(there once was a ) music file here

well, a little one: download

- this is the alexander hawkins sextet, as featured in session on a recent edition of the bbc radio programme jazz on 3. hawkins, based in oxford (also home to the locals, the group co-led by pat thomas and alex ward which plays all-braxton sets... or used to at any rate), has been making quite a name for himself in the u.k. over the last few years, and may also be known to stateside readers through his membership of the convergence quartet, which also includes taylor ho bynum.

i didn't manage to record the show myself, and i'm grateful to a correspondent (who wishes to remain anonymous) for sending me this file. it's a relatively low bitrate mp3, for interest only... no, it's not something you can put on your shelf and polish and stroke lovingly, for those who fetishise their music collections in this way... it is nevertheless perfectly listenable! anyway... since i didn't record the whole thing, but only listened to it once, i can't remember exactly what hawkins said about braxton, but it was something along the lines of his being "the main point of reference for contemporary jazz" (eek - yes, the "j-word" was in fact used, i do remember that much). one or two of the hawkins originals in the ensuing set did seem to betray b's influence; but then, after those words came so close to the end of the interview, it's perhaps not surprising that i heard them that way.

ok, now this is where it starts to get a bit complicated. the piece - which i believe was described as a medley, inaccurately if so - is listed on the programme's webpage as comp. 69(1)+6(o)+40(o). actually the letter "o" was replaced by zeros where it occurs, but we'll ignore that... except we can't, quite, because whoever put the setlist together clearly knows relatively little about the braxton canon*1: numbers instead of letters is easy enough to correct in the case of the 6 and 40 series pieces, but is problematic for the other since of course comp. 69(1) does not exist. the obvious substitution to make is comp. 69i; but in practice it is extremely unlikely to be that, since - according to restructures - that particular piece has never even been recorded by b. himself, only by the splatter trio. they almost certainly had access to b's scores; hawkins would not, i think (in any case he doesn't seem overly familiar with the canon himself - he said in the interview that these pieces were originally written for quartet, "but work ok for this group" or words to that effect; but they weren't written for quartet, they are from the creative ensemble books and hence are suited to any small group).

- in any event, i really don't think the first theme we hear is an unrecorded piece, for the simple reason that i'm pretty sure i recognise it -! the more i hear it, the more familiar it seems... but i'll be damned if i can place it, and so far i have not been able to identify it from cross-checking likely recordings. it is definitely not comp. 69j (which seemed like another reasonable possibility), nor for that matter 69h or 69k or... you get the idea. so, please: if anyone can tell me what piece is being played at the start of this file, i will be very grateful!

as for the rest of it - on first hearing, not quite giving the music my undivided attention (though i thought i was listening fairly closely), i didn't hear the other listed pieces either. 40(o) is of course a repetition series, and one i've heard many times in numerous different versions - but i would have been expecting to hear the whole band play the theme, at least, in unison... and i suppose this is what i was (half-!)listening out for. and 6(o) is a gorgeous ballad structure which i would have expected (again) to recognise at once. but if the piece was described as a medley - in which a succession of different themes are played as one unit - that's erroneous: this performance is really (an attempt at) a collage structure, as pioneered by b's great quartets of the mid-eighties. from around 3.15, while the leader continues playing the first composition (or perhaps just improvises), the cello and bass do indeed begin to bow slowly the written bass parts from comp 6(o)*2, or at least i think that's they are (!); and at 5.08, with this slow arco stateliness still in effect, hawkins embarks on a very fast reading of the 40(o) theme, possibly taking a few liberties with the written line by the sound of things (maybe another reason why i didn't pick it first time round).

this approach - the ensemble starts out playing a piece, then one or more members begin playing something else, and later yet another is joined by someone else again, while the rest of the band continue whatever they were doing - is very much in the spirit of the "forces in motion" group, and some kudos is due to hawkins for even trying it. i'm not sure it's an unmitigated success, bearing in mind that for much of the piece, only certain players seem to be playing any composition, the others just doing whatever - but again, maybe this is me rather than them, and subsequent hearings may yet uncover further subtleties as yet undetected. in any case, it's good to hear someone taking this sort of challenge on, and i hope that hawkins continues to develop this concept in future. in the meantime, i hope people enjoy the music... and once again: if anyone can name that first piece for me, with its highly distinctive, "walking" written line - do please leave a comment!

