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.