Comparative analysis: Composition 136

This is something which I've been leading up to for months and months already - nothing unusual there, of course - and for that matter, this post is itself only preparatory work for something else, when it comes down to it. I said something in passing last autumn about this being very nearly ready, then when I wasn't able to follow up on that, just stopped mentioning it - and kept putting it off (even though on my "rolling schedule" it was never more than two or three posts in the future - supposedly). The background work for it was done a long time ago, so much so in fact that I had to redo it when the time finally came to write this; last year, I just didn't feel like writing it, and I think part of the problem there was knowing (semi-consciously) that once I've got this exercise out of the way, the next phase is much harder: carrying out similar research on those compositions in the 9x range, beginning with Comp. 94. How far I will get with that, very much remains to be seen; still, in the meantime I may as well set down what I found out about the various versions of Comp. 136 which I listened to in preparation for this.

The archived version of Restructures lists no fewer than ten recordings of this piece (in various different contexts - not always straight-up readings). Two of these were ruled out right away: the Roland Dahinden project Concept of Freedom - credited to Anthony Braxton (+ Duke Ellington) - is not something I have in any format at time of writing, and only snippets of it seem to be available online*; and although I do have the Rastascan release Nine Compositions (DVD) 2003**, this is not immediately playable with my current setup. I'm not overly worried about either omission: in both cases, 136 appears as one of numerous tertiary materials interpolated into a much larger and broader structure, and although my main aim in the present case is to be satisfied that I can always recognise the piece when it crops up in precisely these circumstances, it won't be necessary to check out existing examples of this beforehand - rather, these will prove useful "checkers" when I encounter them later on (by giving me the opportunity to identify 136 in a "collaged" context***).

The other eight recordings listed on Restructures# are all in my collection - in one format or another - and all of them were examined for this post (plus one further recording, of much more recent vintage). It's not easy to find the graphic title for the piece reproduced clearly online; luckily, the booklet for the duo album with Gino Robair includes (slightly randomly) a large-scale reproduction of the same, which I am therefore able to show here:

As we can see, this playful diagram (depicting what appears to be a downhill skiing race on a sunny day) cleverly uses the line denoting the slope of the hill in a secondary aspect - the "satellites" which frequently turn up in these graphic titles are attached to it in this instance. 

Needless to say, I don't have access to the score - not that I would really know what to make of it if I did! - and the five-volume Composition Notes do not go this far##. I am reliant on my own ears and listening experience for any conclusions which follow; it seems obvious from several of the versions examined here that the piece in its full glory is fairly long and comprises several sections, but of these, one in particular is what will enable to curious listener to recognise the piece whenever it crops up in a live set, or in the middle of something else. This is not always the first section played, as we will see; but the overall consensus implied by the majority of the recordings available is that it is probably the opening section of the score: it centres around what I have come to think of as a sort of "woodpecker" motif, in which a single note is played repeatedly, attacked staccato, in rapid succession but also increasing in speed each time - in the manner of a bouncing ball. From some of the more orthodox readings available, it would seem that this is only a rather small part of the overall composition, but it's nevertheless the part which is most readily identifiable; and in some cases it is more or less the only part which gets quoted at all, so that it will come ultimately to serve as the "theme". (The staccato nature of the motif may or may not indicate that this written section belongs to language type 4; not all of the written composition has the same character.)

Whether what follows is really classifiable as a "comparative analysis" is of course open to question: but I have already laboured the point quite enough when it comes to outlining my own limitations as a commentator, and I see no great need to reprise all that here. In any case I shan't attempt to undertake a full dissection of any of the versions described below; rather it's more a case of reporting any significant impressions gained while listening, and any observations which I made. Following Restructures, the recordings are described in chronological order.

