next-level studies, inst. 1: duo update

[y'see, the order with which all this gets revealed and clarified even for me is of crucial importance in this sort of work, never mind the decisions and strategies concerning the order in which the information is then encoded and disseminated(ish) to you guys, the listening readership-at-large (*1);

- next comes another mini-burst of several linked posts, on a contextual-conceptual development-based theme:]

ONE of these days, i will i will, i will actually put up the much-delayed-and-further-delayed student studies 3 post (of course, it might ease the process if i wrote it first...). meanwhile, we are stuck back at the level of scholarship as notified here, two short-long years ago plus weeks-and-counting, so that the most important conclusion from the readings i had done throughout the published braxton materials at this time - namely the centrality of the duet, as opposed to the solo concert - never yet got published. two years, some weeks and counting. [it's not really such a big deal, is it... let's all remember, the reason we can justifiably use a term like avant-garde is cos the rest of the world still aint catchin up any time soon. i say let's all remember, i never got round to that post either (i.e. the state of the term avant-garde *2 and whether there is yet any utility in deploying it)]

so anyway, without further ado and all that, here it (belatedly) is:

1. when "they said" ("they" being the scottish critic in this case) that braxton's continuing creativity and longevity is fuelled by his frequent returns to the good old american songbook, they were way off target. ok, this bit isn't actually anything to do with the update is it. that's true, but:

2. when i said (passim up till that point, though mainly on and around the old radio 3 jazz messagebored) that what actually fuelled said continuing creativity and longevity was b's frequent solo recitals, i was wrong also. haha, actually - as i found out when i read some of the interview materials appended to the books of composition notes - those solo concerts were really just a pragmatic way of getting around the euro tour circuit on the (ultra-)cheap, i.e. travelling and playing alone, and knowing that if and when even a friendly promoter was weighing up whether to book a "free" act they would immediately be thinking in terms of the number of people onstage as separate hungry open mouths, the obvious conclusion was to sell himself as act which could always be booked solo. this, in turn, quickly became reputed as an act well worth seeing, so that no-one ever really had to worry too much about whether anyone would turn up for it and sit through it; and besides, it was hardly unique by that point anyway. (the aacm, they really knew what they were about. let's all be clear on that for a sec)

3. - no, what actually actually fuelled said continuing creativity and longevity was:

THE DUET EXPERIENCE.

{{ta-dah}}

heh

en bref, then: the reading material updated me about the fact that playing solo gigs frequently wasn't (ultimately) anything much to do with spiritual advancement or refreshment or anything else (albeit these were beneficial side-effects), it was driven primarily by economics, and backed up by considerable nerve and courage (albeit both born of grizzled and road-tested experience); it was only later (or was it? *3) that i concluded that actually the duets were where it is at in terms of the major long-distance deep-reserve fuel source. again, to sum up: exploring an open space with one other mind and voice is a unique opportunity which is entirely different from the trio, where all sorts of further dimensions are opened in terms of sub-relationships and extrapolations, either in different directions or with different weighting or balancing; and if the trio represents a different paradigm then how much more is that true of the quartet, and onwards and upwards... no, the duet encounter offers possibilities which can only come and go within larger ensembles. two minds together - where minds now encompasses hearts, guts, voices and every other damn thing - the upward spiral, the virtuous circle, that begins here. ground zero.

and that concludes inst. 1

stay tuned ;-)

c x


* see comments

(meanwhile) a vanity mirror

the ridiculous thing is, for once i actually did what i said i was gonna do, the very next day - laboriously copied back over the lion's share of my "braxtonphiles" to the re-virginised laptop, - and indexed them all properly this time dammit (grrrrr... chsuis une asperge) - then settled down at last and played april's tcf downloads, the two new(ish) ones... and was, indeed, utterly enchanted and charmed and delighted by the whole experience. so much so, that i did indeed start writing about it at once... then never quite had time to finish it, ... and so didn't. (yet) *

