Stairway to ... ?

Eight Compositions (Quintet) 2001 (CIMP)

 

This was an entry I had often wondered about, coming across it in the discography: unlike its similarly-named predecessor from the previous year, it is not a collection of modern standards, but rather a set of original pieces - featuring opus numbers one is unlikely to encounter elsewhere... and there is that highly unusual line-up: two reeds, three African(-style) percussionists. Not exactly what one would think of when hearing the term "quintet", however technically accurate that might be...

Copies of the CD are not especially commonplace, and it was never - as far as I know - something readily available in the blogosphere. I had it on one of my vague "one day" lists for years, but it was only last year that I really made any serious attempt to do something about that; as it happened, it was then one of the very first items to get crossed off the same list, when one of the blog's longtime readers and friends hit me up with a rip. Only the audio files were included, so I had no access to the liner notes and had to draw my own conclusions about the music.

At first I was preoccupied by trying to work out what I was hearing. Some of the pieces were clearly identifiable as (some form of) GTM, but others were less definite - and even the ones which I was sure about did not sound like GTM, third species as such. We know - I knew already, from years back - that Comp. 292 was very much in that category; and the numbering on the CIMP album picks up immediately after that, containing Comps. 293-300 inclusive, though not in that order, and with two different takes of the last piece. Yet we also know that opus numbers in the low 3xx range were not necessarily allocated to continuations of the GTM project: it is not difficult to locate several examples which demonstrate that. 

In the event, those next few months saw me acquire so many new recordings that I had no real opportunity to listen over and over again to any one of them in particular, and after a couple of intrigued plays of the CIMP album, I pushed it to the back of my mind somewhere and moved on. So it wasn't until the end of January, when I was surprised to see a physical copy listed for sale here in the UK, that I came back to it. Once I had the actual album in my hands, with its detailed liners, I had an answer to my question: it was not what I expected, at all. 

The Artist's Notes - as distinct from the Producer's and Recording Engineer's Notes - begin by stating that the "compositions which comprise this CD demonstrate the first of the fourth species prototype Ghost Trance Musics", an intriguing assertion, since in hindsight we know that there is no GTM, fourth species. I had never come across any reference to this prototype anywhere else, in all the time I have been exploring B's music; we know now that the third species generated its own offshoot, the accelerator class, and that the final parts of this massive system - culminating in Comp. 362 - were of that precise subset. But nowhere else will one find reference to a "fourth species" GTM: apparently this prototype led no further, was discontinued. In the huge fantasy theme park which is Braxtonland, there is a pathway seldom taken, tucked away behind all the main attractions, and it leads to an ornate (but dusty) gate, behind which is a spiral staircase leading... to nowhere at all, as it turns out. Here, in other words, is a rare example of an idea not followed through, a false start, a leftover from a time when the pioneer headed off in a new direction, only to have second thoughts and turn back. That alone makes this release a fascinating anomaly, unique in the recorded canon.

The album is obscure enough that most people won't have access to it, and until such time as I am in a position to share the files, there is little to no point in writing in any detail about the actual music; nevertheless, this seems a good time to make some observations about B's (fairly brief) involvement with CIMP, and some more generic observations about that (somewhat controversial) label. 

What happens in The Spirit Room...

This was B's third session for CIMP, and for whatever reason(s), it would prove to be his last - a bit of a shame then that he was just starting to know the way there (according to the Producer's Notes), only overshooting the driveway "by about 100 feet" on this occasion. Previous sessions had yielded nineteen modern standards, mainly by Andrew Hill (released across two different albums) - and a bizarre set of duets with vocalist Alex Horwitz... but we don't really talk about that one. Still, those four duet compositions were all in the 28x range, and they were not GTM* - so we do know that not all high opus numbers were allocated to this continuing project (as it was then). This third and final session was the only one in Rossie, NY, which really produced cutting-edge original pieces, and it seems to have come about through an association between Sipho Robert Bellinger (one of the three African-style percussionists on this disc) and Richard McGhee III, the second reedman, who had worked with the maestro at least once before, a couple of years earlier. Bob Rusch may not have been quite correct in saying that B. "had never recorded in this type of instrumental setting before"**, but he also was not entirely wrong, given that the precise instrumentation used here is quite possibly unique, and must at the very least be extremely unusual.

B's own Artist's Notes include potted musical biographies of his collaborators - a habit he picked up somewhere along the line, and frequently indulged - but they focus chiefly on the music itself, making it clear once and for all that this was not just a practice-run for what later became the accelerator class, but something else, brought about by the one-off combination of musicians available for the date - and limited to that date. The composer explains that by the term fourth species GTM he is "referring to a set of structural prototypes that contain (1) re-centred pulse construction strategies and (2) the additional use of rhythmic compound cell modules". Crucial to this prototype is the idea of "combination rhythm sets", and more specifically of "four different compound rhythms", both of which relate quite definitely to the particular circumstances of this recording, rather than to anything else which was going on at the time. B. did not usually get to play with three different percussionists at once, never mind with those of an African-diaspora focus or lineage, and the possibilities inherent in this grouping are what led him to compose this set of eight pieces.

