Getting the word out, part 9.3

The Braxton Iridium box comes in at #38 in The Wire's best-of-2007 poll -- though if you eliminate non-improv titles, it'd be something like #3.

There is, however, another Braxton closer to the top of that list: Tyondai, via the (awesome) group Battles.

Getting the word out, part 9

The best-of lists have started to roll out, and these jazz journalists have chosen the Braxton Iridium 2006 box as one of the best new releases of the year:

• Stuart Broomer
• Rahsaan Clark Morris
• John Szwed

UPDATE: One more, via the Village Voice's 2007 Jazz Poll:

• Ted Panken

Getting the word out, part 8

Among Time Out Chicago's holiday box set picks:

9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006 (Firehouse 12)

Appease the snob in the family (Uncle Steve, come out from under your vinyl) with this loaded new work from avant-garde hero Anthony Braxton. Recorded live over four nights at Manhattan’s Iridium Jazz Club with Braxton’s sprawling 12(+1)tet, the nine-CD, one-DVD box presents a jaw-dropping display of discipline and wild imagination. Never mind that the Chicago expat and AACM pioneer commands a group bigger—and more coordinated—than this year’s Bears. It’s that the players, like Chicago’s own Nicole Mitchell (on flute), attack everything from serialism to minimalism to Albert Ayler–style preaching with the same feverish level of intensity. —Matthew Lurie

Barking Dogs & Deaf Lizards (for K.S.)

When a certain piece of music penetrates a person, a resonance is set in motion and an inner voice says: "I like this resonance. It elevates me. It develops hitherto unknown possibilities in me. I don't recognize myself. This is very interesting."

This place is terribly underdeveloped. It's a place of barking dogs and deaf lizards.

-- Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007)

Damn You, Jeff Lorber!!

Even though the Braxton Iridium box failed to receive a Grammy nomination (no doubt due to the lack of a Best Ghost Trance Music Album category), the music-lover in your life would surely be thrilled to receive this 9-CD + DVD set as a gift this holiday season!

Pickle Promo - UPDATE

UPDATE #2: The benefit has been cancelled.

UPDATE #1: see this Chicago Journal article

DILL PICKLE FOOD CO-OP BENEFIT CONCERT & MEMBERSHIP DRIVE

Stargazing

Be THANKFUL, Chicagoans!

Turning Back the Clock

a sad anniversary:


"This one goes out to everybody who's still suffering in any way..."

World's Coolest Music Stand

Nowhere to walk, either

guess you just gotta stand there and dig the minimalist decor:

Martha Reeves & the Vandellas, 1965

I was gonna just give away my empty moving boxes, but now I'll have to reconsider...

Getting the word out, part 7.5

File this under "Lost in Translation", from Taylor:

Always some great lines from the internet translating devices, I like reading reviews about Taylor I have Bynum and Jessica Peacock, but I think this is my favorite line [translating Francesco Martinelli's review from the original Italian]:

The video, turned from Jason Guthartz, creator of situated restructures.net, has a quality housewife, but the information is and the assembly ago to arrive to the spectator.

I always thought Jason's documentary had a quality housewife!

On the contrary - my video is a promiscuous tramp!

Indeed, it can be yours for a very reasonable price (the holidays are coming, people).

Getting the word out, part 7

Francesco Martinelli in the September issue of Point of Departure:

The most recent example of Braxton's strategy is the stunning – in sheer size and quality – 9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006 (Firehouse 12; reviewed in PoD Issue 11). Braxton has described this 9 CD + 1 DVD box set as the defining point in his career so far. Featuring recordings of Compositions Nos. 350 through 358, among the last in the Ghost Trance Musics series introduced over a decade ago, this is a landmark publication for several reasons. It documents an extended engagement on a New York Jazz Club stage, a rarity in itself; it features a 13-piece ensemble that can better represent the current state of strategies like the use of sectional leaders and constantly reconfiguring breakout groups to implement the mix of a composition’s primary pulse materials and the performance-specific array of secondary materials. A key element of the collection is the DVD, which includes a lecture by Braxton at Columbia University interspersed with video footage of the performances at Iridium. The lecture provides an instantaneous point of entry, as Braxton explains with great clarity and conviction the basic tenets of his music, and the snippets help identify the different characteristics of the compositions, vibrantly illustrating the composer's points in the talk. The lecture video's quality is home-made, but the important information is there and it comes through.