***

1. Gino Robair / Anthony Braxton### Duets 1987 (Rastascan / Music & Arts)

This reading - the earliest we have on record - plays like an authentic duet (which may sound redundant, but it's not quite true of all the duo readings - as we will find out). It begins with the "woodpecker" section as noted above, and almost all passages are played in unison; the exception to this rule is in Robair's percussion solo, which itself has to have been taken from Comp. 96 (the track is - in its corrected form### - entitled "Composition No. 136 (+ 96)", and this is really the only place where the tertiary material could be located). Robair's playing on this is interesting enough in its own right that it is possible to listen to the track just focusing on him; nor is this any reflection on B., who plays just as well as we would expect, whether on alto (to begin with), contrabass sax in the middle of the piece, or sopranino to conclude. The last section is characterised by long, sustained tones (language type 1). The drum solo, meanwhile, features a lot of press-rolls on various surfaces, which should in turn make it easier to identify 96 when it comes up in other contexts^. 

2. London Jazz Composers Orchestra Zurich Concerts (Intakt)

The second iteration of the piece occurs as part of the second half of this star-studded orchestral album, which (as a whole) contains two separate performances organised by Barry Guy (whose brainchild the LJCO was to begin with). The performance we are concerned with^^ took place on 27th March 1988, conducted by B., who himself does not play on it; reedmen include Trevor Watts and Evan Parker, among others. (The whole orchestra is of a ridiculously high standard.) As can be seen from the setlist, 136 is the second of three (or four^^^) primary territories, each of which is subject to collaging. There are no breaks as such, but the liners for the album helpfully list all the featured soloists, in order, which makes it very easy to follow as one listens - and in any case, now that we know what 136 sounds like, it is very easy to pick out here. Before the last notes of Alan Tomlinson's trombone solo have decayed into silence, the familiar staccato 136 motif starts up, and there we are underway again. Once more the tertiary material is specified as 96, which simplifies things for the listener. The written theme here is of course played by at least a dozen instruments at once, with a somewhat "staggered" effect (which one must assume was the way B. wanted it, given that he was directing and had such skilled musicians at his disposal), and there is also a dissonant flavour to the proceedings during the unison sections, as if some early version of the diamond clef is in play; the players are all voicing the same relative pitches, but may very well not all be playing the same notes, as far as I can tell.

The first written section is followed by a drum solo, played by Paul Lytton and (with the benefit of the Robair duet for comparison) almost certainly taken from 96, again heavily featuring rolls on numerous different membranophones. This is followed by another unison section, which in turn gives way to another drum solo, this one recognisable to me at once as being played by Tony Oxley (but which may or may not be part of 96 this time). A third written section is followed by yet another drum solo, this one by Lytton again - unless it features both drummers at once~~, but if that's the case it makes an awful lot less noise than one might expect. A fourth and final unison section yields to an intriguing double-horn part, in which only Henry Lowther (on trumpet) and Steve Wick (tuba) are heard - although it's a little dubious as to whether these count as "solos" since both are playing at once. In any case both play complex lines which could very well be in some part informed by the written score - or may not be. I still can't be sure of that... but in any case, as soon as Dave Holland enters on bass, closely followed by Radu Malfatti on trombone, we have moved on to the next set of materials, and that's that. [Extraordinary though this performance is, it is possible to emerge from it wondering whether the other approach - that is, where the orchestra is made up not of star improvisers but of journeyman readers and players - might not ultimately work better for B's larger-scale musics... to be continued. (Maybe.)]

3. Anthony Braxton / Marilyn Crispell Duets Vancouver 1989 (Music & Arts)

This performance, from the following June, sees B. reunited with the pianist from his quartet, of course; it's the second time that a duo rendition of 136 will have been captured for posterity. It opens proceedings, in this case, and with B. on flute for a change; if this at times seemed like the maestro's weakest axe, that is certainly not the case here as he appears to have been sharpening up his flute chops in readiness, perhaps feeling that he has something of a point to prove... Again, this reading begins exactly as we would expect, with the "woodpecker" motif salient in the written line, both players in unison as the music evolves to a difficult part with the same staccato figure included as a constant, a holographic fragment in which one may glimpse the essence of the piece. (If it seems hard to envisage some of these lines being written out rather than improvised, they way they are played by the duo makes it clear that they are; perhaps, as was so often the case with the music of Cecil Taylor, many listeners cannot reconcile themselves to the idea of music being written out which does not have a "hummable tune".) Crispell's nimble pianism lights this reading up, of course, and when B. returns on sopranino it really completes the picture. Again, some long held notes make themselves heard in due course, interspersed with tricky fast runs: this was noted in the 1987 recording. It's as if a crucial feature of the piece is to introduce key "language-units" amidst flowing written lines which evince different characteristics entirely - but where those same morphemes stand out in such a way as to predominate in the listening ear.

