king ubu Posted January 22, 2005 Report Share Posted January 22, 2005 link Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7/4 Posted January 24, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2005 the latest issue of The Wire (Feb '05) has Braxton on the cover. Watch for it! Rod I'm looking forward to it, the Wire doesn't hit the newstands in NYC until the 1st. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SNWOLF Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 I found his abstruse mathematical symbolism and laboured neologisms a bit forbidding and sidestepped Braxton for years, until I heard that album he did with Sam Rivers and Holland, Conference of the Birds. I love that album so much. And I found myself entranced by the oblique skeins of notes Braxton erupted with. Part of me was saying: I shouldn't be liking this. The other part, soon to become the dominant part was saying: this is fucking magnificent! I still haven't heard much. Sometimes you can hear that he's out of practice, and his saxophone tone sounds like shit, yet his unique ideas hold your attention. A recent album I heard, and loved, was with him playing with Marty Ehrlich. Except Braxton was playing piano. What a weird piano player, like he was playing mezzotint clusters. But it worked, in fact it was great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Nessa Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 Part of me was saying: I shouldn't be liking this. The other part, soon to become the dominant part was saying: this is fucking magnificent! So I have a 38 year head start on Braxton. Get the fuck going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7/4 Posted January 25, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 Part of me was saying: I shouldn't be liking this. The other part, soon to become the dominant part was saying: this is fucking magnificent! So I have a 38 year head start on Braxton. Get the fuck going. You crack me up Sri Nessa. I guess I started picking up used LPs from the Princeton Record Exchange in '88. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SNWOLF Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 Master Nessa, my impudent inexperience clearly renders me, to paraphrase Lester Young when referring to Pee-Wee Marquette, half a motherfucker. I will meditate on the koan you have gifted me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brownie Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 the latest issue of The Wire (Feb '05) has Braxton on the cover. Watch for it! Rod The Braxton photo on the cover of 'The Wire' is the darkest photo I have seen on the cover of a magazine since Time magazine doctored the mugshot of OJ Simpson back in 1994! And the interview is even darker... Interview was done by Brian Morton (he of the Penguin Guide to Jazz! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Hawkins Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 Wow. I have just started this morning on the quartet musics. Birmingham 1985 has been the first of a slew of orders I can't really afford (well I guess it works as an incentive to play more gigs) to arrive, and this is extraordinary. 38 year head start? 19 year head start? At this rate, it's going to be a pleasure playing catch up. If a challenge! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnlitweiler Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 To some extent I sympathize with bop players when outside players sit in. 30 years ago, the night Lester Bowie sat in with Von Freeman, the reckless attitude to the changes and tempo obviously drove John Young nuts -- but Bowie sure played some lovely music. As Malachi Favors once pointed out, playing on changes and playing free are 2 separate disciplines. I've listened to 1 of the 2 Bird reissue discs by Braxton and cannot get indignant like Nate. Love his free playing here, the Parker themes are just excuses to get him going, and if he's careless about the heads and changes, so what? / Re outside musicians inside, oh, for a recording of that old Amina-Ajaramu band with Kalaparush, Bowie, Roscoe playing Monk songs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dorward Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 Not indignant, just exasperated! & mostly with certain of AB's fans not AB, who are often extremely reluctant to acknowledge that their man ever commits a fluff. When you try to point out to them that there's lots of messy playing on the disc their response is usually just "Well, you must be some Marsalis-loving creep." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7/4 Posted January 25, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 Not indignant, just exasperated! & mostly with certain of AB's fans not AB, who are often extremely reluctant to acknowledge that their man ever commits a fluff. When you try to point out to them that there's lots of messy playing on the disc their response is usually just "Well, you must be some Marsalis-loving creep." I missed the Parker discs the first time around, because I didn't dig previous recordings of standards by Braxton. But I did like 23 Standards (Qt) 2003, so I got the Parker reissue. I'll have to give it another spin, but it didn't do too much for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 the latest issue of The Wire (Feb '05) has Braxton on the cover. Watch for it! Rod The Braxton photo on the cover of 'The Wire' is the darkest photo I have seen on the cover of a magazine since Time magazine doctored the mugshot of OJ Simpson back in 1994! And the interview is even darker... Interview was done by Brian Morton (he of the Penguin Guide to Jazz! Now I'm interested... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 Almost looks more like a Bacon portrait than a photograph... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7/4 Posted January 25, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 It may just a bad scan. Damm. Now I'm seeing double. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