* see comments.

braxtothon phase 4: session 010 (+) - the details... part 2

(see also part 1; and see here for background etc)

session 010: quartet (dortmund) 1976 (trs. 2-4)
date: 31st october 1976

restructures link

3. - as the applause dies down, the repetition series comp. 40(o) begins. it's a natural way to open the next part of the concert, and lewis seems to exult in these repetition structures - and no wonder, when he himself has such variety in his utterance... and of course, the neat precision with which the band tears through what in theory is a difficult written line - (by now this is routinely) impressive, yet it also hints at the trap into which the leader may now fall, if he's not careful: holland and altschul have basically run out of things to say on this sort of piece, and we could be in danger of getting a rote performance of it. in practice, that's not what happens - but only because b. and lewis spark off each other continually, ignoring the limitations imposed on them. otherwise... there would scarcely be any point in keeping this (or 6f) on the setlist at this point.

as i said before (in the summary), this version is not merely the same picture examined through a series of different filters; it disintegrates completely in the middle, reforming before breaking up again, and this freedom was probably needed for the two hornmen to take the piece anywhere interesting (*1). for all the well-oiled precision of the theme, there's not much in the opening minute to suggest that we're going to get anything special. as the second minute begins, holland drops out of the written line, placing occasional notes instead to provide a different effect (*) as the others plough ahead; then holland and braxton carry the line, lewis furnishing the commentary this time; but all of this mimics what we've heard before in these pieces. as we enter the third minute, the two horns suddenly start hanging back, drawing their attacks out, letting the rhythm section tap out the theme, to which they themselves return only when they wish: this anticipates the greater freedom to come. around 2.45, lewis is sputtering out percussive morse code, b. toying with the germ of an idea, and the bottom end has fallen away completely, to leave us suspended in midair.

as altschul reaches for his (rather uninspired) toy whistle, the two hornmen get down to business: lewis squelching out gaseous bursts, b. (on contrabass sax) grabbing some of that - they return to the theme, drop it again so that 4.00 sees all four players in free space. by 4.15, lewis and the leader are conversing as seagulls, or perhaps sea lions; this then morphs into honks and growls - a whole menagerie of voices supplied by these two, as the bassist drones on; from 5.26, lewis unleashes a glorious few seconds of vocalised blowing, this man's tonal palette so variable, his vocabulary so rich and imaginative! holland (unsurprisingly) returns to the theme first, altschul skittering back in on cymbals, this then coinciding rather beautifully with lewis' high-pitched, honey-sweet offerings (5.45ish). nothing left but to return to the theme in unison; lewis ensures that it remains interesting till the end. yes, the end - they tail off, and once more applause breaks out; this time the break in proceedings seems odd, unnecessary...

4 ... but who knows, perhaps it wasn't intentional. as the written notes die away, they become squeaks and squawks, toots and tweets, and the next piece is upon us already, the audience quickly hushed again. holland, bow in hand, saws out a few simple phrases; little by little, a picture emerges in what is now a familiar fashion.

this, of course, is the wonderful circus march comp. 6c which is gradually being set up before our ears. again, i mentioned briefly in the summary that this is an ideal piece for this particular band - the structure offers great latitude to lewis in particular, while not calling to attention any limitations of the rhythm section - so much so that they played it in successive concerts (unusually) (*2). braxton would go on later to write quite a lot more circus-style music, much of it rather more difficult than this tune; but it’s probably fair to say that none of the later stuff in a similar vein is any more joyful than this. fun and freedom, two qualities which (supposedly) rarely go hand-in-hand in creative music... well, there’s plenty of both written into this piece, which (along with 23j) is one of the obvious highlights of this famous concert.

the set-up is gradual (something which becomes especially noticeable if the piece is heard in isolation from the rest of the album). the two horns open with what could be written patterns, similar to those in the previous number - this being most probably just another example of the “overlapping” of territories which is so common to these situations – and altschul’s rattling snare almost sounds more like the prelude to an execution than the build-up to a high dive... all four players take their time getting ready, eventually easing back completely just before the beginning proper (which is greeted with more warm applause, as well it might be).