What appears to be the second section of the theme sees Crispell playing two different parts simultaneously, her left hand working away at something quite distinct from the runs at the top end of the keyboard. Possibly a third section of the written material starts around two minutes in; but without the ability to write music and make a real note of what I'm hearing, I found it too difficult to trace the progress of the piece much beyond this. As noted above, there are numerous moments of playing in unison which can only mean the two players are working from the score; when it sounds as if B. has taken flight into a solo, this still does not have the sense of a "solo with accompaniment" precisely, as Crispell continues to contribute actively. As with Robair in the '87 recording detailed above, one could focus entirely on the piano while listening to this version of the piece. [When I first listened to this again last year, I forgot about the limitations of this version of the album~ and carried on thinking I was still hearing 136 long after it had switched over to Comp. 140; this time, I was ready for it and timing the music while playing it, and found that if you are paying close attention and looking for it, there is a brief but clear pause between territories as 136 closes.]

4. Anthony Braxton with Ted Reichman Duo (Leipzig) 1993 (Music & Arts)

More than four years elapse before the next (released) version turns up, another duet - and a long one: the running order is wrong on Restructures~~~, but the timings are correct, and this lasts more than fourteen minutes. Once again, the piece begins with the familiar motif, the written line now very quickly recognisable. Reichman begins on piano, switching to accordion later; once the piece is properly up and running, B. takes off into incredible flights of virtuosity, but as with the 1989 recording with Crispell, this reading never has the feel of a solo with mere backing. Reichman always seems to be contributing, whichever instrument he is on: when B. takes off, the pianist seems to be working away still at elements of the written material, not just laying down chords. The protracted opening section, played in unison, gives a sense of how long the written passages really are - though, again, I found it difficult to sustain full concentration after a certain point and would really struggle to describe the entire composition (or even to know how much of this is written out). 

5. Anthony Braxton Small Ensemble Music (Wesleyan) 1994 (Splasc(h) World Series)

This intriguing one-off album catches B. giving (presumably) some sort of recital concert, featuring various students playing with him in a number of very different settings. The fourth and last cut is also (slightly) the longest, and showcases what will very nearly be the working sextet, a year later: Jason (Kao) Hwang on violin (here miscredited as Jason Wong), Ted Reichman on accordion, Joe Fonda on bass and Kevin Norton on percussion; the only change to personnel as regards the following year's Istanbul concert - effectively the debut of GTM for the world at large - is that Roland Dahinden (who appeared here in a reading of the trio piece Comp. 107) would take over the trombone role which is played on this occasion by Mike Heffley@. The rubric for this sextet performance is a little complex, and will be reproduced here exactly as it was given on Restructures:

Comp. 44 (+ 108 D + 96) + 168         [21:13]