meanwhile - one thing i teased about back at the beginning of my hot streak was the possibility of a "best of braxton" list after all these years of refusing even to entertain the idea. i drafted one at the time, but bugger me if i could find it this evening so i'll just do another one. after all, it merely involves speed-reading the restructures recording index (which i have never found a chore!) and the whole point is not to fetishise the bloody thing beyond absolute basic "necessity". it's incomplete, it's imperfect and i hope i will spend the rest of my life adding to it, but:

for alto
complete braxton 1971 (first true quartets)
town hall 1972 (trio and quintet)
4 comps 1973 (jap.)   {{magnifying glass}}
new york fall 1974  (remember other reviews are available!)
five pieces 1975 *1
montreux/berlin (both early quartets, orch.) *2
creative orch. 1976
elements of surprise (w/lewis)
duets w/braxton (mitchell) ***
comp. 98
london-birmingham-coventry 1985 (great quartet)
victoriaville '88
2 comps järvenpää '88
eugene 89 *3
seven comps trio '89 (roidinger, oxley)
willisau 1991  (great quartet)
trio london 93 (parker, rutherford)
quartet santa cruz 93  (great quartet) *4
charlie parker project
duets with brett larner 95 *5
comp. 192 (w/lauren newton)
yoshi's ninetets 97 (all)
quintet london 2004 (thb, mary h.)
iridium box set 2006  (12+1tet)
..?

[non-album, super-boot special mention: trio pisa 1982 (bailey, lewis) ]

- like i say: it's incomplete, it's imperfect
-  the whole point is not to fetishise the bloody thing
- but it happens to include twenty-five albums, and for what it's worth, these listed above are the recorded albums which i believe capture our maestro at his highest level qua maker of albums. and yes, that's my quasi-professional, guerilla-musicologist's assessment (rather than a wholly subjective, emotionally-contaminated personal opinion).

... there's tons of other stuff which very probably belongs on there (solos and duos really cry out for their own lists; hell, we could do one just of duet recordings with bassists). some of it i haven't heard enough, or haven't heard recently; some stuff i still haven't heard at all, of course. the syntactical ghost trance choir very probably belongs in there, but technically (ahhhhh...fergodsake) i haven't heard it, only the boot. [gtm (syntax) 2003 is erroneously titled, among minor but irksome distractions i find in the album's production on this occasion, otherwise it would pretty much be a shoo-in. mrs testa, anne rhodes belongs in there somewhere for sure :) ]

that's me for the time being... more on the way though... and btw i'm right now downloading this month's aural treat :)))

cent x

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*** see third comment

i'm stalling

... no change there, then. in any case it's evident, from the bizarrely-lopsided post stats for 2013 so far...

... but i do appear to be stalling. que je vous explique. i recently (on top of all what else) had the estimable arse-painery of having to reformat a three-year-plus laptop - after first ensuring that all the files were backed up (yep, learned that one last time. oh yeah, this is the third and presumably final factory reset for this battered old mf'er) - and i stalled for well over a week before installing itunes on it, never mind importing some actual music... and with recent events being what they were and (sort of) still are, it's been heavy stuff all the way, little or no deep modern creative. mmm, back there again, am i - in one of those metal-only phases; well, it never lasts indefinitely.

- so after almost a week with tons of rock and metal, and the odd bit of mary h, thb sextet, mr threadgill or mr rivers, et al, i still haven't listened to any braxton yet. (told you i was stalling.) i have of course downloaded the latest TCF monthly instalment - two performances - but have not yet listened to that becaause, in part, i have not yet replaced by tera-mega-braxtonoid database on this "clean" hard drive and i don't want to have to move the files once they're in the music library. (anal, i know. quel choc). in another part,  it's simply cos i know (and had it confirmed on tuesday) what a time-consuming, pain-in-the-sodding-backside task it is to reconstruct this sort of thing (one album at a time, altering file details then and there or not at all, as i've also learned). all this is true, - but also, in (possibly) even larger part, cos i'm backing off again, indulging a die-hard part of me that wants to stagnate, sabotage, self-destruct if necessary rather than grow and improve. (this has spilled over into other areas of my life, to be frank.)

ok, so.... only one remedy for that! one more spin of the new kvelertak album, and... next stop, new(ish!) braxton.