...Braxton creates his own system of references, his fascinating theory shifting the orchestral paradigms from idiomatic to melodies freely developed in time. But, what is amazing here is the power of the music, so rarely attained these days. No cautions or back-thinking, these musicians go for it, exploring the structures devised by the leader by finding their own ways to trace the landscape. Any open-eared listener cannot miss the inspiring variety of textures, rhythms and forms attained by the Braxtonized musicians.

Six-Stringin' & Bottom-Feedin'

Bootsy, Phelps and the Complete Strangers
"Fun In Your Thang pt. 1"
(1972, 7", Philmore Sound R-30135/6)
more info

Where are you now, Catfish Collins?

Oh. Here you are:

Being Hip, Bopping Hop (for M.R.)

1924-2007:

58 Shots (for M.A.)

1912-2007:

(note: the title is "L'Eclisse", not "l'eclipse")

"We know that under the image revealed there is another which is truer to reality and under this image still another and yet again still another under this last one, right down to the true image of that reality, absolute, mysterious, which no one will ever see or perhaps right down to the decomposition of any image, of any reality."

"You know what I would like to do: make a film with actors standing in empty space so that the spectator would have to imagine the background of the characters. Till now I have never shot a scene without taking account of what stands behind the actors because the relationship between people and their surroundings is of prime importance. I mean simply to say that I want my characters to suggest the background in themselves, even when it is not visible. I want them to be so powerfully realized that we cannot imagine them apart from their physical and social context even when we see them in empty space."

"I think people talk too much; that's the truth of the matter. I do. I don't believe in words. People use too many words and usually wrongly. I am sure that in the distant future people will talk much less and in a more essential way. If people talk a lot less, they will be happier. Don't ask me why."

Yah Mo Bongo

A great reference in this instant Onion classic:

But the truth is, I'm fine with the fact that 52 years of professional jazz experience boils down to a few secretaries typing a little faster when my song comes on the radio. Really. The one thing I can't get over is when people at my shows yell out requests for "Yah Mo Be There." [sic] That's Michael McDonald, for Christ's sake, and I happen to know even he hates that song. It's eating him alive to have to crank that one out night after night. But c'est la vie.

C'mon, everyone clap along:


Wiki says this tune-of-my-youth was referenced in the film The 40-Year-Old Virgin (which I've not seen - yet):

The main characters work in an electronics store in which a Michael McDonald concert DVD has constantly been playing on the TVs for two years. A salesman, David (played by Paul Rudd), has developed an intense hatred for the DVD and tells the manager "I would rather listen to Fran Drescher for eight hours than have to listen to Michael McDonald. Nothing against him, but if I hear 'Yah Mo B There' one more time, I'm going to 'yah mo burn' this place to the ground!"

Some other folks hatin' on the Yah Mo:

The problem wih the song, and I'll say it right out, is James Ingram. ... I don't think I'm the only one who's annoyed by the whole "Hoooo-HWOOOOO!!!" at the beginning and end of the song, or the "Bup-Bee-Wo!" after every Yah Mo B There. It's just plan annoying, and I don't like it one iota. James Ingram is like the kid at school who does annoying things and gets in trouble or gets beat up because getting some attention by his teacher and the bully at school is better than being ignored by his parents and the dog at home.

But the tune has its fans (dig the keyboardist's moves at the 3:00 mark):


And if you're looking for the definitive bongo karaoke version, look no further:

I {heart} the YouTubes.

Getting the word out, part 6

Some excerpts from a review of the Braxton box by Henry Kuntz :