the theme, which is cued up by holland’s simple two-note bass phrase to emphasise the march rhythm, is a little more deceptively complex than might appear. haunting and playful at once, a monophonic line drifts downwards in short steps (*3) over three bars, reaching an emphatic halt halfway through the fourth, all the players landing at once and breaking up the march. the line continues with the rhythm still in pause; when the second main section of the line commences, the bass saws out “left (pause) – left (pause) - left-right-left” and this coincides with the monophonic line diverging, a particularly evocative four-note phrase ending in a different place for each horn. this section is then repeated before the march resumes at regular pace, and back round we go. at this point the whistles and parps, together with the bold marching rhythm, place us right in the circus ring. it’s a wonderfully memorable effect: unlike comp.58 (*4), this is a circus march specifically for a small group, so instead of a big brass band theme we have the same sort of idea expressed in miniature; yet b. and lewis between them provide so much atmosphere and variety that the design is brought vividly to life. by the time they leave, the audience may not remember the opening comp. 40f very clearly, but they will surely remember this.

as the piece unwinds and expands, such a simple, magical charm prevails that it’s very easy for the listener just to drift away into it and lose sight of the details altogether. in any case, as the minutes tick by it becomes hard to say how much of what we’re hearing is written out and how much loosely improvised. the basic pattern remains much the same, while the melodies are freely embellished and altered, and this easy freedom really is the key to what’s happening here. above all, the leader and his young sideman are having fun, enjoying themselves while tossing ideas back and forth. the mouthpiece “kisses” which are exchanged around 6.10 are the clearest and most amusing expression of this principle, but it’s alive in every note. and the spirit of exuberant creativity at play here reflects back on the whole performance, making this number almost holographic: around 4.30 we could almost be back in 40f territory, whilst a brief energetic crescendo culminating at 5.15 flings us back towards 23j for just a few seconds, this effect vanishing as quickly as it was summoned, the four players lapsing back effortlessly into the march. around 5.40, lewis sets off a siren which wails away for ten seconds or so; then comes a gorgeous sequence of exchanges between the horns which takes in trills, blarts, parps and actual shouts (from lewis), ending up with those aforementioned kisses: here, more than anywhere else, we are reminded of just how much the two hornmen have in common, and how much, by contrast, b. didn’t have in common with wheeler - on more than occasion the previous year, the leader had proffered similar smacks of the lips, and the trumpeter did not so much rebuff these as not even register them. if comp.6c has waited a long time to get an outing, it’s surely because it’s taken this long for the leader to find a suitable playmate, one truly on the same level.

the intensity increases again, whipping us through the eighth minute and into the ninth, where the pace once more relaxes, everyone winding down again ready for the restatement (which itself is cued up beautifully by a protracted growl from the trombone, starting around 8.25). as that lovely theme plays itself out amid further impromptu utterances from the horns, it seems almost a shame that the concert could not close with this; but in truth it’s not really designed as a closer, and instead it simply fades away...

5 ... to be replaced at once by the theme of comp. 40b. that in itself – starting with the main theme, “cold” like that – is pretty unusual for these concerts, if not unique, and it’s one reason why i always feel a sense of anticlimax about this last piece. the other thing: as i’ve said before, having long since been won over by a version of this piece including piano, i now find it very hard to be convinced by any version without one... single-line instruments simply can’t open up the harmonic structure of the piece to the necessary extent: it always just sounds as if something crucial is missing.

the other other thing, which ultimately is the most significant point (i will get to this in more detail when i run the phase four conclusions article): this is a mid-tempo number, and for some time now holland and altschul have had a horrible tendency to nod off when playing at that speed. (see moers, 1974 and several other instances subsequently.)

so... for all the above reasons, and others which will become clear, this ending number always leaves me feeling let down these days, and has done on every occasion i’ve listened to the album during the last couple of years. that being the case, i don’t really want to dwell on the details too much... but let’s have a look anyway.