couw Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Hawkins Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 One thing that's striking about the quartet stuff - this is, after about a solid half day with it - is that it's actually quite accessible. Not nearly as foreboding as the GTM, for instance. But wonderful. I'm reminded of some classical piece extremely strongly by the first composition on disc 1 of Birmingham (1985). I can't think what it is - Tchaikovsky? Maybe it's just in the nature of this stuff that you hear something different each time. It's a bit like a kaleidoscope. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Hawkins Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 Oops. Not, of course, that I listen to kaleidoscopes, but you know what I mean... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dorward Posted January 26, 2005 Report Share Posted January 26, 2005 (edited) Actually I think Braxton's pieces--their visual titles & how they sound--do have a strong visual component: they look & sound like Tinkertoy or erector sets, or Calder mobiles. Edited January 26, 2005 by Nate Dorward Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Hawkins Posted January 26, 2005 Report Share Posted January 26, 2005 In that sense, I agree. And I should probably have thought harder about my offhand remark, because on reflection, seeing the GTM performed in London made very explicit what was going on - hand signals and so forth between the performers. There are these fantastic moments in the quartet music where it suddenly locks into, or at least hints at, a much more traditional groove. Continuing our visual imagery, I suppose this is the proverbial man in the clouds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7/4 Posted January 26, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2005 Any thoughts on Trillium R, the four disk opera? I bought it used when it came out, listened to a disk and a half and shelved it. I'm trying it out again this week. I'm not too excited about that style of opera singing... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Hawkins Posted February 1, 2005 Report Share Posted February 1, 2005 Just picked up that issue of The Wire, and it's an interesting - and really quite long - article. I'm also interested by the Trillium opera, but think that I probably have other Braxton I should get through before listening to this one. I still can't get enough of the quartets. David Rosenboom (sp?) is a really interesting player, I think - on the strength of Five Compositions (1986). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WD45 Posted February 3, 2005 Report Share Posted February 3, 2005 Just picked up that issue of The Wire, and it's an interesting - and really quite long - article. I'm also interested by the Trillium opera, but think that I probably have other Braxton I should get through before listening to this one. I still can't get enough of the quartets. David Rosenboom (sp?) is a really interesting player, I think - on the strength of Five Compositions (1986). Are there any revelations in the article not touched on in Graham Lock's book? That was a fab review, Nate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
medjuck Posted February 3, 2005 Report Share Posted February 3, 2005 I've seen him perform solo, in a duet with Roscoe Mitchell and once with a group. (Can't remember who.) The only cds I have are his Sackville release and Conference of the Birds. I've always enjoyed his work but never felt a need to buy more. Don't know why. I once saw him walking down the street in Paris and accosted him to tell him I liked his work. Before I could speak he threw his hands up and said he didn't speak French . I guess this shows that: 1) I look French 2) I dress like a pan handler 3) He's not used to being recognized. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dorward Posted February 4, 2005 Report Share Posted February 4, 2005 I seem to recall that on another board, a bunch of interested members pooled their pennies to buy the Trillum opera & share it around. I don't think any of them liked it. Thanks again for the kind words on the piece.... I wish I got discs more often that deserved that kind of close & lengthy attention. (Part of the reason I could write at length on it is that I had the original issue & so knew it well even before writing the piece.) Kinda sad/funny to think that Braxton would be so unused to strangers recognizing him in the street! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted February 4, 2005 Report Share Posted February 4, 2005 Kinda sad/funny to think that Braxton would be so unused to strangers recognizing him in the street! But not to being panhandled, apparently! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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