Doctores subtiles*

 

Abraham Adzinyah (sic) / Anthony Braxton - Duo (Wesleyan) 1994 (Leo 1995)

Anthony Braxton & Ben Opie - Duets (Pittsburgh) 2008 (OMP 2010)

Yes, this is another "placeholder" post - until such time as I get my head organised enough to deliver the analysis of Comp. 136 which I've repeatedly promised - but it does give me a chance both to revisit something I wrote about just over a year ago, and to put down in writing for the first time an observation which I have several times made (to myself).

Last September, in the middle of a house move (and also in the middle of a Braxton binge which went on for weeks, being after all long overdue), I wrote briefly about the (album of the) duo concert which B. gave at Wesleyan with the Ghanaian master percussionist properly known as Abraham K. Adzenyah (sometimes also credited as A. Kobena Adzenyah). At the time, I had just listened to the album - in two halves, on separate occasions - on Youtube, and such is the bewildering scale and variety of the maestro's discography that it took me almost thirteen months to get back to this recording; but this time I did get hold of the CD. It feels as if I am now hearing it properly for the first time; some of the subtlety present in the drumming, in particular, didn't really come across the first time. (I wasn't using headphones; one can't expect miracles...)

In that previous article, I said that I'd made the initial mistake of assuming that the percussionist must have been one of B's students, since that would usually be the case with a recording made at his (then) place of employment. But although I got that misconception straightened out in due course, I still hadn't realised the actual background to this concert: the percussionist wasn't present as some sort of "special guest" on a visit to the US; rather he, too, was on the music faculty at Wesleyan - and indeed his tenure may have been longer than B's own. (I only found this out very recently when double-checking the correct spelling of Adzenyah's name online: that took me to a post about how the university eventually honoured him with a building named after him, something I am pretty sure B. himself has not yet achieved.) I honestly can't remember now whence I gleaned the idea that "the concert was a special live performance, billed at the time as a highly unusual opportunity"; I wouldn't have just made that up, so I must have read it somewhere, but the hassles of moving must have distracted me sufficiently that I failed to cite my sources*. Anyway, I don't know how rare an opportunity it really was, given that at the time of the performance these two musicians were technically also work colleagues, but it certainly is an unusual item in B's vast discography...

... and it does draw from him some rather unusual playing. The opening section of the concert has B. on what is presumably a standard concert clarinet, but in response to the tribalistic percussion, he manages to make this sound almost like a shehnai; any friendly experiencer worth her or his salt would have no trouble recognising his voice within a few bars, but as the performance unfolds, he keeps coming up with things I wouldn't expect to hear from him. He does of course produce phrases and strategies which anyone familiar with his work would expect, but he also worries away at these melodic fragments or - cells, I suppose we might call them, phrases which other players might come out with on a regular basis, but which sound quite startling coming from this guy's horn. Needless to say, it works: more to the point, it works perfectly within the context, makes sense as an artistically-authentic response to the percussionist's patterns. Adzenyah himself demonstrates an ability to produce the subtlest of variations in rhythm, timbre and dynamics, remaining responsive and creative even while he lays down a beat which at times borders on the hypnotic. These two players may not seem, on the face of it, to make a natural pairing; but they shared both a degree of mastery and an affinity for fine distinctions. They had no trouble meeting somewhere in the middle.

It's not an album for which I made any detailed notes - actually it's been a pleasure just to listen to it, without the added pressure of analysing it in any real depth - and for that matter, when I said last year that it's unlike B's duets with Andrew Cyrille or Max Roach, I was being a bit cheeky there since it's years since I heard any of those recordings (all of which I do, however, have in my collection... in one form or another); I was better placed to make comparisons with the maestro's duo album with Gino Robair, having only very recently heard that one. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy hearing it "properly", and it did still impress me as being unusual... and I can recommend it without hesitation. Oh, and there was one detail which I wanted to clear up: in my post from 22 Sept 2022** as linked above, I referred to a passage in the second half of the concert where  B. "plays his saxophone in such a way that it sounds more as if he is talking through it". This is definitely how it struck me at the time - I can remember thinking exactly that - but I don't necessarily hear it exactly like that now. What I did hear this time was a passage in which B. seems almost to cry through his horn, and this does, for a while, sound rather like a human voice. I wouldn't have been able, at the time, to make the connection which I can make now: the same technique is deployed to great effect in Sextet (Istanbul) 1996, as reported here. That album, despite its title, captured a performance given in 1995, the year after the duet with Adzenyah. Had B. used this technique prior to 1994? I don't know, but I will be keeping an ear out for other examples of it from now on...