it’s a cracking theme, by the way: constructed in tension-and-release segments, it winds its way up and down in two-note skipping rhythm, the same phrasing much used by dolphy in his solos (hopefully many readers will understand straight away what i mean by this), with the release sections more slow-paced; but with just one minute on the clock it’s already impossible to avoid coming back to the same point, because with the theme done and dusted, the first solo is taken by holland... and any accumulated energy is allowed to dissipate at once. it’s as if, having worked the audience quite hard in the first half of the concert, b. now allows them a much easier ride in the second; maybe i’m being unduly harsh there, but from my perspective and at this distance in time, it seems quite urgently the case that what we really needed now was less jazz and more weird stuff, and screw the audience’s expectations... easy for me to say, no doubt. anyway, a fairly relaxed jazz exploration is what we’ve got, and even lewis (who takes over from holland at 3.08 – here, even the first two solos are separated by a brief return to the theme, allowing the crowd to applaud with plenty of warning... sigh, it was the last number i guess) treats this as a fairly standard jazz solo, at least at first. from 4.00 onwards he does start to turn up the heat, with a certain amount of support from altschul (holland just plods away); before he’s done, he’s reminded us all once again of just how fast a trombonist can play and to be fair, the drums do pretty much keep up with him.

at 5.45 ish, with no return to the theme this time, the leader takes over with one of his patent singing phrases, and we are into the second alto solo of the night. and it’s a blinder (as if we would expect anything else by now), a faultless, flowing exhibition of linked ideas which both sings and burns, following its own logic without ever becoming predictable; but as the minutes pass and the solo builds, the backing just sort of dribbles along, the bass in particular very much incidental to what’s actually taking place. oh well, now i find myself wondering whether i really am being too harsh; certainly the audience is appreciative enough, voicing its enthusiasm as b. finally wraps up and hands over to altschul... yes, this being a jazz number, everyone has to take a solo... well, it’s brief and before you know it, we’re back to the theme, and fading out on that memorable four-note phrase from the release. that’s that, and no, it would be very harsh indeed to suggest that anyone left the auditorium thinking “hmmm, that last number was a bit ordinary, i feel all deflated now”; chances are that everyone was buzzing all the way home. all i can tell you is that from my point of view, and that of the braxtothon, something rather important is definitely missing from this last number, and to a lesser extent, from the concert in general. harsh or not, that’s genuinely how i feel about it.

* * *

just in case anyone was wondering, nothing has happened during all these long months (see first comment!) to make me change my mind about the CCC rating for this album. i don’t see it as a career high, and the band is essentially unbalanced at this stage. that’s my story and i’m sticking to it. and, as i said a while ago (that is... i think i said it on here, not just in a mail to someone... can’t find it now!), i would even be hesitant these days about recommending the album as a point of entry to a newcomer, for all its humour and warmth and other human qualities (those same qualities being ones which b’s music is often typically said to lack). why am i hesitant? because this album basically says “free jazz” rather than creative music, and it’s no longer helpful for newcomers to be given that impression. as it is, there are (older) listeners out there who still doggedly insist that b’s “best” music was recorded in the seventies and that it’s all been downhill ever since... these same listeners (who don’t actually deal with the later stuff at all of course, lest it mess up their carefully maintained prejudices) presumably need to think of b. as a “jazz musician” rather than as a composer. old dogs, etc... and they can safely be left asleep; but new listeners need to know that this man was never just a jazz musician, if he was ever one at all.

* see second comment.

* update: see ninth comment, 20th sept.

cent's 2010 manifesto {cough}

(deep inbreath) (pause) ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhmm.., - what a strange year that turned out to be.

as far as this place is concerned... well, just look at the number of recent posts compared to the corresponding months of previous years. that really tells its own story. "promises" have sort of been made, and by no means kept. many of the crucial reasons have already been cited (in those same few etiolated posts). the really obvious one (i.e. parenthood) is at the root and heart of it all, of course. and then there's also...

lemme tell you a story a minute... a guy got back into martial arts training after a longish gap, but having previously trained with masters; found a perfect place to train alone and (mostly) undisturbed, out in the elements in an enchanting/-ed setting, and accordingly got right back into it... it hijacked his attention for some few weeks, meaning that he carried it around in his head on an hourly basis, waking and sleeping; and this manner of being was in fact habitual to him on such occasions, that is to say, when experiencing the (re)discovery of a subject of great interest. such fires tend to burn fairly fast.

