Curious Roland*

 

This thread may appear to have been somewhat misplaced, but then it's currently just one of several: a continuing attempt to get to grips with the album Ensemble Montaigne (Bau 4) 2013. Credited to B. (as composer), this actually did not involve him at all: it was organised and conducted by the trombonist/ composer/ educator Roland Dahinden, and played by ten Lucerne-based musicians under the auspices of - you guessed it - the Ensemble Montaigne*.

This much, I basically knew already before I even had a physical copy of the CD. Once I'd picked one up, I became rather preoccupied with the difficulties involved in identifying (and verifying) the pieces which were played during the performance, starting with the first one listed (Comp. 174, almost certainly a typo for Comp. 147); I even went so far as to buy a copy of Composition No 174 just so I could rule that piece out. (Acquiring another of B's albums was not exactly a great hardship.) The liner notes on the Ensemble Montaigne, for once, let me down in terms of detail; Leo Records may not have the best design sense in the world, but very often the notes are actually worth reading. This time they were disappointingly sparse and shed no light at all on how exactly the recording came about, or - most crucially from my point of view - how the materials themselves were selected and which parts of the (often lengthy) scores were used. 

What they did tell me, though, was that Dahinden was not merely a former collaborator of B's during the '90s: he "was assistant to (B.) at Wesleyan... 1992-1995"**. The timing of that seemed odd at first: Dahinden first becomes a significant regular name in the discography around 1995, so at the very end of that same period; but although his earlier appearances on official recordings are fairly scanty, they do exist, going back to the Black Saint release 4 (Ensemble) Compositions - 1992***, where he shared trombone duties with John Rapson#. Still, if he did in fact work as B's assistant during the early '90s, that would explain both his qualification for organising and conducting the 2013 project, and also his credentials for another enterprise: this very short video clip points us to the Radost Ensemble, which (again) doesn't really seem to be much of a "thing" except in this one very specific context; but still, that video suggests that event itself must have been pretty worthwhile. It's a shame there is no other video footage available, and the clip itself is not exactly setting Youtube alight with its view count, but it does look as if the actual workshop - where Dahinden taught a three-day programme in B's music systems and methods - was well attended and successful##. 

So, we know that as an educator RD has continued to be involved in spreading knowledge of B's compositional approaches, long enough after his own time at Wesleyan. Another significant link he has back to B's discography takes the form of the 2005 hatOLOGY release Concept of Freedom, which... merges a number of B's compositions (specifically the second-species GTM Comp. 257) with a number of Duke Ellington's works... in some way which I freely admit that I don't really understand, not having heard the whole album myself. Again, excerpts from it are available in the usual place(s)###, from which I gather that a core trio of Dahinden with violinist Dimitris Polisoidis and (Dahinden's wife) Hildegard Kleeb - herself known to at least some friendly experiencers, as the first pianist to tackle B's solo piano works - were joined by Robert Höldrich on electronics, to create some sort of highly ambitious hybrid interpretation, which... sounds pretty interesting, coming to it piecemeal and for the first time, though the full shape and scope of it is beyond me without at least having access to the full liner notes. Still, whatever it is and however it works, the project appears to have put B. up there on an equal compositional status with Ellington, and I'm all for that. 

Oh, and let's not forget Naima, the result of two recording sessions in 1995, credited to the Roland Dahinden Trios: two of Dahinden's pieces (totalling fifty minutes) with B. and Art(hur) Fuller, two with Fuller and Joe Fonda - one of which is a rather useful version of Comp. 136 (the other of course being Coltrane's classic ballad, used here as an exercise in trombone multiphonics). The reason why this version of 136 is especially useful is because it's a lengthy reading of the piece by a student without the maestro, hence we can reasonably safely assume that the score was read quite faithfully with a minimum of artistic licence being taken; this piece is used so often in collage contexts as secondary material that it's getting to the point where it's essential for me to recognise it when it shows up, but the (many) versions under B's direct control can vary quite a lot among themselves^. I did listen to this album at the beginning of June and noted how well played it is - which admittedly doesn't sound like much of a revelation - and I shall be referring to it again very soon when I try to get inside that same piece.

Well, that's about it; besides the above, I was able to confirm that RD had a fairly predictable background - several liberal arts colleges and conservatories, where his teachers included the renowned trombone virtuoso / composer Vinko Globokar; and that he has remained pretty active and busy in the rarefied art music world, even when he's not teaching "Braxtoniana". I do feel better informed about him than I was until recently, though... and that much closer to being able to make an informed assessment of the 2013 album which brought me here. To be continued...

* The post title is not in any way intended to be insulting to Herr Dahinden - I'm suggesting that he is full of musical curiosity, rather than personally odd (and I really wouldn't know, after all). It was the best I could come up with, but it does seem a bit abstruse: I was trying to work some sort of riff on Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (Roland furieux in French), for what it's worth...

* The notes make it sound as if this group existed already and still exists, though if you look the name up online it just inescapably directs you back towards the Leo album. Whatever they get up to in Lucerne, it apparently doesn't involve recording...

** per liner notes by Pirmin Bossart.

*** This album is somewhat misleadingly titled, in that the recording sessions took place in December 1992 and March 1993; nothing on the liners indicates whether some of the ensemble were only present for one session or the other.

# Rapson himself also appears in B's discography here, with a 1996 release on Music & Arts which looks as if it features B. as part of a group also including Bobby Bradford and Alex Cline, but doesn't: there were two sessions for this one as well, one of which was a duo improvisation between Rapson and B. at Wesleyan (of course), the other of which features a quintet (without B.) - still, I've always been kind of curious about this one and if anyone's got it, or has even heard it, I would be genuinely interested in hearing from them. (Besides these two recording credits, Rapson is really only known to me through his earlier work with Vinny Golia, specifically on a big band album which I posted on C#9, way back in the day...)

## ...insofar as we can judge the success of a three-day workshop event from an eighty-second video montage. The players look as if they were pretty well into it; hopefully that enthusiasm was maintained over the course of the three days, and translated to the eventual performance..?

### I've only looked in the place linked above, but I daresay the streaming service of one's choice may be of help. (I am still committed to buying hard media and have never changed my mind about paying for access to digital content - that is, I am extremely reluctant to do it. I am well aware that in this - among other things - I am in a waning minority.)

^ I've mentioned before the challenges involved in identifying some of these pieces, whilst it should be fairly obvious why identifying them at all is desirable: some of them crop up again and again as secondary materials. 136 is not covered in the Composition Notes, which run out of paper some time before we get that high in the numbering; so those of us who don't have access to the scores - not that I could read them anyway - are reliant on appearances in the official discography. I think I have now acquired every version of 136 bar one: the London Jazz Composers Orchestra album Zurich Concerts, and as much as I am quite keen to get my hands on that one, I can't see it being especially useful in helping me become familiar with this particular opus, judging by the state of that track listing. When the time comes, I plan to use five versions of the piece in my comparative analysis, with the possibility of drawing on two others; I anticipate Dahinden's own rendition being helpful in that regard, like I say. Let's hope I am right about that, if nothing else...