, drawing out the attacks on these surfaces to help create an atmosphere which at times is almost other-worldly. 

These two aspects of Fujiwara's playing, then, seem to me now to encapsulate beautifully how the musicians chose to go about the task of interpreting such inherently interesting and demanding music with (what must surely have been) quite limited time in which to prepare it. Treat the album as background music and (assuming one's taste is amenable to this sort of sound in the first place) you will pass a pleasant enough forty minutes or so, without anything much really remaining in the memory. Focus in more closely and you will find dozens of separable experiences and environments~~~, which usually flow seamlessly one into the next; and this, again, is led above all by Fujiwara - although all three players are very much "reading from the same sheet". 

The microscopic attention to detail, in the percussionist's playing in particular, in turn highlights another real plus point, which is simply how good the album sounds: open your ears and pay attention, and you really will be rewarded with a marvellously rich soundscape, which sometimes fosters the illusion of being the work of more than just three players; obviously we will credit the players themselves for much of this, but kudos is definitely also due to engineer Nate Campisi. 

The album is neatly bookended by the opening and closing tracks, which are somewhat of a piece, both relatively "jazzy" numbers handled at quite high intensity. Comp. 52 does not begin in that vein, however: where the "classic" studio quartet version bristles with tension right from the off, this arrangement gives each note of the written theme equal, measured weight, counting off each segment of the overall "head" - for once we could actually talk in terms of a "head" for this piece - in the manner of a ticking clock, to such an extent that unless one goes into the album expecting to hear this number up first, it would be entirely possible not to recognise it at all (and indeed I am pretty sure that's exactly what happened with me, not just the first time I played the album, but potentially the second time too). The regular spacing of the notes recalls Comp. 23m more than it does any previous rendition of Comp. 52 that I am aware of. But any serious attention paid to the piece reveals it to be filled with life and activity, the three players soon making enough sound for a quartet or quintet, varying their attacks busily to remind us very early on that B's music is, as Carl Testa says in his essay, above all a system of possibilities. - And when we eventually reach Comp. 79 at the album's close, Halvorson's opening attack there, an unanticipated bottleneck slide up the fretboard, brings with it a real rush of excitement which is pretty well sustained throughout the whole number, in which a typical Braxtonian theme, superbly played by all three, is preceded by an opening section in which Formanek's walking bass (replicating here the role originally played by Abrams on piano, as explained by Testa) counterbalances the written material played by the other two; the track as a whole ends up covering a lot of ground in the course of just three and a half minutes. It's also almost (but not quite) impossible for the attentive listener to emerge from the album feeling anything other than pleasure and satisfaction. @

The reason it's not ultimately impossible to do that has already been indicated both here, above, and in my earlier post. In terms of a sequential play through the album, we hit a snag as early as track two.

Comp. 157 is very much driven and controlled by Fujiwara, as outlined above. He not only does most of the heavy lifting during the theme, but once a shift is enjoined, it is he who drives up the intensity, something which is quickly picked up by the other two players, so that all of them build towards... wait. What happened? We were just starting to go somewhere really promising, and it's already over. All of the individual components of the track are beyond reproach, but in the end, it doesn't seem to go anywhere. Here, alas - and, alas, not just here - is where the end result doesn't reward the listener who really pays attention.

In a continued spirit of symmetry, the penultimate track ten is Comp. 150, the other most obvious example of - I presume - the band's running out of studio time. Here the piece doesn't feel quite so brutally cut short, comprising three identifiable sections, each with its own type of attacks (staccato at first then legato in the second, etc); but still, the problem is much the same: at the end of the track, the attentive ear is just starting to get really into the journey - only to be told: it's over, we hope you enjoyed your trip. 

