Gripes & niggles

 

My attention has been on the New Braxton House releases just recently - a list of these is conveniently provided by TCF (although it's not 100% up-to-date: NBH910 Quartet (Standards) 2020 is missing from it) - and I'm just going to have to get some stuff off my chest at this point. 

At the time that NBH was launched, I was still vaguely in touch with TCF, and I remember there was a little bit of (rather half-hearted) debate regarding formats: hard copy, or digital only? Members were surveyed and, predictably enough, the decision went in favour of digital. This was not at all surprising, and in many ways it simply reflects the state of the modern marketplace: many listeners are thoroughly used to buying their music via streaming services or similar platforms, so the idea of paying for content they will never really "own" doesn't bother them - consumption is consumption.

But if you expect people to pay for your digital content, do you not still have to make some effort to present it properly?

Something which is pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things, but which really annoys me: all of the regular NBH releases - which are only now available to buy via the TCF Bandcamp - dutifully list their date of release, but many of them don't specify a recording date. Release date?! who the hell cares about that? When has jazz-based/creative music ever been concerned with release dates? - and bear in mind, some of these albums (they are all regarded as official albums, and why wouldn't they be) don't even list proper recording credits. NBH003 Three Orchestras (GTM) 1998 will set back the paying customer a minimum of $13, but the credits don't even list the six soloists. NBH046-7 Sextet (FRM) 2007 doesn't even bother to give the composition details: the two actual pieces are literally labelled "Sextet (FRM) 2007 Vol. 1" and "... Vol. 2"*. Oh, and of course both these albums fail to give the recording date; there is just that pointless release date, like a slap in the potential buyer's face.

B. worked tirelessly to get all these various projects realised and recorded (by his engineer, Jon Rosenberg), and the many musicians who contributed to them gave their all. Do they not all deserve rather better than this?

For any wealthy fans out there who don't already have any of the stuff on this label, but were considering acquiring all of it, there is a special discount rate available: $849 (or more - always "or more" when it comes to Bandcamp, that has nothing to do with TCF as such) for the label's entire output. If anyone is even slightly tempted by that offer I would strongly encourage them to contact TCF first, and ask that they take the trouble to present their releases properly.

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With that out of the way, a few considerations follow on one specific release: NBH008 Composition No. 19 (For 100 Tubas). Let's deal with the niggles first... 

Comp. 19 - as its retrofitted opus number indicates - is a very old work. So much so, that by the time Jay Rozen asked B. about it, the composer admitted that the score - never recorded - had been lost. He did say though that "he would be happy to reconstruct it if a performance could be arranged". How accurate a reconstruction this could possibly have been, after about thirty-five years (and given the voluminous quantities of musical strategies which had passed through the maestro's brain in the interim), is anyone's guess. Still, one thing is apparently not in doubt: arranged into four marching bands as per the original design, the assembled brass players numbered "only" sixty-five, not one hundred. This doesn't sound quite as catchy - or as impressive - though, so the title still misleadingly tells us: For 100 Tubas. 

As is pretty much normal for a NBH release, then, there is also some doubt over the performance date - despite the fact that in this instance, the Bandcamp page does actually give one of these (24th June 2006). Discogs, on the other hand - which is where I generally have to go for such details, in the absence of same on the official pages - gives it as June 3rd of the same year. Rozen himself, in his notes, disagrees with both dates, giving it as June 4th; this is of course B's birthday, but no mention is made of that in the notes, so draw your own conclusions. Still, Rozen says the performance took place as part of the 2006 Bang-on-a-Can Marathon Concert, which in principle should allow us to date it reliably: and the official page for that event agrees with Rozen. This being the case, the one-off performance really did take place on B's 61st birthday, whether or not the performers knew it; technically, there is no guarantee that the performance Rozen describes is the same one we hear in the recording, but in practice, the chances of such a logistically-unwieldy event being restaged are pretty much zero. 

Enough with the nitpicking. The actual recording is really quite extraordinary, and (I suppose not surprisingly) resembles nothing else I have ever heard. Rozen says blithely that "everyone loved Composition #19; performers and audience alike" - which would rather lead one to infer that the music is the sort of jolly and rambunctious affair that one tends to imagine brass bands playing most of the time. Nothing could be further from the truth: the piece, which is split into two parts, is incredibly ominous and menacing in tone, sounding almost as if it were intended to accompany some deeply-disturbing horror film. Indeed the first part, which lasts almost twenty-one minutes, comprises basically just prolonged rumblings and growlings from the massed ranks of horns (among them, some quite notable names: besides Rozen himself of course, then-current or past collaborators included Jonathan Dorn, Stewart Gillmore and Reut Regev, as well as Jose Davila, far better known for his long tenure with Henry Threadgill; but Mark Stewart had been around for a long time, and Joe Daley was part of Sam Rivers' legendary Tuba Trio groups in the seventies). What this was like to witness in the flesh, we can but imagine; listening to it now, the effect is so minatory that it's actually quite hard to sit through. As part one gives way to part two - which lasts a further half an hour - the tension is at last broken, but only for some actual explosions to take place, fiery blasts of brass which erupt out of the grumbling ranks and bring the drama to a head. Unbearably tense it may be, happy and upbeat it most certainly isn't, but it's also not dull or boring and I very much doubt if anyone has heard its like before. Given my gripes from earlier I am going to stop short of actually recommending that anyone pay for the download at this point... but readers are quite capable of making up their own minds about that. 

***

Leo Records - which has put out a great deal of B's recorded output over the years - may or may not be on the verge of closing, but they have just announced a "Closing Down Sale... (which) might be the last sale in the history of Leo Records". Make of that what you will. If anyone wants to check this out, the official page for the sale is online and contains all the details. Some of B's stuff is still on there (not a huge amount actually, at this point), and tons more besides of course.

Running a physical record label has to be a pretty thankless task in this day and age, and I know that Mr Feigin basically runs the whole thing himself (or at least he used to). I don't expect to see any further releases under B's name at this point - that's all in the past - but regardless, the label did more than most to promote our man's music, and a debt of gratitude will always be owed for that. If the label is indeed about to be wound up, I hope Mr F. enjoys his long-overdue retirement.

* By way of comparison, the Bandcamp page for the companion release Quartet (FRM) 2007 (NBH042, NBH043, NBH044, NBH045) lists all four pieces with their correct titles, or at least the primary territories. (Of course, even then they don't bother to give us the recording dates...)