Review
of Compositions 426, 427, and 428.
By Don Phipps
There is nothing about Compositions 426, 427 and 428 that speak the language of jazz. As Anthony Braxton argues, his music is not jazz. He strives to go beyond idioms. This is not modern classical either. Why? There is too much free playing and improvisation, that while structured, is not so structured as to create dogmatic expression. Braxton’s compositions instead fuse these two pillars (modern jazz and classical) into something new – a language that can best be described as Braxtonian. In these unique and wildly different compositions, the key driving force is not the musicians themselves, as amazingly precise and technical as they are. Instead, it’s the electronics, which filters through in every measure (phase, period – call it what you will). Like light in a dark theater, to which one’s eye is immediately drawn, electronics consistently provoke and stimulate.
How this is accomplished is a mystery. Braxton is elusive on the subject. While the liner notes do a good job of detailing the complex building process of Braxton’s historical achievements and demonstrate how these building blocks form the foundation for 10 Comp (Lorraine), they do not detail just how the electronics (developed using a program called SuperCollider) and the music are able to co-exist. From what is known, Braxton pre(?)programs the electronics and then one might presume that the score is provided to the musicians who then improvise around electronic “structures” as they exist. It’s difficult to imagine that since the electronics must be programmed, that it interacts with the musicians (as the future might allow with artificial intelligence – the electronics becoming, in this case, a fourth improviser). Instead, it is the musicians that must interact with the electronics. Electronics as a given – composed/developed by Braxton.
To this, the three artists, Susana Santos Silva on trumpet, Adam Matlock on accordion and vocals, and the maestro himself, Anthony Braxton, on an array of saxophones, layer sounds and improvisations that mirror the music’s atmospherics and at times follow a series of notes and at other times wander on their own path. All three, though, do so with great expertise.
Silva’s trumpet is piercing at time. At others, she flutters about like a hummingbird. But even as her playing runs to the extremes possible for the horn, her technique and control never falters or hesitates. She seems to approach her lines three dimensionally – progressing up and down while weaving back and forth. Suffice it to say, stunning is befitting.
Matlock, too, plays the accordion in a manner that I imagine a French street musician would respond to with mouth open- and wide-eyed stares. What’s fascinating about his technique is the dynamics he brings to the instrument, which can elevate from dissonant chords to squeezed out bursts in a moment’s notice. His vocals are both odd and interesting – at times, a guttural response to the music’s dynamics, and, at other times, a full-throated part of the composition.
Braxton rolls through the three compositions using what he describes in the notes as “slap tongue logics,” “double tongue techniques,” and hyper-runs up and down the necks of his various saxophones that feel like the old slapstick slipping on a banana peel – meaning that the experience is a continuum and not a series of notes. As Braxton himself says, the music is “a system for positive experiences and fun.” True dat. There is much fun in hearing him carve out sounds and tones while filling spaces or leaving it wide open.
What is realized here is a new language – a new systemic language – and this is where it deviates from free improvisation. There is clearly a system at work in these three compositions, one that is captivating and challenging, cerebral and yet connected, one that like a sunbeam, which at first look appears to be randomly floating yet is simply responding to the air currents around it, is both responsive and detailed. Anthony says it best – mutable logics, stable logics, and transpositional logics.
The most enticing aspect to this listener is the music’s eerie quality – a feeling like one has entered The Twilight Zone. Braxton speaks of “dream time and/or dream space.” He further writes that the music is about “stream compositional alignment.” One should keep these concepts in mind as one navigates Braxton’s odd and surreal world of sound and space. For those wishing to experience the frontier (not the final one – as Braxton’s sound/music seems as boundless as the universe), this set of diverse and commanding compositions, like an unknown world or one’s own subconscious, begs to be explored. Enjoy.
Anthony Braxton: saxophones, electronics
Adam Matlock: accordion, voice
Susana Santos Silva: trumpet
7 comments:
For those who might feel intimidated by Braxton’s music, his liner notes for this album contain the following comments:
“This recording is the second document from the LORRAINE PROTOTYPE
MUSIC MODEL (on its own plane) as a class of construction tools that can provide
backdrop templates for a new generation of explorative “signatures” - designed for
the friendly experiencer and friendly communities. Now that the ground floor of a
TRI-CENTRIC THOUGHT UNIT CONSTRUCT is completed, and can be viewed as a
foundation for HOLISTIC ENTITIES and/or discoveries - the next step of this model
will involve; 1) TOP LAYER SYNERGIES, 2) FOUNDATIONAL IMPRINT SYNERGIES
(what I call the “ground floor” of the system), AND 3) UNDERGROUND SYNERGIES
- (including hidden target ‘exploratives’). I look forward to the challenge of the third
millennium as we move towards fresh new opportunities. The best is yet to come.”
I hope that’s clear for all you friendly experiencers out there.
Braxton's always talked alot of b******t! (very funny though...)
Colin, that reads like an email from my university president!
(I will say, for the intimidated, that the liner notes for Alto Saxophone Improvisations 1979 [Arista] were very illuminating as to the techniques he was using at the time, with minimal jargon. The third track was built around the slap-tongue/multiphonic quacking sounds. These notes can be found in the images on discogs though they're pretty hard to read there.)
Having learned at the elbow of this great composer, and played with him, I assure the listener that his words are not, as the poster above suggests, bull but rather, very specific and clear explanations of the musical elements and motivations. In the near future, there will be an enormous appreciation for his great efforts at codifying his understanding.
Having worked with Braxton, I’m sure you have some grasp of his terminology and underlying concepts – he may explain matters in a more expansive and practical manner to those with whom he plays – but I suspect passages like that quoted above are lost on most friendly experiencers (sympathetic listeners). I find it ironic that in liner notes directed to them he writes such impenetrable, positively unfriendly prose: academese on steroids that’s anything but “very specific and clear explanations”.
In fairness, I should say that Mario Gamba’s liner notes to “Sax QT (Lorraine) 2022” are rather more helpful, though I did struggle in parts.
It's pretty ironic that the liner notes from 'Sax QT (Lorraine) 2022' are mentioned as an example of "helpful" information on Braxton's music because I found that piece of writing probably the single worst thing I have ever read on AB's music. But that's my opninion of course.
As an AB enthousiast, I'm pretty excited to get my hands on this box set though!
I said “rather more helpful” than Braxton’s own liner notes and that I struggled in parts. Even bad writing admits of degrees.
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