As he had done previously with his quartet, Braxton actively moved to include (as possibility) within the Ghost Trance Music all of the music that he had ever composed! But the implications of such a move with the GTM were more far reaching than with the quartet, for the effect was to now place all of his music within ritual time rather than within linear time; and whereas with the quartet, the different compositions that were played together almost always ran alongside each other, now pieces of pieces began to move continuously in and out of the music, restructuring the trance form along the way.
Concurrent with this, Braxton began to break down the Ghost Trance Music hierarchically; subgroups of three and sub-leaders were designated within the larger group who could make decisions about when and where and which parts of which pieces were to be included within the main compositional form. ... As much or more than any transformation of GTM species lines, this change marked the actual beginning of the new reality of where Braxton’s music now stands. With good reason, Braxton refers to the Ghost Trance Music on the Iridium box set as “THE point of definition in my work so far.”
What do the nine Iridium pieces sound like? They are nothing less than new orchestral archetypes. *** The orchestral range of the 12+1-tet is underlined by its broad instrumentation; it is the most varied of any group to have played the Ghost Trance Music. The music itself, as players navigate in and out of the main compositional line, takes shape through motivic and textural addition and subtraction. That sounds simple, but the players must make the choices of what to add or what to subtract in order to create engaging music. That they succeed in doing so throughout nine pieces of music over four evenings is a tribute to their musicianship and resourcefulness.
***
Note: The DVD included in the Iridium box features Jason Guthartz’s hour-long film of Mr. Braxton at Columbia University outlining the theoretical basis of the GTM. A performance film of “Composition 358,” the last of the nine Iridium pieces, is also included and is essential viewing. The players musical decision-making processes are illuminated, and we see how much fun they are having bringing the Ghost Trance Music to life.

Getting the word out, part 5

The raves keep comin': The Summer 2007 issue of Signal to Noise features a page-long review of the Braxton box by Michael Rosenstein; an excerpt:

Does the world need another Anthony Braxton multi-disk set?
***
Working through nine sets of music in a box set like this elicits a different type of listening. One can hear how the ensemble comes together around Braxton's strategies. In the accompanying DVD, Braxton discusses how he has increasingly strived to create music that develops a group of players into a community. Seeing limitations with complete freedom, Braxton explains how he has built structures that provide a formal framework for group improvisation. ***
The inclusion of a video of the complete performance of the final set of the run on the accompanying DVD helps in understanding just how things work. *** The documentary on the DVD does provide valuable insight by blending excerpts from a talk Braxton gave at Columbia during the week with musical examples from the performances.
So, back to the question... is a box like this really necessary? This set documents the culmination of a phase of Braxton's music played by an A team of musicians. For anyone with more than a passing interest in Braxton's music, the answer is an overwhelming yes.

Getting the word out, part 4

The May 2007 issue of The Wire has Philip Clark's review of 9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006:

Anthony Braxton's concept of 'Ghost Trance Music' has governed the evolution of his music since the mid-90s. Described as "the point of definition in my work thus far", this Herculean nine CD set documents what he says will be the last installments of his Ghost Trance Music pieces. *** As Braxton explains in the accompanying DVD documentary, Ghost Trance Musics borrows its name from Native American Ghost Dance rituals of the late 19th century. The DVD concludes with an inspiring filmed [JG: videotaped] performance of Composition No 358, where the musicians grapple with left brain/right brain conflicts of simultaneously reading notation, randomly juxtaposing material and attempting to improvise. The music's trajectory from the 19th century to the present day seems to Braxtonise the entire history of jazz (Fletcher Henderson, Ellington, Mingus) and American music (Ives to Cage) within a single vision.
*** Compositional control and improvisational licence are kept in exhilerating mediation -- musicians need to listen vigilantly to keep the composition moving, judging the consequences of what they're about to do before they act.
It could be argued -- not without justification -- that this set-up inevitably leads to a similar feel of loosely defined 'busyness' throughout each piece. But the flipside is that Braxton achieves an ensemble music assembled from a collective of powerful individual voices. *** A major CD event for sure, and an impressive introductory venture for this new record company.

Getting the word out, part 3

An excerpt from Bill Shoemaker's review at Point of Departure:

Comprised of nine CDs, a DVD and a 56-page booklet, 9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006 is monumental even by Braxtonian standards. ***

Though it is packaged almost as an addendum to the CDs, the DVD is a recommended starting point, even for long-time friendly experiencers of Braxton’s music. Despite a rough hewn method of cutting between rather static Iridium performance footage and a deposition-like shot of Braxton giving an informal talk at Columbia University, Jason Guthartz’s documentary, “What Kind of “Tet?,” provides a solid primer on the GTM, showing how Braxton’s use of sectional leaders and constantly reconfiguring breakout groups implement the mix of a composition’s primary pulse materials and the performance-specific array of secondary materials, which can include any of Braxton’s prior pieces, and genetic materials, DNA-like samples extracted from Braxton’s works. Seeing the various real-time decisions that Braxton and each of his cohorts can make throughout the hour-long performance of a GTM composition connects Braxton’s descriptions to the music far more simply and securely than an audio-only format accompanied by a text, even one as lucid as Braxton gigographer Jonathan Piper’s “Like a Giant Choo Choo Train System,” included in the booklet.