***

the placement of this photo against this post is unsually multi-layered even for me. (that is, i see the various layers tonight, at first choosing - rather than only understanding them later, as is normal.) i'm not vain enough to think that anyone but me would give a shit about the exxplication of what i just asserted, so that's enough of that. it has hope in it, of course, and movement. nevertheless, it was taken while lost, again, on the road north to ingolstadt. (the second time.)

***

music to follow... what, really? well, maybe... the reduced-bitstream "airshot" of the european FRM performance - as mentioned back at the beginning of feb (just before... ah well.) - will go up at some point after all, since the FRM performance released by TCF this month was not the same one. no, indeed. so since no-one else seems to be doing it, i will try and get round to it

( ... )

 so... anyone wondering what happened, after that unusually promising start to the blogging year? or does everyone just assume that it's business as usual for me?!

what actually occurred: around the end of january, mrs c suffered a recurrence of a back injury (well... actually two - really three, four different injuries) and went off sick from work. at first we attempted to carry on otherwise as normal, until it became obvious that this was not gonna fly. she couldn't drive, and indeed couldn't really cope with me being out of the house all afternoon and evening, which in the end left me no choice but to go on the sick also. that, in theory, left me loads of time for - well, any number of things, but specifically for writing and listening. yes? no.

listening was out - that much was clear early on. normally i need time and space alone in the house for this, and ever since my working hours changed to permanent lates last autumn, i've had precious little of that, but since mrs c has been laid up - none whatsoever. her recovery space has been governed by her choice  of sounds, of energies. when i realised this, i briefly felt a sort of ultra-intense silent strangled sob, then quickly and unilaterally compacted to see the whole thing through with paregoric, in the form of the ol' mean 13 (as uzh, continued drug of choice), thus pacifying myself instantly in time-(dis)honoured fashion... and that was that for the next few weeks. sofa, kitchen, car. mrs c above all esle cannot (or couldn't, back then) sit and definitely could not (still can't) drive; hence i have been a daily chauffeur/assistant/co-carer etc etc... and ended up, in short order, pacified-to-mush, out-of-shape (no taiji at all whatsoever - then once in a blue moon, surprisingly good but never then sustained), and finally so in thrall t the household's newly-uncovered retrograde energetics that i ended up succumbing to my daughter's school-driven lergi (at the second time of asking, having already fought it off once) and took two weeks to even think about recovering.

every year or so - i need to do this - why? and why, still? well... that's under discussion elsewhere and i wouldn't want to pre-empt that; but i am finally back at work (ish) and lo and behold, the opportunities may not look exactly the same as when i abruptly went away, but they are nevertheless manifold and abundant and imminent, imminent.

good good... squeezed in some music last night, too - that particularly good dcw (core) trio from 2011, this month's current download with my new-this-year official tcf membership :)  ok, i may or may not be able to justif my recourse to jazzer-style licence: this performance is "particularly good", or is it just the first one to which i have paid proper attention in a while? and how was it for you? drop me a line and/or please comment, just please take the time and trouble to get your facts straight in your own mind before embarrassing us all by compelling me to do the straighening for you ;-)

ah... there was gonna be loads of course - still will be - i expect! but i can't say off the top of my head which ones will or won't limp off the planning board and onto the online page... but you know, please stay tuned nonetheless :-D

bye for now! cent x

falling river *music*

- as in, i finally got the chance to listen to it properly... actually as i type this sentence, the hour mark is coming up on the clock though this is a slow-hourglass night, and we still have nine minutes to go...