On the assumption, then, that fairly radical decisions had to be made quite early on in the recording process, concerning how much was really going to be possible under the real-world constraints (and I presume that these decisions are basically always necessary, to some extent, at least in any creative project not underwritten by unlimited patronage - which is to say, pretty much all of them), it must have been accepted that fewer pieces could even be attempted than the band might have wished, and that most of the ones they were going to undertake would still have to be interpreted pretty briefly. It's much to their credit that the band did manage to find an answer to this, one which enabled them to make of the project the best they could under the circumstances, even while the end product inevitably hints at what more might have been done. The solution, of course, was to embrace the idea of possibilities, creating little holograms in which each tiny fragment contains and reflects the spirit of the whole - but also implies manifold other fragments. Flawed as the end result is - and I can't see it as anything other than flawed, ultimately - it will always now be an album which I can return to and enjoy: what is good about still it outweighs what is missing.

The most successful interpretations, probably - and this is hardly a surprise - are the longest pieces, those which don't feel "sawn off". The spacey, far-out feel of Comp. 68 pervades the whole piece, which nonetheless progresses through distinct sections; a gorgeous, shimmering opening - in which the three players (Fujiwara using brushes, Formanek the bow) subtly mirror each other's delicate attacks - gives way to a middle section which sounds almost computerised, as the effect-laden guitar is accompanied by isolated dots of vibraphone and strings, the overall impression briefly being that we are hearing the fluttering of a CD stuck in one place. At one point (no timestamp on this I'm afraid), Fujiwara throws in what sounds like a deliberate quote from "Hat and Beard"/Out To Lunch - Bobby Hutcherson's "dead" vibes clunk (used to such terrific effect in Dolphy's 1964 classic that the percussionist just had to do it again). Throughout this ethereal piece you can really hear the three players' concentration, and the result is extremely effective. Comp. 35, which opens with rapid bursts from Halvorson and Fujiwara (again on mallets) that co-create such a busy soundscape that one scarcely misses Formanek at all, again encompasses several entirely different phases over its seven minutes, the bass and percussion enjoying a duo encounter of their own in the middle of the piece; Fujiwara plays with such wonderful variety that one could get quite lost in here, just listening to him. (His solo interpretation of Comp. 14 has much the same effect, but that's another story.) It could be argued, though, that the piece ends up feeling a little unbalanced: when all three players do play together at the end - spelling out a written line in slow, ponderous synchrony - it sounds terrific, but as by far the longest section of the piece, it can't help but flag up how brief some of the earlier parts were. This really is nit-picking, though.

As for Comp. 274, this ingeniously brief GTM-in-miniature neatly sums up both the strengths of the album and its inevitable weakness. Crammed into six minutes are four distinct phases, the first of which is of course the opening theme (which sounds absolutely replete with just the three players, again mainly thanks to the incessantly industrious Fujiwara); this time, it's Formanek who ratchets up the intensity, leaning hard on the gas in a riveting second section... which is then almost-invisibly succeeded by a much slower and quieter third section containing some startlingly beautiful instants; another more brisk phase follows that, some very busy playing by everyone leading us quickly back to the theme again to take us out. As a solution to what might otherwise appear an intractable problem - how to engage with such material at all, in so short a time - it really is very clever, and the many different tone colours and moods which are conjured up in rapid succession succeed in hinting at a far greater variety of other options, implicit if absent; at the same time, the alert listener is left wondering just how many pages of the score have actually been used here, and how many more must have been left untouched. How incredible might it be to have a full-length reading of this work, from this band? This is the essential problem: as premiere recordings, these performances simply cannot help flagging up how much material is left uninterpreted. 

The same, finally, is true of track seven; leaving aside any question of what this piece actually represents - since as far as the band was concerned they were giving a premiere of Comp. 61 - the reading given by the trio is exciting and filled with possibility, opening from a march (Fujiwara playing initially just on the snare, to underline the effect) and unfurling into a short microcosm of the whole album, the band using the whole range of their shared skill and experience to imply a rather greater length and depth than is actually present. Again, though: it's there, full of life - and it's gone. Sic transit...

System of possibilities

In some parallel universe - where humans routinely collaborate instead of competing, and resources are divided up equitably - this project resulted in a two-disc set, as follows: disc one contains over an hour of diverse pieces, including three short solo interpretations of Comp. 14 and at least ten other selections, each of which is fully developed and explored; disc two is entirely given over to a full-length reading of Comp. 274, lasting more than fifty minutes. 

