The music returns... Cecil Taylor... Anthony Braxton... Ornette Coleman...

A slow and easy squeeze back into the mp3 game - I had a request for these three tracks from an old post so have re-upped them. The original post is here... 'Womb waters scent of the burning armadillo shell' has to be one of my all-time favourite titles...



Cecil Taylor
(Rashied Bakr, drums, voice · Karen Borca, bassoon, voice · Günther Hämpel, baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, vibraphone, voice · Jimmy Lyons, alto saxophone, voice · Andre Martinez, drums, percussion, voice · William Parker, bass, voice · Enrico Rava, trumpet, voice · Tomasz Stanko, trumpet, voice · Cecil Taylor, piano, voice · John Tchicai, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, voice . Frank Wright, tenor saxophone, voice)

Womb Waters Scent Of The Burning Armadillo Shell
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Anthony Braxton
(Anthony Braxton, clarinet, alto, soprano, sopranino and C-melody saxophones, flute (collective instrumentation for the album) Adelhard Roidinger (b) Tony Oxley (d))

Compositions 40J & 110A (+108B + 69J)
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Ornette Coleman
(Ornette Coleman (as) Gregory Cohen, Tony Falanga (b) Denardo Coleman (d))

SleepTalking
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Mark Murphy... Anthony Braxton... Last Exit... Pee Wee Russell...

The recent house move has uncovered many a box of buried stuff – I just discovered this Mark Murphy album 'Midnight Mood,' from which I have selected the last track 'I get along without you very well.' Credit to whomever I downloaded this from as it is not one of my acquisitions. A curio – it was recorded in Europe in 1967, featuring a group underpinned by Kenny Clarke, alongside the co-leader of his big band,the French pianist Francy Boland. With just the trio backing him, Murphy starts over a sparse reiterated piano pedal tone that eventually moves to sketch the harmony. Bass and drums join the piano eventually – now elaborating more. Bittersweet musings from a great jazz singer.

Weirdly enough, I had a dream last night that I was playing a gig as a singer with Frank Sinatra and Count Basie. Francis Albert and myself were out front, chatting to the Count and for some surreal reason I had a big bag of apples in the pocket of my tuxedo which I proceeded to hand out to everyone. Ummm... any interesting interpretations?

I was going to post this some time ago but noticed in time that Destination Out had put it up the same week so didn't want to clash. Then it went into the box and has only just surfaced on the latest rotation... This is 'Track Three' from Anthony Braxton's 1976 album, 'Creative Orchestra Music.'. Starting off as a jaunty march(I kid you not – in Graham Lock's book about Braxton, he is quoted as saying how much he loved and respected John Philip Souza). But nothing is ever as it seems with AB – his music can twist and turn on a penny. Plus the multi-layering which is a great American musical tradition – as if the acoustic spaces are matching the physical scale of the country – a democracy of layers that you see in Charles Ives and onwards - and in Sousa according to Braxton. In my erratic canonical delineation that leads through Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys up to Ornette Coleman. And backwards – to Walt Whitman, piling long line on on top of long line as he tries to cram the whole experience of his country into long scrambles of words:

'Seasons pursuing each other, the plougher ploughs, the mower mows, and the winter-grain falls in the ground;
Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole in the frozen surface;
The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes deep with his axe;
Flatboatmen make fast, towards dusk, near the cottonwood or pekan-trees;
Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river, or through those drain’d
by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansaw;
Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahoochee or Altamahaw;
Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grandsons around them;
In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after their day’s sport;
The city sleeps, and the country sleeps;
The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time;
The old husband sleeps by his wife, and the young husband sleeps by his wife;
And these one and all tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them;
And such as it is to be of these, more or less, I am. ' (Walt Whitman: 'Leaves of Grass,' lines 309-320).

And onwards...

