Parker (and) recreation

 

(Thoughts on Anthony Braxton´s Charlie Parker Project (1993))

The date for this recording remains October 1993 - yep, basically three decades ago - whichever version of the album you're working with, but (for reasons best known to Herr Uehlinger) only the original release included the year in the album title. When the album was remastered and reissued, a couple of writing credits had been tidied up - "Hot House" and "Bebop" were both misattributed to Parker on the initial release - and the year had vanished from the title, but otherwise the album remained the same. (The huge cache of unreleased recordings from the studio sessions remained untapped until the complete, definitive - and sadly unobtainable - edition finally saw the light of day in 2018.)

... and whichever version of the album we're talking about, I still don't have it; that is, I still don't have an official version of it. As recently recounted, I came quite close to acquiring a copy of the reissue, but missed out on it - for the time being! Still, this just reminded me that I do have a perfectly serviceable CD-R copy on my fifth shelf, long overdue for an outing...

***

I suppose the first thing to note about this album is to highlight the choice that wasn't taken: unlike George Lewis before him (or Chris Pitsiokos, much more recently *), B. did not attempt any sort of reclamation with Parker's name. This is of course entirely understandable; unlike Charles Mingus, who successfully got label bosses and club owners to credit him under his "proper" name from relatively early in his career**, Parker was billed as "Charlie" for every show he played and every session he cut - was never billed any other way during his life. What he might or might not have wished for is not necessarily known to us either; but we can readily understand why Lewis made the decision he did - and in that light, it might seem a little strange that B. didn't follow suit. Then again, as I have just noted, all the music which Parker made was recorded by "Charlie Parker", so to follow Lewis' lead on this would also have been a little odd. Both Lewis and Pitsiokos are rendering homage to Parker the man, the creator; B. is specifically dealing with Parker the recording artist. 

Regardless of how much umm-ing and ahh-ing might have taken place behind the scenes over what name to use for the project, B. had clearly decided ahead of time that he wasn't looking for any sort of straightforward tribute (as if...). Unlike some previous standards dates, where he had utilised sidemen with a more traditional jazz background than his own***, the maestro organised this one with musical mischief in mind. Towards the end of a fairly busy 1993 - which had seen him play the London Jazz Festival with Evan Parker (and Paul Rutherford#), then reconvene the "Forces" quartet for a selective US tour, but which had also included (what I presume is) a more "standard" standards date## earlier in the year - we find ourselves in continental Europe, in the kind of fast company which is bound to mess things up a bit. Misha Mengelberg - generally more associated with the music of Monk and Herbie Nichols than with Parker - brings with him the veteran prankster Han Bennink, who always has an eye for trouble; imported from the States are B's soon-to-be new bassist (for all seasons###) Joe Fonda, and another trickster, small brass wizard Paul Smoker (who had participated in B's incredible one-off line-up at Victoriaville in 1988, having first managed to snag B. as a special guest for an album under his own leadership four years previously). Also along for the trip is tenor (and soprano) player Ari Brown, a musician I confess is otherwise unknown to me - but who joined the AACM in the early '70s, and had already recorded with the likes of Kahil El'Zabar and Lester Bowie by the time B. recruited him for this project.

Mengelberg and Smoker in particular are basically guaranteed to pull the harmonic fabric of any standard into configurations which its composers probably could never have imagined; as far back as 1964, Mengelberg was trying to loosen the floorboards beneath Eric Dolphy^ by slipping in his own set of secret chord substitutions on "Epistrophy", and B. would have known exactly what to expect nearly three decades later. As for Smoker, some of his own "bent standards" dates were a good few years in the future at this point, but clearly B. had formed a pretty good impression at some point of what kind of skills the brassman had to offer. Brown seems mainly to have been picked here for tone colour, rather like John Stubblefield back in 1972 at the Town Hall (or Lucky Thompson, with Parker): he is not given a lot of work, never mind solo time, although he does have his moments. B. obviously heard/felt/saw (at least some of) the potential arrangements in terms of three horns, and however the choice was made, Brown was the man who got the gig. (Maybe B. just liked being able to employ another cat with the same initials...)