The DVD also includes the complete performance of “Composition 358.” Clearly, Iridium is inimical to a multi-camera shoot of a large ensemble. The club stage flattened the ensemble’s semi-circular stage configuration, further limiting a shot selection already hampered by room-dictated camera positions. While the video still manages to reveal an enormous amount of information about communications between sectional leaders and within the breakout groups, it’s vexing not to see the full exchanges between trumpeter [JG: cornetist!!] Taylor Ho Bynum and violist Jessica Pavone, saxophonist/clarinetist Andrew Dewar Raffo and others, and it’s frustrating to barely see guitarist Mary Halvorson at all. Despite its shortcomings, the video’s most important contribution to understanding Braxton’s current music is showing the musicians’ excitement as they mold the piece in real time, including the avuncular Braxton, who often gleefully bobs and sways with the pulse of the music. In his Columbia talk, Braxton mentions having fun as one of his current objectives and it is clear he and his ensemble are meeting it, which is notable given the solemnity of early GTM performances.

Getting the word out, part 2

The May 2007 issue of Paris Transatlantic has a long review by Nate Dorward on the Braxton Iridium box:

The nine CDs in this collection document everything played during the four nights of performances, and come with a 56-page booklet containing a thoughtful overview by Braxtonologist Jonathan Piper as well as commentaries by many of the musicians (one misses the assiduous bookkeeping of a Graham Lock, though: some guidance as to the subsidiary compositions involved in these dense collages would have been helpful, and not hard to assemble, given that the backstage footage shows the musicians keeping score of composition numbers on a tally-sheet). The cherry on top is the tenth disc, a DVD with a documentary feature mingling clips from the performances and excerpts from a talk by Braxton; it also includes a video of the entire performance of Composition 358. The sum total is, needless to say, a luxury item that will set off waves of covetousness in the heart of any Braxton follower – and perhaps a certain amount of hesitancy as well, since, aside from the price tag, the prospect of listening to and absorbing ten hours' worth of this endlessly demanding music is daunting in the extreme.
***
It's obviously too early to offer anything approaching a definitive judgment on this set. Committed Braxtonites will already have purchased it and been duly delighted. Those less committed but sympathetic – in which camp I'd put myself – will find it by turns fascinating, baffling, exasperating and exciting. As often with Braxton's more ambitious projects, question-marks remain over how well the music's potential is actually realized – despite the evident enthusiasm of the 12+1tet and their immersion in his music and vision, the results are sometimes ragged and out-of-focus. But anyone seriously interested in his music should give it a listen, even if only in the form of individual downloads of a few CDs.

Getting the word out, part 1.5

Forgot to point to this review by Marc Medwin at All About Jazz:

It is the MO of this listener/writer, or, as Anthony Braxton puts it, this “friendly experiencer,” to attempt to bring the reader into individual moments of a performance. The present set does not allow such an approach, or, rather, it renders the approach superfluous. Here, we are presented with almost ten hours of music in which, Braxton explains, one measure can represent an entire composition. It is ironic, given the diversity of material and instrumentation employed over these four evenings, that the results are still so astonishingly unified.
The eight compositions in this ambitious collection close out the Ghost Trance Music (GTM) series. Anyone following developments in GTM’s 11-year history—well documented here in the essay by Jonathan Piper—will hear the continuing and recurring lifeline pulse of first-species GTM alongside the rhythmic enhancements and displacements of latter-day compositions, but the net effect is one of constant layers of submergence and rejuvenation. Each set begins with an area, designated by Braxton but very quickly broadening into other compositional territories charted by subgroups—a flute and bassoon duet, guitar and drums, or a vocalizing trio.
The musicianship is of the highest caliber and it would be unfair to single anyone out; the set deserves essays and volumes, which are doubtless forthcoming, as it marks the end of a Braxton era, the 2006 4 Compositions (Ulrichsberg) 2005 Phonomanie Viii set on Leo a harbinger of things to come.
Meanwhile, for a concise if grittily fanciful but all-encompassing description of the Iridium stand, Margaret Davis’ poem will not be bettered. In fact, the liners were especially helpful in coming to terms with musical complexities—the insider perspectives offered by ensemble members and Henry Grimes’ singularly wise portrait of Braxton the revolutionary being especially noteworthy. The DVD supplements and rehashes the notes with clarity and simplicity, providing a fitting encapsulation of a singularly important event that staunchly defies mere qualifiers and descriptors.