'Skippy' is one of those mad, skittery fast Monk tunes from his early days. Braxton again, exploring the tradition with a quartet on this track, taken from the 1987 album, 'Six Monk's Compositions.' Taken at a fair lick, Braxton flies over the manic remorseless march of chords. Piano takes a solo, hewing close to theme and structure – a difficult composition to step far out of. Neidlinger holds it all together – Bill Osborne's drums are back in the mix, making themselves known occasionally with a supple rip or two. Sounds like great fun was had – but everyone probably breathed a collective sigh of relief at the end... Monk's muse can often seem like an enormous, enigmatic wall of fortified glass that repels those who hurl themselves blindly at it. These guys find enough windows to enter...

Last Exit were a powerhouse band – electronic free jazz with a punk edge. Or something... The disparate gathering of musicians were Peter Brotzmann, Sonny Sharrock, Bill Laswell and Ronald Shannon Jackson and they played some wild stuff. Here is 'Panzer Bebop,' fittingly marshalled in by martial drums then Jackson spelling out some melodic figures before Sharrock throws jagged shards of electric guitar across the line and Brotzmann comes storming in. The backbeat surfaces, ridden by the guitar as the tenor howls and squeals in the wind. Storm subsiding over a repeated bass drum da dum. Into a swaying boogie... This is what jazz-rock should have been...

Jaunty bouncing piano leads in on 'Lulu's back in town,' followed by Buck Clayton who leads the theme in on muted trumpet, then the leader, Pee Wee Russell, and his more oblique clarinet, each taking 8 bars in turn. Clayton is straight out of Louis, of course, but a man who developed his own style in the various situations he played in – from a stint in Shanghai (!) in the thirties before he joined the mighty Basie Band. And onwards to a career as arranger, composer and bandleader, apart from his trumpet duties. Russell, clarinet player extraordinaire embedded for all those years on Condon's dixieland sessions, here showing his stuff with a tight mainstream band. Pee Wee takes the first solo, some warm and fuzzy low down contrasted with the higher register querularity. Clayton follows, mellow burnished trumpet. Piano next, some eloquent restatements and embellishments. Riding out old school with some drum breaks interspersed. Joyful stuff.



Mark Murphy
Mark Murphy (v) Francy Boland (p) Jimmy Woode (b) Kenny Clarke (d)
I get along without you very well
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Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton (as, cl) Seldon Powell (as) Bruce Johnstone (bs) Ronald Bridgewater (ts) Roscoe Mitchell (bass-s) Kenny Wheeler, Cecil Bridgewater, Leo Smith, Jon Faddis (t) George Lewis, Garrett List (tr) Earl McIntyre, Jack Jeffers (b-tr) Jonathan (tuba) Muhal Richard Abrams (p) Dave Holland, (b) Warren Smith (d) Karl Berger (glock) Barry Atschul (sn-d) Frederick Rzewski (b-d) Phillip Wilson ( marching cymbals) Leo Smith (cond)
Piece Three
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Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton (as) Mal Waldron (p) Buell Neidlinger (b) Bill Osborne (d)
Skippy
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Last Exit
Peter Brotzmann (ts) Sonny Sharrock (el-g) Bill Laswell (b) Ronald Shannon Jackson (d)
Panzer Bebop
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Pee Wee Russell
Buck Clayton (tp) Pee Wee Russell (cl) Tommy Flanagan (p) Wendell Marshall (b)
Osie Johnson (d)
Lulu's Back in Town
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Anthony Braxton... Phineas Newborn... Miles Davis...

Anthony Braxton and his Great Quartet playing 'No 159' from the 1991 set recorded at the Willisau Festival. Swirling, densely scampering brilliance held together with a repeated phrase that pops up like an annoying child repeatedly sticking their tongue out at you over and over again. (My dear wildboy grandson springs to mind...).

Phineas Newborn recorded the old bop/Afro-Cuban warhorse 'Manteca' out in Los Angeles, 1961, with one of the top rhythm duos of the day – Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, who had come together in the first great Miles Davis Quintet during the years 1955-8. Newborn never attained the critical heights and was dogged with illness, both mental and physical. On form, though, a scintillating player:

'In his prime, he was one of the three greatest jazz pianists of all time, right up there with Bud Powell and Art Tatum...' (Leonard Feather, quoted from here...).