Of course, Bennink himself was only available for the live date; or rather, however many shows were actually played with this line-up, only one set - at Rote Fabrik in Zürich, on October 21st - was recorded and made it onto disc. Six numbers were played, one of which - a fairly brief rendition of Neal Hefti's "Repetition" - was jettisoned from both the original release and the reissue, only being restored to the setlist in 2018 when the monster limited box set came out on NBH. This much, at least, I have been able to figure out; that, and the fact that for whatever reason, the actual running order of the live show was changed for the original double album ("An Oscar for Treadwell", the third cut on disc seven of the 2018 box, closes disc one of the Hat release; only the first two numbers on the album are actually presented in the order in which they were played at the concert). Trying to figure the rest of the details out, not having a copy of the actual box set for reference (or even screenshots of the liners), is pretty much impossible - so you'll have to forgive me if I don't try very hard. The dates seem all wrong, or at least difficult to parse: going just from the two-disc album, one would infer that a live concert with Bennink on the 21st was followed by two days of studio sessions without him, which is easy enough to understand; but the box set appears to comprise eleven discs, with recording dates starting on the 18th (three days before the Swiss set with Bennink) and ending on the 24th, and Bennink is only credited with the six tracks which make up disc seven: the drummer for all of the other recordings is listed on Discogs, at least - and the obvious assumption is that their credits come directly from the liner notes, since where else would they originate? - as Pheeroan akLaff.

Phew... OK. We already knew, anyway, that akLaff was the drummer on disc two of the album which is under consideration here ( - B. was sufficiently impressed by his playing on this material that he hired the drummer again for subsequent standards projects back in the States). And we're told that the ten tracks which make up that second disc were all recorded at Großer Sendesaal WDR in Köln on October 22-23. Any more precise details are, presumably, exclusively available to those who have the NBH box set (or who have at least got scans of the liner notes, if not the actual music). When I said above that this 11-cd box is unobtainable, what I really mean is "unobtainable at a reasonable price"; there are two copies listed on Discogs at time of writing, the less expensive of which is on sale for a mere $570 plus shipping; this also happens to be the only one of the two which is available in my part of the world, but alas, it's a little out of my price range. (I presume that anyone who wanted this set had to be very quick off the mark when it was released - probably needed to have it on pre-order, in fact.) So the full details of which sessions generated the tracks on disc two of the original album - or what exactly took place on the three days preceding the Zürich set, or on the 24th - are beyond my current reach. But ostensibly at least, the ten studio tracks released by Hat are the pick of the Köln sessions. The original liners make for rather odd reading when B. talks (to Graham Lock) about how he can't believe he never used to play "Confirmation" in particular - when this track is not included on the album anyway. Lock obviously realised how that looks and added a footnote to the effect that AB did record "Confirmation" for this set but because of technical problems... this track (and several others) have had to be omitted. "Several others", indeed - ! Quite the understatement there, Mr Lock: besides the live tracks with Bennink, I count sixty-two tracks across the ten remaining discs of the box set; sixty-two, of which just ten were selected for the original release. Yes, those ten remaining discs incorporate other sessions besides those from Köln; but still, that would appear to be some pretty brutal culling - and no, "Confirmation" is not included on the original album.

***

One detail worth pointing out on its own, since neither the original release nor the reissue seem to mention it: that's B. playing piano on "Yardbird Suite", not Mengelberg. I repeat, neither of the Hat releases addresses this fact; but the credits for the box set are unequivocal: across all eleven discs, this tune only appears twice, and the leader plays piano on both versions (and on only two other cuts, neither of which made it onto the Hat album). This would be significant enough to flag up, one would think; B. was just starting out playing piano on standards dates, something he would practise rather more in the next few years, but although the desire to play piano is mentioned to Lock in the album's liner notes, we aren't told that it was already happening. That is definitely him, though: he has an eccentric piano style all his own and besides, where else is he? Listen to that cut (disc two, track three) if you don't believe me... one brass, one (tenor) sax, bass - and piano. He's not about to lay out on his own album, now is he..?

***

Now that I've played both discs a couple of times - listening quite closely the second time - what is really clear is that for all the great fun enjoyed in the live set, B. saved all the more adventurous and experimental music for the studio. That doesn't mean that the live disc is sedate or dull in any way; when the band goes out, they really go out, and you can clearly hear the way the two Dutchmen egg each other on - Bennink, in completely typical fashion, really cuts loose on multiple occasions and he and Mengelberg definitely feed off each other's energy. But three of the five numbers here follow a pretty straightforward "standard formula", at least for this leader: "Hot House" kicks things off with the maestro taking a huge long alto solo right out of the gate, running through a whole series of different sounds and techniques, alternating his lovely "singing" tone with rougher, harsher attacks as is his wont, showcasing a decent quantity of his encyclopaedic vocabulary right there in this first solo; but for the most part, the backing is restrained and respectful, Mengelberg only going a bit wild just as B. is getting ready to wrap up, and after him, Smoker and Mengelberg play in that order, some real chaos finally breaking out at that point with Bennink smashing up his kit... but Fonda takes a far more "inside" route for his own solo, and despite some more (barely) controlled mayhem from Bennink, the overall impression is of a rather anarchic, festival-style romp through a jazz standard, rather than anything more radical. Brown is not involved with this first number at all.