Here in this poor shadow world, where a tiny minority controls almost all the resources and where the rest of us have to consider themselves lucky that (uncommercial) projects like this can be brought to life at all, this single disc is about as good as anybody could realistically have expected. Most certainly, it's good enough for me to want to return to it, and being able to "turn off the ears" to an extent will probably prove beneficial in this case...

* I know for a fact that I once wrote in a bit more detail about this exact same number, but I'll be buggered if I can remember when that was. (The Braxtothon itself never got even remotely close to 1981, so clearly the answer to this question does not lie along those lines...)

** As is (eventually) explained, the version on the album doesn't really sound like a typical rendition of the piece.

*** This sounds ludicrous: GTM is always identifiable as GTM within two or three seconds, so all I had to do was throw on the CD and check; but I hadn't yet sorted a lot of stuff out after the house move, and it wasn't completely straightforward to locate what I needed. (Not all of the pieces were available on Youtube.)

# Part of this is probably just down to getting older: I have noticed in the last few years that I no longer automatically convert short-term to long-term memory, so that if I have to look something up, then don't make a particular effort to remember what I read, within a month it's as if I never read it at all. That never used to be the case!! However in this instance it's probably also down to the "work syndrome" which continues to make my writing of this blog harder than it really needs to be; it's an unfortunate paradox which has long prevented me from reaching anything like my full potential, and which (obviously) made writing this post borderline torture. The music under consideration gives me more pleasure than pretty much any other art, but I am prevented from simply enjoying it by the self-inflicted "need" to analyse it, etc etc ad nauseam. As for writing about it: sometimes it flows, but most of the time, it's more of a trickle (and even that has to be coaxed continuously to get it to emerge at all).  - The photo used for this post relates back to 2021's "birthday card" - as soon as I wrote that, I knew at once which picture would accompany this when I eventually wrote it. (Did I really think it would only take me a few weeks?! Of course, back then I was trying to take pressure off myself by intending to write something very superficial - and it still didn't work.)

## Of course, I'm a bit of a hypocrite generally, being someone who - when he writes at all - writes at great length, but has limited patience for reading what other people have to say. (Some of this is down to my never having learned how to study properly when I was younger, not having needed to do so at the time.)

### This really isn't the place to enter into the whole "audiophile question", although I will say that I have long been suspicious of people who describe themselves thus; leaving all that aside, I have known many people over the last ten years or so who have offloaded all their CDs and so on, as "you just don't need that stuff any more, it's all online these days" - they can't understand why I still buy CDs at all. (I don't bother arguing with them, obviously.) 

^ Some of these labels also deal in (so-called) classical music; of course, whether that actually helps pay the bills these days, I'm not sure. There has to be something I'm missing here, since I can't imagine that even independently-wealthy label-owners would want to keep sinking their own money into releases which won't make anything back. (Zorn is working some sort of magic/k, and is apparently very good at it.)

^^ This approach rather cleverly hints at collaging, even though there isn't any of that to be found on this album...

^^^ I have had that feeling more than once when purchasing items on RareNoise, unfortunately: no liners, no nothing. Obviously I understand the need to keep expenses down, but... you have to give buyers a reason to want to buy in the first place. As regards Clean Feed in particular, there is quite a gulf at times between their design (usually excellent) and their actual packaging. The Braxton/Joe Morris box was such a disappointment when I bought it - four CDs in clear plastic wallets, no notes, no insert at all - that I actually contacted them wondering if my copy had something missing. I did eventually get a reply saying that I couldn't even imagine how much it had cost to produce... and I do have some sympathy with that, of course. But... - As for Emanem and (especially) Leo, it's almost the opposite problem. There are (nearly) always liner notes, but so little effort seems to go into the design that it's almost as if they don't WANT people to buy their stuff... admittedly this is not usually the case with Leo's Braxton releases - where the graphic titles themselves make for simple but effective cover art, if all else fails; but some of the other releases on that label, my goodness... anyway.