Miles in 1965 with his Second Great Quintet, bristling with the youthful energies he had surrounded himself with in another gesture of artistic renewal. Taken from the live sets taped at the Plugged Nickel, this is 'Round Midnight,' Monk's famous dark blue reverie which Davis recorded many times. Thoughtful trumpet leads in with a long pause before a sudden trill then into the main theme, Miles bending and squeezing notes, wry smears, sudden flurries. Changing gear as Shorter enters, the tempo busier now. An elliptical solo, finding almost as much space as the leader. Some nice interplay between piano and tenor. Herbie Hancock next, equally sparse to match the mood. Miles returns. More 'vocalised' horn - this is not about bop speed but something different, colour and a cunning use of silence...



Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton (as) Marilyn Crispell (p) Mark Dresser (b) Gerry Hemingway (d)
No 159
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Phineas Newborn Jr
Phineas Newborn Jr (p) Paul Chambers (b) Philly Joe Jones (d)
Manteca
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Miles Davis
Miles Davis (tp) Wayne Shorter (ts) Herbie Hancock (p) Ron Carter (b) Tony Williams (d )
Round Midnight
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Royal Festival Hall, 8th July, 2007... Cecil Taylor... Anthony Braxton, William Parker... Tony Oxley...

The first half opening act were a bit of a surprise – Polar Bear. Uncharitably, after a few minutes I thought they were a pub group, better suited to one of those once-smoky back rooms beloved of the scene. An interesting line-up – two tenors, bass drums and Leafcutter John on electronics, looking absurdly young – much of his created loops spurred the action and he had the best of it, I thought. But reliance on overstated back beat – ok in other contexts – strapped it all in, for me. Tonight of all nights, one would have expected a local band somewhere nearer to the stature – and sound world/conceptions? - of the main act. We have some, after all... There were a few times when they let go – especially on the last number which gave a strong hint of further potential– but I wondered whether they have worked out the integration of electronics properly yet – as I know myself, it's sometimes difficult for a laptop to respond in live performance at the speed of the other instruments – so they are to a certain extent reliant on the laptop to point the way – here Leafcutter started with bowed cymbal which he bent into intriguing looping sonorities and towards the end of the set a balloon! You had to be there... But the tunes didn't seem to go anywhere much, the soloing constrained apart from a couple of skronk-outs – Lockjaw Davis and Johnny Griffin this wasn't. Maybe that was the point I missed – that they weren't just a blowing jazz group out of the bebop family or the free improv lineage but were trying something new. In which case the rhythm was too rigid for me. A consequence of the loops? – that they forced that backbeat – although when they got away from the straight four, it loosened up and pointed towards further interesting areas... Or just an attempt to reach a wider audience... nothing wrong with that - I'd go see them live again, to be fair... But somehow... time and place?

Maybe it was all about contrast. Which there by God certainly was... The second half opened theatrically with the lights down and Tony Oxley striding onstage to position himself eventually behind his kit – like a character out of a Beckett play almost. Then Cecil – live miked offstage or recorded - recited something relating to African myth, eventually to dance lightly onstage with bells rattling (ridiculously lithe for his age – I couldn't do it!)– some kind of invocation, opening the ritual. He took his place at the piano – and they proceeded to play a set separated into sections by Cecil stopping occasionally and peering at his sheet music to select another page. Was this stuff written down? It seems unlikely... guidelines, maybe, because how the hell could you notate it? To compare his playing with an element, water, would perhaps give something of the delicate tinkling touches, like a fresh stream say, that emptied into a river where the rhythmic current gets stronger, the melodies fluidly stretched – until you were being swept out onto the ocean, through storms and wild sunrises. He moved through all of those areas, analogically, closely followed by the incomparable Oxley, an old playing chum who knows the pianist's mercurial moves well. He has a distinct drum/percussion sound, crashy cymbals with a rough timbre that seem far from the light and crisp hiss of conventional jazz drumming. Sharp fast-decaying sounds, snare flatter in resonance than one would expect, higher pitched from other small instruments and a bongo-y timbre, only using the bass drum sparingly – possibly in deference to the sheer crashing power of Taylor when he forays into the lower registers – you feared for the piano at times... This way, perhaps, his insistent pattering and snapping collaboration cut through cleanly. A thought: anyone who figured that Taylor has strayed far from 'jazz' piano would surely have been confounded tonight, if they had the ears to hear... his harmonic language can be dense, much of it coming from the 'european' twentieth century tradition - but is is embedded in a fierce rhythmic/melodic sense that flows from jazz (and beyond in his cultural heritage) - call and response building up simple patterns into wild complexities, many shards of almost bluesy figures jumping out at you. An exhilarating ride – but this was just the foreplay... They ended to wild applause – the town was waiting for them with great anticipation it seems.