Comp. 136

Comp. 43 + (96) + 168     

- which is potentially rather confusing, and I could certainly come up with a more consistent/plausible way of rendering it (according to the traditional methods of reproducing collaged titles), but the important part for us here is easy enough: the performance breaks down into three separate segments, of which 136 is the second, and unlike the segments which precede it and follow it, it is not collaged. In practice, it is very easy to hear that this section begins at 9:10, after a short pause; it's not quite so simple to establish how long it lasts, and when it ends. Naturally, what makes it so easy to spot the beginning of the piece is the fact that it again begins with the familiar motif; somewhat after the fashion of the LJCO concert, the effect during the written lines is "staggered" slightly, the players not strictly in rigid time with each other, and again one has to presume this was intentional (it is, in any case, rather effective). Once the first parts are done with, Reichman and Hwang freak out completely, leading a very active and busy passage in which the general mood is very hot and exciting; as they dial it down a bit, Heffley makes his presence felt (with a somewhat heavier, fatter tone than Dahinden normally has). Almost imperceptibly, the music drifts into a more meditative, lyrical phase - which does display some of the long tones already identified as pertinent to this piece in previous versions - and it is hard to be sure when the third section starts. At 16:16, a new theme is heard which is definitely "something else"; but this sounds very like 168, which is supposedly not the bit we would expect to hear next@@. Still - from this point on, it is certainly the third segment of the performance and no longer of relevance to us today. The part which is, as described above, is quite action-packed and gives a lot of freedom to most if not all of the players - B. absolutely does not dominate proceedings on this - but it does meander a bit as it moves towards the next territory, and it can be quite difficult to stay focused as a listener beyond a certain point.

6. Roland Dahinden Trios Naima (Mode 62)

This 1997 release gathers recordings from two years earlier@@@, and is credited the way it is because it features two different trios, both led by Dahinden and both featuring the drum talents of Art Fuller - more artful than the average drummer, evidently - but with Joe Fonda again in one case, and the maestro himself in the other. What is easy to forget, and must be borne in mind, is that B. plays on the two long pieces composed by the young leader, and not on the number which he wrote himself.

Staring once again with the familiar "woodpecker" motif, the music seems to move quite quickly into something else, but then tends to return to that same language unit - as we might think of it - fairly frequently. It's another long reading, and must presumably cover the entire written score, though it does also very much sound as if that same score is used as the springboard for some very intense, spirited improvisation; the impression I was left with in my recent listening was of a group exercise in tone colour, all three musicians very much sounding together rather than simply playing at once. Dahinden's interplay with Fuller is terrific on this, but Fonda - playing arco for most of the piece - is consistently interesting too. At first, the trombone plays the line as written while the bass sort of echoes it, and the drums "accent" it; eventually, Dahinden launches into an extraordinary display of speed and technical skill, displaying imagination, finesse and subtlety in a dynamite solo which incorporates a sort of growling, multiphonic timbre at one point (setting up another dip back into the opening thematic material). Come to think of it, this approach - periodically touching base with the materials, then taking off into the ether in between times - is not at all dissimilar to the way B. himself is prone to treat standards, as I have noted before, so if that is indeed what RD was doing here, there is good precedent for it. No trouble whatsoever marvelling at the virtuosity on display here - Fuller is brilliant on this, by the way - but detecting the overall shape of it, and trying to establish what proportion is written and what improvised... is beyond my present abilities, such as they are.

7. Anthony Braxton with Joe Fonda 10 Compositions (Duet) 1995 (Konnex)$

Chronologically speaking, this is the last of the duets - and it's also something of an outlier in more than one respect: it initially took me longer than it "ought" to have to get a proper feel for the piece, largely because last year, I began with this version (for reasons which seemed to make sense at the time, but I can no longer recall). The most identifiable section of the written line only begins quite late on in this version, and it's also not really what I would call a duet, albeit it is clearly a duo performance. For much of its duration, it has the feel of a "solo with backing" - precisely what I have already said that the other three duet readings aren't - rather than anything truly interactive, and although that solo is itself suitably eye-watering in its virtuosity, it still seems a little odd to be hearing the bass take such an unassuming role here. Beginning with string plunks and a few long tones, we soon find ourselves in (what is presumably) a later section of the score, swooping arpeggios and arco bass eventually birthing a repeating figure, and interspersed fast runs with long, sustained (LM1) tones, as observed during the latter phase of many of the versions described above. Eventually this gives way to the motif which forms the beginning of (basically) all the earlier readings, though when this does appear, it doesn't last long before B. takes off into the stratosphere. The expected written parts are still of course taken in unison, but the whole reading seems to have been "flipped" and played in reverse order; after B's solo, more unison parts do occur at the end. It's - let's see - not inherently strange that B. should choose to interpret one of his pieces in such a way, and the temptation to reorder it structurally is certainly understandable after numerous "straight" versions during the previous few years... but to relegate the album's duo partner to an accompanist's role does feel a little perverse, almost unfair. We know that Fonda could offer more than this. [I probably need to relisten to the whole album, sooner rather than later.]