anyway... in this state of heightened awareness*1, the way forward seemed pretty simple, but naturally it turned out to be nothing of the sort - at least so far. actually there are encouraging signs of movement at last... but that's behind the scenes, nothing we need to get into here. no, this is about trying to give some sort of explanation as to why my blogductivity flatlined for a while back there. the taiji thing - the point is that the braxtothon was of course born of the same obsessive internal monologuing, would have been very difficult without it in truth; these things, there are many of them, or at least several, and the awful paradox/dilemma for me is that i can only shine the torchbeam in one temple at a time, must inevitably cycle between them*2 yet have not (yet) in any way mastered the art of reporting back regularly and faithfully. so much that is noticed goes untransmitted.

now - that way lies madness, eventually (succeeding divorce and general estrangement, not a good companion for detailed martial arts training and prolonged meditation thereupon... i'm sure we've all seen that movie) so at this point i am striving to wrest under my control this facility/tendency/curse, and be able to turn it on and off in careful moderation. this will in theory allow me to report back better as well. (in due course i will have to start other blogs or do something similar. anyone who's good with this stuff, give me a shout at braxtonhead@gmail.com)

this is the one site which i guarantee to keep going, regardless of what others i might set up in future - the central processor - the thread. this has less to do with (near-) promises i have made, whether to some people in general or to one man in particular, though those are cogent reasons in themselves; it concerns rather the feeling i have often had about this blog representing the hardest i have tried to do my best - at least most of the time (my inability to offer anything of the sort recently is my fundamental reason for not posting) - it's beyond my choosing, it needs continuing.

at this stage there seems little point in actually writing those damn vignettes i was dangling on a stick throughout the autumn and into winter; for what it's worth, there were gonna be three of 'em, to wit:

1. a return to the paul smoker album QB, specifically to one track, pretty sure it's one of phil haynes', which really could well have been one of the first ripples in the younger john zorn's pond of masada, and was interesting too from the pov of the braxtophile (though for largely negative reasons iirc); started this but was already taking too damn long over it (funny how the "short ones" so often turn out to be the most rambling and uncontainable...), never finished it, may write it up for eartrip one day, perhaps...

2. the promised controversial two-parter, beginning innocuously enough with a quickie about the cygnus ensemble's delightful rendering of the first species gtm composition 186 - and using it then as an entry to the matter of audiophilia (or rather of audiophiles, since it must surely be necessary to distinguish the two!) - it's not a high-fidelity recording, as found online*3, hence offered the perfect pretext for examining this important (i still maintain it's important) issue; but no, i'm not now going to write this one at all, at least not for the foreseeable as it inevitably would be taken as a personal attack on at least one person, and a number of you (putative readers) will understand my reluctance to be accused of that at this time.

3. some relatively simple blather about one of the duets with evan parker. the show (boot) was posted online last year and i sat down to write the post on numerous occasions. never got very far (and i still don't really know why. "ought" to have been easy enough). but i may actually go ahead and do this one at some point, mainly 'cos i chose the photo months ago ;-)

- like i say, not much point now in beating myself up about posts i never did, or pretending that they are still at the top of the queue. first business really is that frigging dortmund monkey which still haunts my shoulders and upper back. the rest of it... it'll resume in its own time but i will try to post at least once a month, and try to make it substantial when i do. thanks for listening :)

{{{{<<<*%"**((@@@)))**"%*>>>}}}>}>}

c x

the good news, bad news show

argh... just seems to be one damn thing after another at the moment... as will be explained below. first, the good news, which came to me a few weeks ago now, via a mailshot from leo records: this tantalising new release, just in time for the festive season (i think i may be about to treat myself). as far as i know, these two master musicians have not been captured in duet before; indeed, off the top of my head i don't know of any braxton recordings featuring leandre other than the victoriaville 1988 septet performance. good news for sure!

the bad news... well... my computer has been struggling gamely along for a few months now despite obvious virus damage - until recently, when it pretty much packed up on me. that left us with nothing apart from my wife's shagged-out old laptop, which itself is more or less on its last legs and will only support a web browser so primitive that it won't let me use blogger at all. so, if you've been wondering why i went all silent again... that's why. hopefully the desktop will soon be fixed and i can get typing again. the desire is there. meanwhile, here i am in a public library just for a few mins, no time even to pass on my latest musings on the lewis book... not yet. (i can still check email, so feel free to leave comments!)