Next up, the rather wonderful William Parker who took a bass solo as his cohorts departed the stage. Arco in the main, with chorded stopping playing a mournful elegaic lament, with east-european overtones at times. A masterclass – he let loose dazzling runs and swooning, swooping glissandos fired by both arco and pizzicato technique.

The band re-formed – with the addition of Anthony Braxton – who got a great cheer. Rightly so – I was at the last gig he played here on the same bill as Cecil T – and he stole the show... What followed pretty much defies my powers of description. I felt I was privileged to be present at a rare meeting of truly GREAT musical minds. Opening on a sound exploration worthy of the AACM (where Braxton originally sprang from), a four way conversation with Taylor inside the piano, Oxley dragging out his chains to rub against various parts of his kit and William Parker using two bows at times to extract as much as he could from his bass – was anyone expecting this? Braxton on contrabass(?) clarinet, an abstracted exercise in squawked sonorities. He swapped horns throughout, going from the deep murk of the large clarinet to the high piping freedoms of the sopranino sax, via soprano and his alto – this last at first having problems cutting through – the sound was dense and complex, covering the registers. Oxley dropped out a couple of times, sitting with hands folded in obvious enjoyment as Braxton and Taylor took the music further and higher, tracked by the solid bass of Parker. Braxton went from sparse, repeated notes, honked and bent frequently, to chitteringly hoarse runs to long fluid reels of notes. Eyes were on Cecil and him, I suppose, for this unique meeting – yet what combat there was occurred under good-natured rivalry – better to see it as a high-powered collaboration. Cecil can be overwhelming, after all – but Braxton was equal to the game, pausing occasionally to wipe his sweating face and his fogged-up glasses before changing horns, having a quick listen before plunging back in, towards the end rocking on his feet, almost dancing in an odd sort of skipping hop. And throughout the concert Cecil used light and shade and a large and subtle dynamic range, not just blasting out for the sake of it. At times, I felt that they had truly gone beyond the beyond , to echo Albert Ayler's famous phrase about his music, that it was about feelings not notes. A mighty, mighty performance from all four constituents. Like I said, I felt privileged to be there – a transcendental experience. But, hey, I'm a fan...

And Ornette tonight...

Written on the run - wifi at the Travelodge in Farringdon - with someone playing some nifty jazz guitar on acoustic a couple of tables from me... a nice start to the day...

Anthony Braxton... Jimmy Reed - straight and chopped... Lightnin' Hopkins... DJ Screw/2Pac... Ben Webster/Coleman Hawkins...Cecil Taylor...

'This mammoth document of the final year of the famous Braxton Quartet shows exactly why that group finally split: they had reached a creative apex as a group that -- arguably -- could not be furthered.' (Thom Jurek from a very good introduction to these recordings here...).


Track one from the Willisau Quartet recordings – studio and live – 1991.
Commencing in a rather stately way, the cool tones of Braxton's clarinet giving his music even more of a European edge than usual, perhaps... I like this quote on the BBC web site: 'the missing link between Charlie Parker and John Cage.' Mark Dresser takes a solo and shows his mastery - the gamut of scrapes and scratches and bouncing the bow off the strings to rapid-fire arco sawing, ending on swooning figures as piano and clarinet return. Hemingway rejoins the trio, the drum/tom tom figures reminding you of the music's jazz origins - although the implied rhythms of the participants are another grounding that takes the classical ethos and bends it to Braxton's imperious compositional and improvisational will. The title refers, I gather, to three Braxton compositions... this compounding and blending of the notated sources in performance on the fly adds another layer of complexity to his music... what the thirdstream should have sounded like but rarely did in the balance of technique,genres - and emotion...