"A Night in Tunisia" is one of two crazier numbers on display here, with a properly messed-up tessitura almost from the off, especially once B. has blown his brains out on sopranino doing his own take on Parker's famous stop-time burst; unexpectedly, the contrabass clarinet comes out (this is not mentioned in the credits for the box set, mind^^) and the rhythm disintegrates completely, the soundscape dissipating rapidly into a very sparse dark sky with just flashes and glints of light; eventually this gives way to (what many people might now call) a deconstructed^^^ version of the theme, all the various elements present though not in the familiar order, and this very effectively leads us to a more "normal" finish. But "Dewey Square" - a quartet number with both Brown and Smoker laying out - is basically patterned after the opener, even though the Dutch boys really go bananas on this, not even waiting for Mengelberg's solo to wind each other up, and even when things cool down there is nothing very "standard" about the reading - except for Fonda, who rather incongruously plays it dead straight. Continuing this alternating sequence, "Klactoveesedstene" is another wild number, so much so that even Fonda and Brown get in on the act this time: it's worth remembering that this was actually (probably...) the set closer, despite the revisionism of the album's running order. In any case there is some seriously unhinged playing on this cut, once again led by the two Dutch masters.

For whatever reason, though, this was not the way the producer or leader wanted us to leave disc one, which ends with an almost twenty-minute journey through "An Oscar for Treadwell", easily the most "normal-sounding" number on the whole album, and not coincidentally the only one on which Brown takes an extended solo. He actually goes first, and despite having plenty of time to develop his ideas, never really sounds fully comfortable with this freedom; he does demonstrate some decent (AACM-worthy) chops, but it really seems to take him a good while to get going and it's perhaps not surprising that when Smoker takes his turn, he too sounds a little subdued. Basically, this number is a big long standard, nothing more or less, and even the leader keeps things relatively sweet; one can understand how this might have helped calm everyone down a bit after "...Tunisia" on the night, but it does seem a trifle odd to programme it out of order like this. As usual, I'm being super-picky of course.

***

Some of the live stuff, then, does get pretty wild - but it's still basically just a jazz group playing a few standards, albeit having more than the usual quota of fun with that. This is not the approach which B. takes with the studio disc, for the most part.

Basically the order of the day for the studio takes is a series of experiments, bookended by two relatively straightforward high-intensity cookers: "Bebop" and "Koko"are both taken at a blistering pace, with the ensemble all taking short, white-hot solos; Brown seems more settled and confident here, and akLaff - despite being a far less anarchic drummer than Bennink - plays with such great touch and so much fire and energy that one doesn't really feel anything is missing at all. These two burners are a great way to start and end proceedings, for sure...

... but the eight tracks in between are a different matter again. The two wilder numbers from disc one, "...Tunisia" and "Klactoveesedstene", reappear here - and both sound even more radically altered now than they did then. The other pieces selected are new, and each of them is the focus of a carefully-contrived laboratory experiment, elements of Parker's compositions placed under the microscope with different filters applied to the lens, examining in turn aspects of the pieces which Parker certainly never heard played in his lifetime - though who knows, this questing pioneer (who numbered Stravinsky and Bartók among his own influences) may have dreamed of them nevertheless; he certainly glimpsed the possibility of life beyond bebop for his compositional talents, and perhaps B. was endeavouring to grant some of that, here..? Whatever the rationale behind these selections, they do make for fascinating listening. 

The approach taken to "Bongo Bop" rather neatly encapsulates this. A quartet with no bass or drums, it opens with the horns playing completely freely, and when the piano enters, it is utterly outside any sort of conventional tonality; for the first few minutes there is barely even a hint of what the band is "supposed" to be playing. A theme does finally emerge from this primal soup, the horns playing slowly and totally "straight", whilst Mengelberg does nothing of the sort, supplying the necessary rhythmic figures while continuing to disregard the melody and harmony entirely. Once the theme is played, it all reverts back to joyous chaos. This is the sort of thing we didn't hear on the live set at all. 

"Yardbird Suite", as detailed above, is another quartet, this time for trumpet, tenor sax, bass and piano - B. supplying the latter with insistent stabbing attacks, Fonda largely playing "outside" for once; "Passport is a trio with B. on sopranino plus piano and bass; "Scrapple from the Apple" is another trio with piano and bass, but with the leader on contrabass clarinet this time, in an apparent nod to his notorious 1974 take on "Ornithology" (something for which the jazz world was really not ready at the time), playing this hybrid contrafact~ in a voice its writer would never have imagined, but playing it beautifully. "Mohawk" is a quartet for flute, muted small brass, piano and bass, almost fully abstract; "Sippin' at Bells" showcases the seamonster again^^, with Smoker again using the mute, and Fonda plucking wondrous harmonics from his bass. Track after track, we get nothing remotely resembling jazz at all: the more conservative fans who even bothered to hear the album may have gnashed their teeth at this, but one can somehow imagine Mr Parker weeping tears of grateful joy. Of course, a very casual ear might register only some odd tootling and honking, with fast bop numbers opening and closing the disc, and hence not really comprehend the scope of the programme at all; but anyone who pays attention must surely marvel at B's daring and restless curiosity, and must just as surely be rewarded.