~ Almost of the album with Wilson consists of compositions in the 150 number-range, and all of them are around six minutes or longer. You see where I'm going with this.

~~ It's taken so long to get this written that I have deliberately avoided getting the Compositions Notes out, but there is an excerpt from them in Testa's essay, which also fills in the other details I've relied on here. It is, of course, possible that I have at least one recording from the Storyville residency in amongst that collection of tapes which I never got round to exploring (huge sigh...) - one day sooner rather than later, I really do intend to get stuck into those...

~~~ It's an exaggeration to say "dozens", but one which I decided to leave in. It sort of feels as if there are dozens. (Partly that is because other sounds are implied if not heard, as is discussed above...)

@ This sort of work - or delving into work of this nature - tends to lead to its own little coincidences and synchronicities. It is not lost on this amateur philologist that I have twice mentioned Carl Testa in the same paragraph in which I noted how unusual it is to refer to a head in this context :-D

Moving swiftly on...

 

OK, maybe not quite swiftly enough, but I don't want that dissatisfied bit of venting to sit at the top of the blog any longer than it has to, however much it may have felt necessary...

Some other brief observations, then. One of the things I listened to over the last week is Duo (Heidelberg Loppem) 2007, B's improvised duet(s) with Joëlle Léandre; this is a delightful recording and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it, but besides that, given my recent musings on the subject of B's approach(es) to duets in general, I had half an ear out for anything which sounded unusual, in whatever way. And there were some unusual moments, for sure: trouble is, I didn't make any notes at the time so I can only be very vague about what those might have been. It is probably still the case (as previously mentioned) that most of the unexpected stuff came from JL rather than from B. - and even then, "unexpected" would have to be glossed as "unexpected in the context of duets with B." since JL does quite a lot of this stuff and although I do have several other recordings of her playing in fully improvised settings with other partners - Steve Lacy, Lauren Newton, William Parker - it's been quite a while since I listened to any of them (as indeed it has since I played this, fairly obviously). Of course, JL is a bit of an outlier for this kind of music anyway, because she has no involvement with the jazz scene at all, free or otherwise: she plays new (classical) music, and she plays free improv, but nothing "in between" as I understand it. (We know that as a conservatory student in Paris, she attended jazz clubs regularly and was particularly enthused by frequent doses of J-F Jenny-Clark; but she seems to have decided very early on that active participation in that scene was not for her, and for that matter I've never heard her cite "Jif" as a direct influence, however much she may have admired him as a player.)

Whatever the reason, then, it was probably JL's utterances rather than B's which struck me as being "unusual sounds for this sort of meeting". I am also pretty sure that some of the sounds which came from the horn(s) did give me pause for thought too; one of the difficulties here is that the CD player I'm using currently doesn't have a time counter on it, so unless I set a stopwatch at the start of the CD, I am going to be unable to reference anything very precisely (until further notice). Accordingly, I generally don't even try at the moment. The upshot of all this vagueness, however, is that the (double) CD did strike me several times as being a useful counter-example to my half-arsed hypothesis - and contrary to what one might expect, I am very much looking to be proved wrong here, not right - and (to repeat and sum up) very enjoyable indeed. [I have the feeling that I may have mentioned the CD before, years ago, though I can't remember when; but I know I didn't get that far in my unfinished look at B's "contrabass duet series", because I was doing them in chronological order and this one was earmarked for Pt 2, which never got published as such.]

The fact that the presence of a collaborator from outside the "usual circles" might have led to an especially fruitful meeting leads me to the next recording, which really is something I haven't listened to in years: 2 Compositions (Järvenpää) 1988, a recording which captivated me immediately when I first heard it* and which - not necessarily unusually for me, it must be admitted - I promptly shelved to "return to one of these days". (I genuinely don't think I have played it since, until the other day. Of course, as recently mentioned, for most of the last decade a large proportion of my collection has been out of easy reach.)