it is new music

- as in, when i said before that this was genuine cutting edge stuff, it was more by way of an article of faith than born from experiential conviction; now i can confirm (if there's been any doubt) that actual, authentic unexplored territories are being navigated here. falling river music is not, in itself, brand new; the name was put in circulation at around the same time that diamond curtain wall music was first mentioned, and all the while, the composer's head was still principally occupied with working out all the various components of the ghost trance music meta-system. but reports of live performances are - well, hang on, i was gonna say "rare" and i've just realised i don't recall ever hearing of more than one (see third para) until now. the only release that i am aware of, and certainly the only one i have heard, which contains any frm is ABCD (itself yet another example of that aristocratic sub-species, the reed-bass duets session - there will be more on this topic next month *1), recorded over two days in july 2003. and that was far from a whole album of it. so, you know, almost a decade ago and the concept itself simply had to take a back seat to every other dam' thing  which was goin' down ;-)  (*2)

heard properly, without environmental distractions, this grips loose-tightly (*3) from the off because, like at järvenpää (and unlike some other great meetings which required warm-up), the "sound-mesh" is in place right from the first attacks (*), and throughout its lengthy, variegated and subdivisible playing-time there is never any doubt that we are hearing one piece, one territory. there is a cohesion to it that quite simply seems to come down to the experience of hearing one fibrous, endlessly unwinding and infinitely curious tendril push and twist its way from left to right (and very possibly back again) through the strangest, most unimagined of landscapes. there is real tensility to this unbroken line and the piece is knitted together around it, and the result, astonishingly, is that which has not been heard before, even though a cross section taken at any time would very likely reveal the leader, thb and mary h at least seemingly play what they already know. yet the shape of that cross-section, again, irrespective of its component layers, is still unrecognised from previous long-range exploratory structures. what this shares in common with dcw or gtm is that it's never predictable and always resteless, continuously shape-shifting into something-other-than-itself; but it doesn't remind me of listening to, inhabiting those musical-energetic strategies at all. no, this really does feel different... and hey music fans, it's very listenable too for the most part! [ok... admitedly my tolerance levels for unusual sounds and structures in music are way higher than most people's. i really couldn't tell you how easy the recent ulrichsberg outing would be to penetrate for a neophyte.]

the name which is missing from the para above is that of ingrid laubrock. this german expat moved to london a few (action-packed!) years ago and quickly found herself immersed in the city's nice-middle-class jazz scene, that is to say the socially acceptable face of young british "upwardly mobile" jazz players as typified by the f-ire collective, julian siegel, &c et al... so, something she certainly didn't do much in that company was any high-end free improv - and the young saxophonist's compositions had never (yet) struck me as having outgrown that perpetually-callow scene by much (if at all *); hence, i was surprised when her name appeared on a list of coming events over at new tcf central a while back; this was not just any event either, coming under the auspices of "Energies, Ideas, Intuitions" - which itself was received terribly gratefully by me even though i couldn't go, since it was not long earlier that b. had told me that he had no bookings on the horizon at all (that was a dark day which received that news, let me tell you *4) - and two things immediately leapt to meet the eye, namely that falling river music was to be played, among many other (mainly new) things; and that the maestro had finally gone the whole way (ish) and formed an all-female ensemble; (ish) because he still took part in it / steered, guided it himself. but we know that our guy has long maintained it's crucial to introduce more women to the creative music scene, among other fields of activity, and in this i wholeheartedly agree with him (immediately and on purely spiritual grounds, without even pausing to consider any ethical/socio-political concerns). so, if occasionally there might appear (to the cynical eye) to be a faint touch of affirmative action in the maestro's choice of personnel for this or that project, the results do rather tend to bear him out. [anyone actually heard a bad braxton show? answers on a postcard...] part of this may be the "rahsaan effect" by which a great and inspired leader raises the level of his crew by example (and with good-enough parenting, so to speak), but some of it will have been brought to the date by (some/all of) the various participants.