The full story of how these sessions came together, and how the music was eventually selected for the double-album, is not even close to being told here: Ari Brown and Pheeroan akLaff probably felt rather let down, after all their efforts~~, to find themselves barely represented on the eventual release, and a massive quantity of music remained in the vaults for a quarter of a century, only seeing the light of day in a format which most people would never witness. But despite all that, between the two discs we have here and their essentially different perspectives, this album ends up being about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on. If, like me, you've let it go a long while without playing this one, do yourself a favour and fire it up now.

* I haven't (yet) heard Pitsiokos' Speak in Tongues, but just look at those dedicatees! (- could have come straight from my wishlist, almost... I shall have to check it out) 

** I can't speak for anyone else, but this has long been my litmus test for determining whether a person is a serious jazz/creative music listener, or an overeducated dilettante just trying to sound hip: anyone who talks about "Charlie Mingus" - unless they knew him personally, and there can't be many of them left - is one of the latter, and will never persuade me otherwise...

*** a) The most obvious "prior art" here doesn't really count: nobody should doubt B.'s love for "the tradition" for a second, but it's well known that he was roped into this session at short notice, filling in for Dexter Gordon of all people - and the (reputedly-unsympathetic) sidemen were not of his picking at all. b) The Monk album was at least partly a homage to Steve Lacy, whose wonderful Reflections will have been one of the very first all-Monk repertoire albums; B. very deliberately used the same pianist and bassist, Mal Waldron and Buell Neidlinger. (Whether Elvin Jones was unavailable, unapproachable or was actually asked and said no, I have no idea; the drummer used for the album, Bill Osborne, is completely unknown to me and certainly never worked with B. on any other project.) c) We could of course add to this list the Tristano/Marsh tribute which I wrote about last October...

# Trio with Parker and Rutherford, and a duo with Parker the following night.

## As can be seen from this entry for the band, the Fred Simmons Trio is an otherwise undocumented working group; however, the equivalent entry for its leader reveals that he taught classes at Wesleyan - which may or may not be where B. first made his acquaintance, but which certainly occasioned the chance for this recording, which I have never heard (and is long since sold out on Leo); it seems a fairly safe bet that the album takes fewer liberties with the source material than the album presently under consideration..?

### Fonda proved so versatile that B. would proceed in the next few years to use his talents for everything from standards dates to the first GTM recordings - and points in between, including an album of duets.

^ In "that" infamous blindfold test, MM remembers how he had figured out his own set of substitute chords for Monk, and brought these to the concert with Dolphy (which saw official release as Last Date); he was impressed at how fast the American got to grips with them. [The interviewer plays a very sneaky trick on MM by playing him "Feathers" from Out There, knowing the pianist is unlikely to recognise it and will end up saying something rude about the composition, which he duly does - and of course he has to explain himself as soon as the solo kicks in, at which point he belatedly recognises Dolphy. What MM is not told is that "Feathers" wasn't written by Dolphy at all, but rather by his friend Hale Smith.]

^^ The Hat album, in either version, lists B. as playing alto, sopranino and contrabass clarinet, omitting flute (and piano of course) and not bothering to break down what was played on which track; the credits for the box set, as reproduced on Discogs, state that contrabass clarinet was used on just one track, "Scrapple from the Apple" - but you can quite clearly hear it on three different tracks, on the original album. (It's not as if you can mistake it for anything else, after all.)

^^^ This is absolutely not the time or the place to go into this, but... speaking as someone who studied both French and Philosophy at degree level, I have to try not to get annoyed at the way the term "deconstruction" has entered the common vocabulary, without anyone having any idea what it actually means. Contrary to what experimental chefs (and the public in general) seem to think, if it were simply a synonym for disassembly, M. Derrida would not have needed to coin a new word in the first place. (Derrida was also very fond of the strikethrough, of course...)

~ Head based on "Honeysuckle Rose", middle eight on rhythm changes... thanks to Wikipedia for confirming that XD

~~ Again, according to the box set credits per Discogs, Brown cut thirty-six different tracks overall. Pheeroan akLaff was similarly busy that week. Neither of them would really know it by what was originally released