136 disappears for a good few years after that, and then this happens:

8. Anthony Braxton / Sonny Simmons / Brandon Evans / Andre Vida / Shanir Blumenkranz / Mike Pride (untitled album)

This insane one-off recording was cut at Wesleyan on 8th February 2003, and originally released later the same year, as a double-CDr on Evans' Parallactic label$$; it is hugely exciting (almost overwhelming at times) to listen to, and more or less useless when it comes to the task at hand. This is partly down to the same factors that make it so invigorating, i.e. the personnel involved almost inevitably leads the date to become a sort of free-for-all; but it's also because it's really quite hard to work out what we are hearing, in formal terms. One of two Braxton compositions on the eight-track album, the piece under the microscope is presented under the "enigmatic" (i.e. meaningless) title "508M (+ Comp. 136)", and whatever the main body of the piece is supposed to be, it obviously isn't Comp. 508m (which does not exist and never has). Something got garbled, somewhere along the line, which is rather odd when we consider that Evans was a senior student of B's and one would think that he would have got this right$$$. The best guess - prima facie, but also backed up (ish) by the actual music - is that one of the 108 series was intended to be noted, though presumably not as the "primary" territory, and in any case, that series runs only a-d and therefore gets nowhere near "108m". Who knows, really..?

In terms of identifiable landmarks, we can at least clearly hear 136 itself, or the famous bit, at any rate: teased and hinted at before 3:00 is on the clock, it is then played (sort of) properly from around 3:30, but amidst the ensuing mayhem it's pretty much impossible to decipher how much else of what's played is written out. What comes at the beginning, for that matter, may be some sort of lead-up (in the manner of the Antilles reading of 40b, perhaps, but longer) or may be something else again; the only other real thematic clue comes around the twelve-minute mark, when a brief pause is followed by something that does sound like a pulse track, even though if that's what is going on there, the whole band should surely not be playing it in unison. It doesn't last long, anyway, and most of the remainder of the (seventeen-minute) piece is - well, again, who knows what it is. So much for the specifics; the main interest in the album as a whole lies of course in hearing all these guys together, especially B. and Simmons (who only met on this one date, as far as I know) - and they both make their presence felt on this track in several places. B's is indeed the first voice we hear, with just some light skittering from Pride, and he is clearly audible from around 7:55, for example, as well as at several points beforehand; Simmons tears through the mix at 5:38, instantly identifiable with his pungent, biting tone and exceptionally fast articulation (and again can be clearly heard at other times too). In a way the most remarkable thing about the mix is how prominent the bass and drums are, and how loudly they were recorded (possibly to ensure they did not get drowned out); Blumenkranz in particular sounds thunderous on this, so one can only infer that (what Bob Rusch would regard as) forbidden studio trickery was employed: the bass on this album is the polar opposite of what one hears - or doesn't hear - on a CIMP release, and reminds us how powerful an instrument the contrabass really is. Oh, and look! - four saxophones. Those Italian guys really did get a little carried away with the idea that the 2022 Lorraine dates represented something formally groundbreaking for B. (And why the need for hype..? the music on that box set is more than interesting enough in its right.)

I did say in the second paragraph of this post than a ninth version of the piece was consulted, to wit:

9. Payton MacDonald Explorations 16 (Music Of Anthony Braxton) (self-released)

Mallet percussionist Payton MacDonald was already on my radar by the time I found about this four-track Bandcamp release: back in November 2022 I wrote briefly about a duo recording he made with (reedman) Gideon Forbes of B's Comp. 305, a piece which he reprised for this project, released in 2021. One of many, many instalments in this prolific player's Explorations series, this one also includes Comps. 304, 142% and - of course - 136, which closes out proceedings on this occasion. Credited as a solo marimba performance, this certainly appears to be multi-tracked (although with these four-mallet wizards, one is seldom sure). It's an intriguing listen for certain, but if I'd originally thought it might be a useful point of reference - on the grounds that the interpreter is likely to adhere quite closely to the score - I ultimately changed my mind about that, simply because it's a long reading at sixteen minutes, and following its twists and turns is rather beyond my ability as a semi-informed listener. As is almost the case, the piece begins with the best-known section of the theme, and as with the Roland Dahinden version described in 6. above, MacDonald seems to gravitate back to the staccato "woodpecker" motif at regular intervals throughout, but other than being firmly convinced that this is a serious musician to be reckoned with, I failed to draw any meaningful new conclusions. 

It would be fascinating to see the written score at some point: not that I could read it (!), but it would still be really interesting to see how long it is - and how many of these complicated fast sections (which the longer readings have in common, besides the obvious motif) were actually through-composed. In the meantime, I am finally done with 136 for the time being... and can at long last move on to something even more challenging..!

* - in any case my (fragmentary) understanding of this album is that it's somewhat like a patchwork quilt, pieced together from various works by the two master composers, rather than a "reading" of Comp. 257 with numerous tertiaries folded in. I had previously noted that the album gives equal status to B. and Ellington, but it's actually more the case (from the way the release is credited) that B. is given precedence here - not that I would infer from this that B. is to be considered the superior composer, as such. (By the way, 257 is not included on my recent GTM list, nor is it on smartpatrol's list - except as the subject of this specific album. I don't know what type of work it is, though I would guess it's GTM... I do have to get hold of this recording at some point, obviously.) [I am perilously close to needing footnotes for my footnotes, at this stage...]

** In this case, 136 appears as one of no fewer than fourteen tertiary materials worked into the main territory, Comp. 190. (This latter was identified recently as one of three "probable" GTM works which I cannot presently confirm, all of which appear on this same six-hour monster.)

*** The reason for the inverted commas here: although I tend to use the term "collage" quite freely in my posts, technically it applies only to the strategies employed by the "Forces quartet" in the mid-eighties and early nineties. Even if the same principle seems to have been used continually ever since, it's a little doubtful whether B. or his collaborators would recognise the term as being correct in any later context. 

# smartpatrol lists nine, of which one is there by mistake. The Rastascan DVD is not included for some reason (probably because it would have been too much work to comb through every single release in search of tertiaries), nor is Naima, an album not credited to B., and thus not one we would expect to see on this particular list. Ensemble Montaigne (Bau 4) 2013 is included, simply because this list was compiled later than the version of the Restructures discography available in archived form; the other anomaly here highlights one of this person's rare errors, as 136 is linked incorrectly to the Hildegard Kleeb piano box (which does of course include the solo piano work Comp. 139), but not to the duo album with Marilyn Crispell. (This is presumably just a slip, the result of temporarily confusing one pianist with another - if smartpatrol actually did not know the difference between 136 and 139, various other albums would also show up erroneously on this list.)

## Even the catalog(ue) of works only goes as far as Comp. 132, in any of my sources.

### This (Robair's name first) is how the album is credited on Restructures, reflecting the original LP release on Robair's own label (which also lists the present piece incorrectly as 134). When Music & Arts reissued the album on CD in 1998, they reversed the order of the artists, added two extra tracks and revised the running order. All of this is laid out in more detail in my post from last September (which also rather optimistically suggested that this very article was to be the "next post"... only eight months late! who's counting?!).

^ It is very common to see 96 listed as a tertiary, especially during the "Forces" quartet's original collage phase, and very often when one of the 3x-range piano pieces is also listed within the same set of brackets; the temptation is to assume that this generally means Gerry Hemingway plays the drum solo from 96 while Crispell plays pages from 30 (or 31, etc) and B. continues exploring the primary territory - Mark Dresser meanwhile may be doing something else entirely. 