so, anyway, there i was, ingrid laubrock soon to be playing braxton in an important series of happenings, and i talked before of how this was an eyebrow-raiser, and elsewhere herr spring day pointed out (as always, with exquisite courtesy) that ms/fraulein laubrock was pretty well-regarded these days and had been getting about a bit. well, good for her like i say, and it's interesting that she should have taken so well to the role, going out on the road with it, taking (bringing) the news (back) to europe. one thing's for sure, no-one enjoyed the bienniale gtm happening more than ingrid laubrock. [this is - honestly - coming soon btw!] and in this piece - getting back to the matter in hand, the ulrichsberg 2012 "barnstormer" - she could almost not be there, one thinks, for much of the first half; one hears the other three constantly, continually. from about halfway on, then, the tenor player asserts her presence in the soundscape more and more confidently, and this amps up the power a notch, inevitably. (this isn't really about power, though.) leading up to the 42-min mark and beyond, laubrock is just blowing air, barely even troubling the mouthpiece with it but completely owning the portion of the soundscape she inhabits, and (more to the point) supporting the contributions of her colleagues magnificently in the process, indeed completely transforming what might otherwise sound like "routine" (*5) utterances, from three thoroughly-travelled players, into something entirely fresh and unfamiliar. as i said above, this is above all a new musical experience... and laubrock's role on tenor may in fact have been similar all along to the one played so successfully by george lewis (in the '82 pisa trio with bailey, &c). the glue, the glue... the sticky sound-mesh which holds the rest together, binds it and gives it continuous form amidst literally constant flux. the lady takes right and proper ownership of this role, as i say, and in doing so may even be the crucial secret ingredient which allows the mix to work its new, new magic/k. highly recommended, to say the least. spread the word :))

[this bit will be replace in due course by a d/l link. at some point, though, i would expect this to turn up as a monthly nbh release so the link won't be kept alive forever anyway. meantime, watch this space... and until then, for about the next three weeks you can still "here" the group's encore c/o the jazz on 3 team. kudos to them for getting this stuff out there, even though as usual jez nelson tried his best to ruin it for me - never even came close;-)  ]

***

thanks to the artist formerly known as king kennytone for providing me with the opportunity to do what i couldn't on the night of the broadcast - listen to the music properly! and he also nudged me belatedly about this, which has been up for over a year: braxton all-stars at the contemporary, chicago,1978

- check it out! the sound is laughably compromised when you first hear it, yet bringing your attention openly to it is instantly rewarded, and anyone with a listener's heart and ears will enjoy the shit outta this, which in truth is not really exploration as such, just "let's blow some serious free jazz and take it in turns to burn the place down with our red-hot solos" - even though the pieces "are" all braxton originals; but, y'know, even serious-as-your-life aacm-ers deserve some time away from the coalface once in a while... - i've listened to the whole thing, both sets (in one sitting no less) and can confirm that the players' relaxation will = your educated enjoyment :)))

more on the way...


(*) see second comment

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this will be replaced by an opus number just as soon as i find where i put it..! 
(i'm sure i've seen it somewhere)

(backwards) listening diary (inst.3 pt. 2)

saturday 19th jan - evening session

playlist 1, trs 3-8 (end)

- go on, just take a look back at that list and tell me "what's not to like"... there's not much coming up in the way of news, though a few things are worth mentioning for sure:

a. comp. 159 is seriously complex and (therefore) really satisfying if one wrestles with it, as i have done quite a bit now. it seems (here) to hinge on the playful, yet near-maddeningly obsessive echo and pre-echo between the repetitive birdcalls of the sax and the piano, pinging the message back at each other over and over again while the two "rhythm" players don't so much provide a foundation here, as do their level best to demolish the environs completely, or so it seems. but in a good way! (as i so often find myself saying these days.) - this piece can or could drive one insane, the way that obsessive line is tossed back and forth between the leader and the lady, the boiling maelstrom that underwrites it, the sheer length of it: not much change out of thirteen minutes each time you play it, but an attentive listener feels rewarded for the struggle, you bet. (i had this one first off the album for some reason (*1) and played it several times on breaks at work, either when playing pool (nope, that didn't work too well) or just hanging out... it's not an easy ride. but when was it supposed to be easy? this is the ambitious side of the quartet, or an aspect of it.