Back to the blues... Jimmy Reed was very popular in the UK during the r and b boom years. Yes, his music is a bit formulaic – but there was always something appealing about that shuffle beat of his. Not so heavy on the emotional freight, perhaps – without the shattering power of the Wolf or Muddy Waters, for example – maybe that was one reason for his popularity – social blues for dancing and drinking. And I'm going to New York sometime soon...

Some more Lightnin'... 'West Texas Blues.' Mr Hopkins on his own from the 1960's, stinging guitar tracking the voice, the amplification taking the country blues to somewhere different – able to hold its own in a crowded bar or club better than an acoustic performance yet retaining some degree of intimacy as played solo - when he uses a drummer it gives a different, more extroverted feel... it can be easy to forget that this music was played in more rowdy atmospheres and venues than would seem evident from its arrival on the festival and concert stages when it was taken up by a white audience...

Today's hard blues in Houston – chopped and screwed via the late lamented DJ Screw. Here is his version of 2Pac's 'So Many Tears.' The slowed down track gives a weird combination of menace, poignancy and despair: 'Lord, I suffered through the years, and shed so many tears..
Lord, I lost so many peers, and shed so many tears .' A ghostly harmonica(?) wafts in and out – ghost of older bluesmen... Unable to source this as it's from an old mixtape...

One plays one's games: I wondered what would happen if I took the Jimmy Reed track and slowed it down... get the syrup out, boys and girls...

More from the Hawk and Ben: By the time this session was recorded they were venerable tenor statesmen – the soloing is as much about texture, nuance and rhythm than the usual tenor speed lines. A thoughtful piano intro then Webster takes the tune: 'It never entered my mind.' It suddenly came to me listening to the slurs and bends he employs that there is some Johnny Hodges here, translated to the tenor – well, they sat in the same section for some time... although that after-note vibrato swoosh is classic Webster. Hawk comes in and follows the mood, his tone with that slightly harder edge, staying down and dark for much of his solo. Distilled essence of jazz saxophone... Webster returns for more swoosh... the band frame the two front-liners admirably – Peterson especially restrained and sympathetic.

Cecil Taylor, from the album 'Into the Hot' that went out under Gil Evan's name and showcased Johnny Carisi and the pianist, a side each. This is 'Mixed,' introduced by the horns, starting on a repeated 4 note melody – some nice muted trumpet from Curson. A piercing alto entry from Lyons – the breath of the Bird very much in evidence here. Taylor takes a section – almost rhapsodic as Lyons joins him. Then it starts to cook... churning ensemble and fiery piano taking the foreground, supported by Murray (a little drowned in the mix but his accents and rhythmic concepts come through despite the murk). A strange mutated riff sets up which echoes back into the history as well as pointing forward – the evidence for continuity was always there... The harmonic textures evoke the conservatory – the fire and passion and timbres channel the blues... I must put up some of the Carisi as a contrast – interesting music but conceptually a long way from Taylor's vision...

Great news that Ornette Coleman has received a Pulitzer - I'll put up a tribute asap - so glad I bought my tickets for his London concert (and Cecil - and Braxton - July looking good...). Straight No Chaser has a good piece on this and also a track from 'Sound Grammar.'

Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton (as, cl, cbcl, fl, sss), Marilyn Crispell (p), Marc Dresser (b),
Gerry Hemingway (d, mba)
Composition 160(+5) (+40J)
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Jimmy Reed
Going to New York
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Lightnin' Hopkins
West Texas Blues
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DJ Screw/2Pac
So many tears
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Jimmy Reed
Going to New York/Slow
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Coleman Hawkins/Ben Webster
Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster (ts) Oscar Peterson (p) Herb Ellis (g) Ray Brown (b) Alvin Stoller (d)
You'd be so nice to come home to
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Cecil Taylor
(Cecil Taylor (p) Jimmy Lyons (as) Archie Shepp (ts) Ted Curson (t) Roswell Rudd (tr) Henry Grimes (b) Sunny Murray (d)
Mixed
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