critical massage 4

anyone who has checked in here recently will probably know that i was hoping to get writing again... and you can see how well that worked out... generally i have little or no free time during the days, and by the evenings i am often unable to summon up the desire to write (or do anything much requiring brainpower). not quite sure when that problem might resolve itself... but one thing i have been doing - and not before time - is reading george lewis' excellent book on the aacm, a power stronger than itself. not surprisingly, any number of fascinating points are raised in this book (i'm about halfway through it at the moment). there's a couple of things i want to single out here.

the first one concerns the whole question of negative attitudes towards free (-spirited) music displayed by the critical fraternity over the years, and specifically in the late '50s and early-mid '60s (by the end of that decade, things apparently had evened out somewhat - though this was something of a false dawn, in that the '70s saw creative musicians pushed ever further into the margins, and to the verge of penury). of course, i knew about leonard feather's blindfold tests - though lewis' book makes it abundantly clear to what extent feather used these to push his own personal prejudices regarding "legitimate" musical approaches - and i knew about john tynan's notorious "anti-jazz" attack on coltrane and dolphy in 1961; but chapter 2 of a power... really goes into all this in disgraceful detail: that is, the (uniformly white, middle-class) critics under scrutiny here emerge in disgrace. their sheer arrogance is breathtaking. clearly, they felt that they understood "jazz" better than the musicians who played it, who created it; more than that, even, they seem to have felt that by setting themselves up as arbiters elegantiae for the music, they owned it in some way, and were therefore entitled to express outrage whenever they felt that some newcomer had "broken the rules". it makes grim reading, particularly so as it's hard to doubt that there was an undeclared racial prejudice at work: lewis tells us (ch. 4, p. 87) that as late as 1966, down beat was giving far more attention to the (white) joe daley trio than to any local black musicians, even going so far as to label them "the city's foremost 'new thing' group" (the new thing itself having been, of course, widely lambasted by these same critics when it was originally introduced... by black musicians). the fact that such blatant cultural favouritism was being indulged (at a time when the south side of chicago was seething with activity) is made still worse by the fact that down beat was itself based in chicago - !

[at least i am far from being the first to comment on this stuff - lewis wasn't either: he points out (ch. 2 again) that ekkehard jost has been scathing of (what we might politely call) the highly conservative views of many american critics during this period; and in fact down beat's own wilful ignorance of what was happening in its own backyard in 1966 had not gone unnoticed even then - the canadian magazine coda had commented on precisely that.]

the actual extent of any racially-motivated elitism in all this is impossible to gauge, as the issue is of course highly complicated. as lewis makes clear, the whole point about the blindfold tests around this time was that feather was able to use them to voice his own reactionary views, without sticking his own head above the parapet: indeed, in getting black musicians to say what he thought, he also pre-empted any possible accusations of racism. and there were black musicians who disapproved of many of the new approaches, as we know, and perhaps the most strident of them - miles davis - was (therefore) called upon more often than most to put the new thing in its place. never afraid to speak his mind (especially if it might offend someone), miles was also known to detest most critics, and to be (shall we say) rather ambivalent towards whites at the best of times; from feather's point of view, who better to have on your side in this sort of argument? almost certainly, lester bowie had davis in mind when he wrote that, from the perspective of the power-brokers, "musicians... must be made to discourage rather than encourage their fellow musicians' needs, desires and right to play. this is accomplished by several means; by far, the most effective means is to take the few (very few) negative cats and make them big STARS." *1 - it would be interesting to know who else besides davis was being alluded to here; lewis himself discreetly avoids speculating on this, but in referring to bowie's screed as "uncommonly prescient", he cleverly points us towards another notorious motormouth, wynton marsalis, who has (as we all know) done more than anyone to attempt to erase the free players from musical history. *2