Now, as to whether this environment was the optimal place to try all this out... well, one problem we don't have to worry about here is the role of the bass, since there isn't one. CIMP is notorious for its own militantly-obstinate approach to recording aesthetics, insisting that their way of doing things - recording live to 2-track with all the musicians present in the same space, and resisting any temptation to mess around sonically with the results - is the only way to hear what was actually played; various loyal musicians have been quoted over the years as saying that Rusch père et fils are the only producer and engineer who have ever given them back exactly what they put out, free of artifice or ornamentation. Nevertheless, their recordings do have a tendency to sound... oddly lifeless (which itself is pretty ironic, given that the label's Statement of Purpose - present on the back cover of every CD, which itself can be a problem (as we will see in due course) - refers to the way that "compression of the dynamic range is what limits the 'air' and life of many recordings" - said compression being a complete no-no for the Rusch family, of course); and most infamously, the contrabass - when present - can end up being more or less inaudible. Yet anyone who has listened even slightly carefully to creative music for more than a very short time would surely agree that that instrument has a very powerful and versatile voice, in the hands of a good player. Somehow, in their quest to create recordings with no trickery or over-engineering or post-production, etc etc, these guys manage to produce albums which sound singularly sterile. Or at least that is how they very often sound to me; perhaps my noise floor is not low enough for their standards. Certainly, my equipment is not up to what they would doubtless regard as an adequate standard; but here's the paradox: I nonetheless manage to hear most other recordings in great detail...

... and here's the real clincher: on this recording, I struggle much of the time to recognise B's voice, even on alto, which is (frankly) almost incredible. Leave aside any doubts as to whether my ears are really as good as I might like to think they are - just the thousands of hours I have spent listening to that voice are sufficient for me to be able to pick it out of a crowded soundscape, within the first few seconds, even when everyone is playing a saxophone***. Yet when I listen to this album - it became especially noticeable when I actually got hold of it on CD - I find many places where I can't identify that voice in the same way, and this just feels really weird to me at this point. Of course, I can identify him easily enough anyway, by virtue of what he plays; I had no problem pinpointing him and McGhee in the stereo image. But it's still a most disconcerting experience to realise that I am listening to the most familiar instrumental voice in the world, to my ears, and that if I didn't already know in advance who it was, I might not be able to recognise it. Yes, yes: this is of course because only the Rusch family understand how to render that voice with true fidelity: if I don't hear what I'm expecting to hear, it's only because I have never before heard the true, unadulterated voice. But would they really have me believe that every other recording of this musician is false in precisely the same way? I would never accept that, so let's hope nobody tries to persuade me of it... No: the purity of the label's vision seemed to me so strong that for years I wouldn't allow myself to be overly influenced by the negative opinions of numerous other listeners, but I finally have to admit to myself that I don't really like the way their recordings sound. 

There are other issues, mainly concerning the packaging: I have no problem with the cover, or even with the fact that all the covers are painted by (daughter) Kara D. Rusch#; that's part of their house style and it gives the label a part of its identity. But their insistence on emblazoning the Statement of Pomposity Purpose on the back cover, regardless of whatever else might need to be displayed there, causes a major problem in this instance, at least: the graphic titles for the pieces are supposed to be in colour, at this point; and they are supposed to be reproduced large enough that the viewer can actually make them out. Instead, in this case, they are all black and white, and all so tiny that there is really no point in having them on there at all. That, at any rate, was not properly thought through; and while I'm at it, is it really necessary to credit Susan Rusch with hospitality, again right there on the back cover? In all seriousness, this risks giving the impression that the Rusch family ethic somehow outranks every other consideration here, including the music, and that really does feel like the crowning irony.

Was this, then, a case of "what happens in The Spirit Room, stays in The Spirit Room"..? Did B. decide after the fact that he wasn't bound by his declaration of intent with regard to "fourth species GTM", because it was only revealed on a CIMP album and many people would never find out about it? That seems an uncharitable conclusion, and is probably assuming rather too much. What does remain true, either way, is that he never recorded there again... make of that what you will.

This is still a very interesting recording, not least because it represents a time when B. started off in one direction then changed his mind - but not just because of that, either: it is worth the time to track it down, for anyone with a serious interest in the maestro's music. At some point, I will try and make the files available - and when I do, I will have something to say about the actual music itself. In the meantime, apparently there was quite enough to get out of the way beforehand...

(...

... and yes, I am well aware that my accusing anyone else of pomposity is a flagrant example of the pot calling the kettle black. What ya gonna do?)

* Or were they?! Besides the tiny sample-files which McClintic Sphere passed to me last year after I made that request, I have still heard almost none of this album... its reputation, as it transpires, rather precedes it... and yet, and yet, there was that recent concert revisiting the very same material: someone likes it, anyway. Presumably they could also confirm whether or not it has any connection to GTM, but I can't, at least for the time being...

** I wrote not long ago about B's concert with master percussionist Abraham K. Adzenyah, which comfortably predates the CIMP recording; of course, that was a duo performance only, and featured a continuous set of entirely improvised music, but it's still an encounter with a percussionist in the African tradition, and one must presume that Rusch Sr. was unaware of it.

*** I would have to hold my hand up and say that on another occasion when everyone was playing a saxophone, I also struggled to locate B's voice, and even expressed my consternation to McC about precisely that; but it was only on the first track, and only because B. plays bass sax on that piece - not the voice I was listening out for..! (The same is not true of the rest of that album, even when Andrew Voigt is also playing alto.)

# Even the fact that Robert (producer/father), Marc (engineer/son) and Kara (visual artist/daughter) all share the middle initial D. feels, frankly, a little creepy - and seems to be information ever so slightly overshared. (Does it stand for the same thing in each case? Is it one of those peculiar things that only Americans do, giving each other middle initials which don't stand for anything at all - on the pretext that this somehow lends the name extra gravitas..? I'm possibly better off not knowing.)