- "little melonae" has been mentioned before, briefly (and i can't remember when i'm afraid). for those not familiar with this piece, it's a jackie mclean number much admired by fellow explorers of the reed family; the jazz doctors even opened an album with it (love frank lowe. love, love frank lowe) - where the deceptively tricky, childlike melody (or shd that be "melodae"?) works perfectly for the violin as well as the sax; b. of course plays it on sopranino, fast and hard, running his fingers down those jagged contours faultlessly, setting himself up a cooking solo and leaving plenty of momentum for kevin o'neil to work with (*2). this number is pushing quarter of an hour in length, but i've played it eight or nine times recently and it never palls. i normally struggle with b's standards, let's be open and clear about this (it hasn't come up much recently). 'nuff said.

- and hey, comp. 173 is just fucking mental, man, i'm telling you... i'm not even talking about the barking-mad, brilliant dialogue written into the libretto or even the voice-totemic phonemic modulation which provides so much extra energy in the middle of the long full performance (*3); no, i just mean the relentless pace of the music, almost overwhelming in the opening piece (where attack is piled on attack for long minute on minute until the heaps and piles threaten to blot out the horizon); and much the same in the closing sequence i selected here, the only difference being it's half the length and therefore that much less overwhelming... and it's still crazy. even by our guy's standards... truly a very, very demanding and deeply rewarding musical conception, here encapsulated in one seriously action-packed coda.

[... aha, and timing being the serendipitous thing that is (for me, at the moment), next up from the TCF vaults in february is another one of those kick-ass sax quintets, playing this time... comp. 173. blessed be :))  ]

sunday 20th jan

1. ivo perelman and jay rosen, the hammer, trs. 1-3
- apart from having one of the most unappealing, most targeted-bargain-bin-seeking covers i have ever seen on a music album, this one is pretty good - at least that's how i remembered it from a couple of years back. i do like jay rosen, who is not particularly well known (except to collectors of the CIMP label - he is practically the house drummer there, or was at least a few years ago) and is not to be confused with longtime (now) braxton adept jay rozen, tubist and euphonium player of distinction; rosen-drummer is one of relatively few hard-bitten modern sticksmen from over "this" side who can make me think for half a second that i'm listening to a drummer from "that" side, i.e. extreme metal, so i always think fondly of him. (chris corsano is another one. not too many other names on that list though.) i haven't played this in a while, though - atanase had recommended it to me back in the day, i even held off ripping his copy so i could pick it up next time leo's had a sale..! and i did enjoy it, i did think it worked better than the trio with dominic duval (speaking of CIMP's house pool!), and when i put it on the other day, i really didn't remember it very well. starting almost from scratch, then.

considering its title, the hammer is not by any means flat-out assault and battery, and some of the music may even veer too far (for my liking) the other way, but the first three cuts sound pretty good today and they bring to mind one thing in particular, with stark clarity: the fundamental difference between jazz and free jazz, which is for me this very ability to speak in tongues or otherwise open up dimensional shifts; perelman demonstrates this quality excellently, condensing into his modulated reed sound a whole stratification of layered intelligence, communicating very very precisely yet with great epistemic urgency and forcefulness of spirit. by the end of three tracks i feel as i'm close to speaking the highly educated language in which he is addressing me (*4) ; oops, then the beginning of the fourth cut strays over the line towards (what felt suspiciously like) latin sentimentality, and i bailed, this most definitely not being what the doctor ordered. no, instead i fled towards known safe refuge:

2. victoriaville 1992, trs 1-2

- first two tracks, he says blithely, as if this entailed no more than ten minutes if music (which in the case of this group would be a very long ten minutes anyway); nope, this was more than half an hour of proper, intensive, collaged braxmusick and with me in receptive state, this had quite a bewitching effect on me at times. (in and out of the room, but frequently pulled back in by the music...)