The recording is credited to the "Ensemble Braxtonia", which - one would infer from the very brief liner notes - is how the group (which included B. himself) was billed for a seven-date tour of Finland; the CD itself is credited to B., but of course that is in his capacity as the composer of the music which comprised the programme: in other words, there is no indication that the ensemble existed before this tour, nor (unfortunately) that it survived the tour's completion. All seven of the Finnish musicians who accompanied B. in this venture would appear to (have) be(en) quite well-established in their domestic scene(s - some of these guys also played classical music), but I doubt if any of their names are familiar to creative music listeners generally, unless those listeners are intimately familiar with Edward Vesala's various projects; presumably all of them had reason to be up for this particular challenge, but it doesn't look as if they had much (if any) prior familiarity with B's oeuvre. That, however, is all to the better: the "unknown" quality of this collaboration gives it a freshness which grabbed me back when I first heard it, and grabbed me in very much the same way (even without the magic of marijuana...) this time. It's not the easiest CD to listen to, partly because it's mastered in such a way as to require the volume to be turned up very high in order to hear it properly, and partly because there is no indexing on it at all, the entire set being presented as one 70-minute track, with no indication even of where Comp. 144 ends and Comp. 145 begins (assuming that they are played in sequence, rather than merged together in some way - who knows). Nevertheless, once it's underway, it demands the ear's attention and I didn't really struggle at all with the playing time. (In any case, it's really much the same as listening to a full GTM or DCW set, most of which are similarly unindexed on CD.) It appears that back in 2012, I was interrupted just over halfway through; this time, I played the whole thing end to end, and not only did that not feel like hard work, I kept having to stop whatever else I was doing in order to give my full attention to the music. It really would be an exceptionally difficult album to write about in detail, I think, but the continual freshness and originality of its sound(s) is a wonder to behold. Definitely won't leave it another ten years before listening to that one again.

I have also this week revisited another album which blew me away on first listen**, 11 Compositions (Duo) 1995 with Brett Larner. Besides my having acquired these last two albums more or less simultaneously, one of the things they have in common is that I included both of them on my 2013 "best-of list" (so tempted to use strikethrough for that phrase...), having been utterly charmed by them upon first acquaintance. The Larner duets didn't have quite the same impact this time around, but I played those over two sessions and the second definitely went down better than the first, so maybe it was really just down to mood and concentration. In any case, this one has some very unusual features and really deserves a post all of its own, if I can get one together sometime... for now let's just say that it's (yet) another very interesting release and well worth chasing down if you don't already have it.

Finally, for the time being, a quick visual update:

- The only major addition*** there is on the fifth shelf down, where Circle's Paris Concert has now taken up residence. This one is not a new acquisition - I've had that CD almost twenty years now (scary as that sounds to me), but it was formerly housed under "C" with my jazz CDs (not pictured). Those guys having recently required a spot of reorganisation (and a good spring clean), it seemed a good time to acknowledge that, realistically, the only reason I still own this one is because of B's involvement. A small number of CDs on which B. appeared as a sideman or special guest are still in with the jazz CDs, but this cooperative group, unjustly claimed by the reissue market as a Chick Corea solo project, has come "back home" where (I've now decided) it belongs. About time too :-D

* I apologise in advance to anyone who tries to read that earlier post, because I didn't have the patience to get through it. Listening to the recordings whilst high usually worked marvellously well for me (as B. himself was able to attest). Writing whilst in the same state... didn't always work out that well. After a while, it seemed only to result in completely unreadable posts. What I gained in enthusiasm was well and truly lost in terms of coherence, alas...

** As above, for the apologies... this last post for 2012 very much picked up where the previous one had left off, both in terms of starting out by discussing (ish) the Finnish album before moving on to the 11 koto duets, and in terms of its general tone and (un)readability.

*** The other unit was not previously there, of course. Visible below some John Zorn CDs are the vast majority of the CD-Rs which I burned back in the "golden age of music blogging", most of which got completely neglected in the last house (2014-22) and are only now being "revived". As you can see, this is not an ideal way of storing such things... but I'm working on it..!