***

At the end of my most recent post, I brought up another duo album, this time an encounter between two saxophonists. And I said that I needed to play the album again, if I could find time for it; I then surprised myself by promptly doing just that. - Actually, when I thought about it, I remembered that when I bought this double CD, I only played the first disc, and never quite got round to hearing the second one***. That, then, needed immediate rectification: I played disc two a few nights ago (and replayed disc one just tonight). This, in turn, reminded me of something which (as I said above) I have noted before, but may never have really mentioned here. A recording comprising a duet between two saxophonists may not, in principle, sound like something very appealing - may indeed conjure up images of something dry and cerebral and, you know, not very enjoyable at all. But when I've heard such encounters between B. and another reedman, I have found almost the opposite to be the case - not that I myself would expect such meetings to be "dry and cerebral", given that I (more than most) know how inaccurate, how unmerited these epithets are when applied to the maestro; but even I can sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that recordings featuring nothing but saxophones might turn out to be hard work. And yet, they pretty much never are, at least not when our man is at the wheel. I recently heard for the first time the second half of Sax Quintet (Middletown) 1998 - having heard the first half back when it was released# - and it was a riot. Of course, there's a lot more you can do with five saxes than with just to, but still - 

- as it turns out, you can do a hell of a lot with just two, as well. The two long duets with Opie are consistently fascinating: varied, lively, witty, continuously creative and never, ever dull. It irritates me a bit that after all this time, I still can't recognise Comp. 173 when I hear it played as an instrumental only (it is very easily recognisable when its verbal text is quoted), given how many times it has been used as tertiary material, as well as being played as a standalone track; but that's just something I shall have to pursue in due course. That, it's fair to say, is the only irritating aspect of these listening sessions. It's not a well-known album, I am pretty sure; and contrary to what I surmised last time, Opie probably wasn't one of B's students##, so his is not a name that even fairly well-informed Braxtonheads are likely to know. But if anyone happens across a copy of this for a sensible price, they should snap it up at once. More subtle mastery in evidence, even in what might appear an unlikely context.

* It strikes me that I am trying to be too clever with this title, and thus failing even to be comprehensible. So perhaps I had better explain: doctor subtilis was the sobriquet bestowed upon the monastic philosopher Duns Scotus in the middle ages (Roger Bacon having been known as doctor mirabilis, and Aquinas as doctor angelicus), and when I first considered writing again about the 1994 duo, that title popped into my head as being appropriate for Adzenyah. But of course it would apply equally well to B. - and for that matter, once I'd decided to scoop up the 2008 duo in the same post, it would apply pretty well to anybody able to cut it in the context of "reed meets reed". That left me needing to pluralise it, as I have attempted to do; whether many people will figure out what I meant is another matter. Still, I am above all pleasing myself at this point, am I not ;-)

* I'm amazed now that I managed to post so many times last year at all, especially in September. I must have been writing more quickly than I can manage now; oh, and I suppose for some of that time, while the move was approaching and then underway, I wasn't actually at work so I was less mentally drained in the evenings. And I needed the distraction from day after day of sorting through boxes and drawers full of papers, etc... even so..!

** The other half of this post talks of the box set with Eugene Chadbourne, something else I was planning to come back to "at some point soon"... again, it took me some time, but earlier this year I did manage to hear the entire thing. And most excellent it is, too :-D

*** This was right in the middle of my "doldrums years", unable to write, and not listening all that much either - or not to this type of music, anyway. I did at least make occasional purchases, trusting that at some point I would be more able to listen to them... it took a while, but as you can see, that worked out...

# NBH006.1 was a "recording of the month" back when TCF was doing such things for its members. I never did feel comfortable with shelling out for digital recordings, and it would be years before I got round to hearing the various other releases on NBH; indeed there are still a few that I haven't heard. Getting there, though...

## The 2008 album was recorded the day before (what would become) the very first NBH release: Septet (Pittsburgh) 2008. The liner notes for that recording are by Opie, and he explains (some of) the circumstances by which the trip to Pennsylvania came about. (He did have a friend and bandmate who was also on the faculty at Wesleyan. Have a look at the notes if you're curious.)