- besides, this is my new best friend comp. 159 kicking things off, which is just home from home right now considering where this post began; this time it's another year later, sixteen months later actually, and the music is being folded back in on itself at a faster rate still, then. crispell, as so often, has recourse to comp. 30 and - well, actually you have me at a slight disadvantage there, because for all its ubiquity in the post-collage phase of opening-up-the-book, i would struggle to identify comp. 147 straight away i think. ok, so it was played at ulrichsberg, the soothing come-down after the franctic, unnerving comp. 169 on that occasion; but back here in canada i wasn't paying close enough attention today to try and unpick exactly who is playing what and when; i did feel immeasurably more "upheld" for spending so much time in the band's company, today. the second piece is not particularly recognised by me at all (comp. 148? restructures only lists it this once) but it still feels great to live inside. i was (semi-)deliberately avoiding any detailed analysis today though; indeed, after saturday's longer-than-expected afternoon session, i am under orders to sort the kitchen out today and have the music cranked in the next room... this works just fine, the music frequently engaging me, like i say, as it churns and progresses... until a bass-solo-including-silence takes over, which i then discover is the beginning of the next cut anyway; good time to switch as now, of course, i can't hear what's going on at all, have totally lost the thread and feel of the music.

3. splatter trio and debris (with guests), jump or die, etc, trs 1-2, 4-5 only

- jeez-damn, this is rather good isn't it. have i ever mentioned that?! it's just heart-warmingly, eye-poppingly magnificent to hear how these guys pushed and pushed themselves to co-create some really vibrantly alive,  utterly serious interpretations of the maestro's works, and not necessarily the well-known (ahem) ones either. ok, so i miss out comp. 23d (+108a) today; this is only 'cos time is at a premium, and i heard it the day before already. that leaves a bunch more obscure-ish stuff, for the most part, and don't it just sound fucking great. luckily the back of the kitchen chore has been broken by now, since not much gets done from here on in, too busy marvelling at the richly diverse and totally fresh, unexpected sounds which keep issuing forth from those speakers. boys: over twenty-one years into the past, i declare, well done to you all!! extraordinary stuff - and did any of you actually think "i can die happy now"? ;-)

for all that enthusiasm, i (again) retain very little from this four pieces, beyond (rather appropriately) visual impressions of outlandish landscapes (comps. 48 & 142); the collage of comps. 50 + 53 seems (alas) to have wiped its own feet with great care on leaving my ears because it's gone, gone... and the first cut - the unwieldy-looking but wonderfully-executed monster that is comp. 40e (+40d)/comp. 40p (+69q)/comp. 40(o) (which is how i would list it myself, i think) is familiar to me already, having been devoured on numerous occasions. here it's an indulgence which costs me possibly two pieces at the end, but once again - when the girls do arrive back, four-year old daughter expresses pleasure and interest in the music, and is well chuffed to guess correctly when i ask her whose music is being played :)

phew ... breather for at least a few days i think - ! no, i haven't even touched on the meta-diary materials (i.e. the music i have been playing while i typed all the posts up over the last few days... music which includes playlist 2 and more willisau, as well as more zooid (boom!) and - haha, no, i'm outta here, eleven posts in one month indeed, i ask you...) and i'm not going to. suffice it to say: ears are ringing, ears are ring-ing (*5) with wondrous sound. me, for time being, gone {{{@@@}}}


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*viewpoint update alert*

right, yeah: like i said recently, i've been listening to the "meta-talisman" which is willisau 91. a lot, ish. actually more managing files on a computer and less listening as such, but... there's been plenty of that too, since a little goes a long way in a sympathetic set of ears, so... the album is either changing me, or bearing witness to change which was happening anyway. (if you know what i'm saying.) i'm now totally clear in my mind that this group, the (truly) great quartet, is my all-time favourite band in this field (whatever that is...). and that, in turn - i've decided this morning - is entirely natural and all "as it shd be", since in my previous misbegotten role as failed-perpetual-apprentice hard bop aficionado i would have said, to anyone foolish enough to ask me the question to begin with, that my fave jazz unit was miles' second great quintet (especially the four all-acoustic studio albums and the plugged nickel sets, etc). one (now-famous; i shan't name-drop him!) former college friend expressed astonishment at that and said "i'd have expected you to be into, y'know, late coltrane or something" - to which i replied, "well, yes - i like that too" but was privately concerned about my friend's lack of (deeper) knowledge, assuming when i mentioned miles davis that i was talking about "kind of blue/sketches of spain dahling" and not understanding how much freedom the second great quintet enjoyed - "time no changes" is one of those weak soundbites i steer clear of, as you know {koff} but here it sort of really was that simple, the leader fully trusting his young geniuses to co-create the most interesting, fertile ground possible for the soloists to explore, navigate and/or clash against;