Begone BC

Kath & I will be walking the morning of Sunday, May 13, in support of the Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization -- please consider making a donation on my fundraising page.

Getting the word out, part 1

some early feedback on the Braxton 12+1tet's 9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006, which is now available for purchase directly from the label:

Dan Ouellette in Billboard magazine:

Inarguably this year's most expansive and creative improvisational performance, the "9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006" nine-CD boxed set chronicles iconic alto-saxophonist Braxton on a four-night engagement with his 12+1tet at New York's Iridium. Recorded in March 2006, the collection comprises nine large-scale, world-premiere Braxton compositions (with numerical titles, Nos. 350-358) that complete his 11-year-old "Ghost Trance Music" series of works that he calls "sonic units" and "language music." [JG: well, not quite -- "language music" is a specific set of sound typologies] Braxton's music, characterized by form that elicits and invites free interplay, is a playground of shapes, tempos, layers, weaves and waves. It is journey music replete with comic harmonic excursions, off-balance meandering, quirky curiosity, elliptical eeriness and seesawing dissonance. On the one hand, the music is abstract, but on the other, deeply emotional with different hues of urgency, fear, lightheartedness and timidity.

An excerpt from an Amazon.com customer review:

4 ½ Stars.
***
Having had the set for a week, I have absorbed all nine discs and the DVD over the course of six-nights. Needless to say that after just one-time through, I have just skimmed the surface- and still I am sated, yet eager to tackle the set in its entirety again starting in a few days. One could (and should) easily spend weeks and months digesting and experiencing this music. Themes, sub-themes, small instrumental dialogues, inspired solos, interesting compositional techniques, passages of jarring juxtapositions, moments of sheer cerebral beauty- all of these are to be had in abundance with a capital A.
The DVD runs about two-hours and provides context and visuals to accentuate those which Braxton's music invariably generates. The documentary finds him discussing the origin, dynamics and execution of Ghost Trance Music at Columbia University and is interspersed with performance footage from the Iridium shows. Also presented is Composition 358 in its entirety.
***
One criticism leveled at Braxton is that he is too prolific. Those interested in exploring his music don't know where to start, while those who follow him find it hard to keep up. Certainly a ten-disc set will do little to quell this quibble, but ultimately the question is: To buy or not? For fans of Braxton's work the answer is a resounding yes. Scrimp and save if you must, but this is an indispensable document which represents the culmination of four-decades of work.
To the curious and uninitiated the answer is also yes. Approach the set with open minds and ears and you will be both rewarded and enriched for your time and listening attention. These are the works of a master at the top of his game.

Some kind words on the Braxton discussion group from Kevin Frenette (a guitarist with a new release of his own, which he was kind enough to send me):

I received my 9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006 box set yesterday morning (autographed too!!!) --- Listened to about 4 discs so far and the music is incredible...but I spent the evening watching Jason's DVD...WOW!!!! It is worth the price of the boxed set alone. Great footage of the group performances and we finally get to see/hear what was discussed at Columbia University. It's an incredible look deep inside the GTM and it's priceless to see Braxton himself discussing what it's all about and see the ensemble putting it into practice.
Thanks Jason --- superb work.

Listen to this interview of Braxton by John Schaefer, Soundcheck, WNYC, 20-Apr-2007. (If you've never heard Schaefer's program, check out some other archived shows for interviews with everyone from Courtney Love to Cecil Taylor.)

Pick up the May 2007 issue of JazzTimes for an excellent article by David Adler. UPDATE: this article is available here (pdf format)

And there's much more on the way: look for upcoming articles and reviews in Down Beat, Signal to Noise, Paris Transatlantic, Jazzman (France), and The Wire (UK).

Kudos to Scott at Improvised Communications for doing an absolutely terrific job getting the word out!

9+1 on 12+1 in 26

As Mr. Bynum says, the excitement is building.
The trailer is now up on YouTube.

who: Anthony Braxton 12+1tet
what: 9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006 [9-CD + DVD]
when: April 3, 2007
where: Firehouse 12 Records and other retail outlets
why: because music is the healing force of the triverse

Hear the people's voices here and here.

UPDATES:

Liner-note contributor Steve Smith mentions an upcoming signing in NY.

Read another set of notes contributed by Dave Douglas.