^^ No disrespect is intended to Guy's own "Polyhymnia", which is a fascinating piece in its own right (and besides - with that line-up, the results are pretty much guaranteed to be worth hearing). [This is a fascinating album, and well worth tracking down - I myself only bought a copy last year, and had not heard it before then.]

^^^ Whether the pulse track 108b counts as a primary territory or not is rather subject to debate, I would say - but that is the way it's listed on the album, i.e. as the third piece in a continuous performance.

~ There are two versions of this album, with the same content, but indexed differently. The original version on Music & Arts, which is the one I have on CD, comprises one long track, although the individual timings for the primary territories are provided as a guide. The second version - issued only in Japan, under licence from M&A but on the Another Side (Of Jazz) imprint - is indexed into separate tracks. (Part of me would quite like to have both, of course.)

~~ The liner notes list the soloists thus: Lytton, Oxley, Lytton, Oxley, Lowther and Wick. As I say, the second drum solo is immediately identifiable as Oxley (to anyone who has heard much of this highly idiosyncratic player); but there are only three drum solos, not four, so either there is a misprint in the liners or the third solo has both men playing together. I don't think so - I reckon it's probably a mistake. (But admittedly I haven't heard this album through headphones yet.)

~~~ This caused real confusion when I first came back to this album last year: playing track three, I could only conclude that it was totally unrecognisable, and sounded like a different piece altogether. Of course, I eventually realised that it was a different piece altogether, namely Comp. 167; as noted above, the corrective details are provided in a post from September last year. (Further to that post, I can confirm that the last track on the album - contrary to its graphic title, which is that for Comp. 100 - is definitely Comp. 86.)

@ Heffley's name may strike some readers as familiar, even if they can't immediately place it, and may be unknown to others; but he occupies quite a special place in this work nevertheless. A student of B's, he not only recorded an (unfortunately obscure) album of Brax-rep, he also published a book - which I don't own myself, but I know was highly regarded by the maestro. (Whether all the players were in fact also students at Wesleyan at the time of the 1994 performance is uncertain - Fonda in particular very probably wasn't - but it's pretty obviously the case that the majority of them were.)

@@ The problem with that expectation is: Comp. 43 is not officially recorded anywhere else, so comparisons are unavailable :(   However, it is decribed in the catalog(ue) of works as a "Medium fast pulse multi-structure", so it would seem unlikely that the dreamy couple of minutes leading up to 16:16 are representative of this piece.

@@@ Restructures - which was always scrupulous about such things (the part of the site we are concerned with called itself a Braxton Discography, but would more accurately be called a sessionography) - gives the date only as "1995 - May & December", implying that one session took place in May 1995 and the other in December of the same year, but lacking certainty as to which was which, and without any precise dates given at all. I don't own the album as such, but scans available online confirm that incomplete information is provided on it; we do know that December 27th saw B. in a New York studio waxing eighteen solo piano numbers, so it's quite feasible that he was in New Jersey earlier that same month, or even in the few days following; but we know that he gets around, even now, so that is not much to go on...

$ These are of course the details for the original release. I actually have the 2007 reissue on Clean Feed, simply entitled Duets 1995. [2007..! that was a good year ;-) ]

$$ As Restructures noted, Evans later reissued it digitally on his Bandcamp page in 2013, under the title Complete Sessions / Parallactic 54; the same page lists the album as (still) available in hard copy, though Discogs lists the latter as a 2017 release on a label called Human Plastic (which would also appear to be something to do with Evans). 

$$$ Evans first appears in the discography, along with Vida, on that same Splasc(h) release discussed in 5. above - but not in the same piece, of course. He crops up frequently between then and 2000, sometimes as one of many saxophonists, sometimes as a featured soloist. By 2003 he could definitely be considered a senior (ex-)student, of equivalent status to James Fei, Jackson Moore et al. (He evidently had some sort of close working relationship with Simmons, but I don't know the details.)

% 304 was unveiled on the same duo album with THB which originally shared 305 with the world... whilst 142 originally appeared as the encore of Ensemble (Victoriaville) 1988, and was later covered on Jump or Die... and will eventually be the subject of another comparison post, when I get round to it..!