* * *

just briefly, then, the second point i wanted to mention concerns the rivalry which is supposed to have existed between anthony braxton and roscoe mitchell. in chapter seven - which i am still reading - this is addressed when it comes to examining the events which took chicago's avant-garde to paris. leroy jenkins (who cannot now be asked about it) had it that "the art ensemble was very competitive, always have been" and that b. "was very competitive too, especially with roscoe". on the other hand, lewis tells us in a footnote that b. has it differently: "the so-called rivalry between me and roscoe mitchell is non-existent". this chapter makes very interesting reading, but i'm not going into any of this now... the issue of rivalry, or the lack of it, between the two saxophone masters is one which i will look at when i eventually get to mitchell's duets with anthony braxton in the braxtothon... don't hold your breath, bearing in mind i still haven't actually wrapped up phase four yet, but this landmark recording will kick off phase five.

* see comments.

autumnal meanderings

well... that certainly was a much longer break than i intended to take. an internet problem during the last week of july made a liar of me (see last para of previous post); with that self-imposed "deadline" missed, the urgency to finish what i was working on at the time passed... and vanished. as the weeks went on and august drifted into september, it got harder and harder to bring my attention back here at all.

is anyone still out there? i know i've alienated a lot of people... part of that is doubtless just my manner, at times perhaps overly aggressive and bloody-minded; and then again, part of it is that what i have had to say is very unpopular in certain quarters. my insistence on telling (what i perceive to be) the truth will never be very welcome in a world where the majority of educated people would rather swap comfortable, shallow falsehoods just to make sure that everyone remains on friendly terms and no-one gets upset. (i've never been any good at this game... and in all honesty i wouldn't want to be.)

there's also the difficult dilemma of the braxtothon itself: it's very time-consuming and requires a degree of tunnel vision; that sort of time and attention is hard to come by these days, for me... and it seems hardly worth it, when most potential readers are not prepared to endure anything like that much detail. still... whatever reasons i had for starting that project, i found different ones for keeping it up: i do it for myself, for posterity, and for the composer... as well as for the benefit of the tiny minority of people who actually want to study b's music closely (rather than just name-dropping him for easy intellectual cred).

those reasons all still apply, and i shall try to get going again after that long hiatus. to get me warmed up, before i even attempt to tackle the outstanding braxtothon entries i will (as stated previously!) be posting some vignettes, thoughts on various random recordings in rather less detail than the core entries. WARNING: one of these articles will also deal with a particularly prickly subject, that of sound quality vs musical content; i am well aware that this is one of the issues which got me (somewhat) ostracised in the first place, and if certain people see the piece in question they will presumably infer a personal attack... for what it's worth, i will say in advance that this is not my reason for examining this vexed question once again. no, but it's important, or so i feel: just in case there are still minds out there which are not already made up, it seems worthwhile to reassure them that the way of the audiophile is not the only way, and certainly not the one true faith that its adherents would have you believe.

-- summer break --

ok, i will now admit - to myself, that is - that i currently just do not have the time or headspace for this stuff, especially not the braxtothon as such, deep and detailed as it invariably is these days...

... i recently posed the theoretical question as to how a diligent martial artist can also be such a terrible procrastinator, etc... well, that's easy enough to answer: for a long time i was not a martial artist any more, gave up training some years ago and only occasionally went back to it, never for very long. that all changed at the end of may this year, when i found myself picking up where i'd left off, and adding all that i've learned in oriental medicine/qigong over the last few years to what i already knew about taiji forms, etc... suffice it to say that i'm back into it again, which is a good thing, all for the better; the downside is that while i'm still trying to bring myself back up to standard, making up for lost time etc, i don't seem to have a lot of time left for much else, especially when you consider that i spend half my daytime hours being a parent anyway..!

hence i may as well just take the pressure off myself by officially calling this a break, and asking the reader to wait patiently for the hiatus to be over and for "normal" service to resume ;-)

[ - there are a few non-braxtothon posts i had lined up, which will appear sporadically, starting later this month... among these, something or other concerning the quartet john zorn put together for warsaw, earlier this same month... i believe i am right in saying that this is the first time zorn and b. had ever played together; it may well also be the first time b. has played with laswell..? anyway, i have enjoyed the music (which is the first '09 vintage recording to have found its way into my collection) and will try and say something about it, soonish..!]