- and the eventual true heritage from that shows up with this unbelievable anthony braxton quartet, the true great one, the apex of that continuum, c.1985-94 (*1).

now, willisau represents (pretty much, give or take) the triumphant return for a band "on hold" since late 1985; and this is where we get to the "opinion upgrade" because one of the group's apparent aims, this time round, is to represent precisely some sort of apical level with regard to the continuum of "american (free) jazz as such", to show how it's done when all group-members are not just reading from the same sheet, but communicating at the same speed, crucially. hence, in the two studio, each  disc ends with a "braxton jazz staple", b. quietly acknowledging the fact that in a sane and civilised parallel universe comps. 40b & 40m are staple fixtures in modern jazz "songbook" rep. and, well, this is exactly the sort of thing i'd been saying this band, this exultant set of exalted players, really needn't be getting involved with in 2012; in 1991 at least, and '93 as well i think (*2), this was deemed to be a valid way to use the group's resources - so some element of nostalgia might be thought to be acceptable ("friendship closes its eyes" and all that) last year. (and beyond? mmm, think not all the same). and boy, when the music reaches peaks of (complex/evolved/superintelligent) intensity like these numbers did in willisau, this more than justifies the decision to let the band loose on a straightforward (and non-collaged) reading of an old third songbook piece or two, picking natural closers in both cases, and benefiting obviously from the presence of the piano. this in place, and dimensional shifts are accessible to this interplanetary unit which could not really have been more-than-glimpsed by the '74 group, for example. comp. 40m willisau-style is a very slow-building cooker but when it reaches full intensity, it's a blast furnace. or something hotter... a fission or fusion reaction. when lock talked of incredible energy being channelled through/by the tiny and naturally (perhaps) rather diffident ms crispell - when she plays of course, it not being otherwise visible in her at all - this is some of what he had in mind, six years (or five and a half more like) down the line. cooks aint even in it.

- and apparently also i suck, duuude, cuz on the same album, studio half again, there is a track listed as comp. 23c +32 +105b (+30), where there is quite definitely no appearance of 23c until several minutes have elapsed. so, in other words, it's not up to me which way the composites are titled, it's up to the musicians ;-)  sure enough, late in the mix on this one there does eventually come a fully collaged, smeared-all-over-the-musical-landscape 23c, after it's been played straight. (yeah, so please note: none of this automatically justifies playing it straight and not collaging it on the trio date. ah, shut the fuck up man, enough on this already!) - the real point here is that no, not every piece undertaken by this group had to be linked to the same one identical agenda; it's perfectly fine and fitting for these guys to take on very new and unexplored territories, and also to show at other times that they can treat much-played, supposedly-done-with pieces like the 40 series with the utmost seriousness as repertoire, and so tear the material completely apart and inside-out, refashioning it until it finally fulfills and expresses its own ambitions rather than just establishing its potential. this, in fact, must have been one essential part of what the composer-leader wanted to use the band for at this stage.

does it mean that it's still valid and not just nostalgia-driven, to do in 2012 these pieces, or to take this same approach and not reach those same previous levels, never mind advance the music in any way? (well yes, there was one exception to that as we know... i have to ration myself on that version of comp. 69b from last year so i don't end up risking an aneurysm or something!) i'm really not sure still. it does seem a little perverse... at best. safe at worst, and we're back to dear old nostalgia again. ahhhh, but even that is not what it used to be, alas... and i am rapidly running out of the desire to keep talking about the same album, over and over again (*3). luckily... i don't have to for a bit ;-)

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- salut f. - & hello to my old mucker, the artist formerly known as king kennytone - thanks! will be in touch soonest  :-D


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