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Stockhausen & Buckmaster


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This question has bugged me for a while, and maybe I'd know the "answer" were I to read more biographies, but I thought I'd ask the cognoscenti here (and I mean "cognoscenti" in a good way!):

Miles Davis, when On The Corner came out, cited both Karlheinz Stockhausen and Paul Buckmaster as influences. What music was Miles referencing? What do you suppose he had heard and absorbed as an "influence"? I actually have a small number of Stockhausen recordings (five), but they don't usually put me in a Miles frame of mind. I don't know the music of Paul Buckmaster at all.

Looking to be enlightened — thanks in advance for your thoughts/observations!

(I put this thread in Recommendations so that someone might recommend some of these "influential" recordings.)

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I've no idea if Davis was aware of this record, but Buckmaster was the primary composer and arranger for the Chitinous Ensemble LP released on Vocalion in 1970. He also made significant contributions to the Third Ear Band's score to Polanski's adaptation of MACBETH. I believe a few well-turned Google searches will produce access to clips (at least) from both of these recordings.

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Jack Chambers, in his book Milestones, says that Buckmaster gave Miles recordings of Stockhausen's Telemusik and Mixtur, and that Miles played them over and over for several days. For what it's worth, Telemusik is an electronic piece (which does use recordings of "world music" as some of its source material), and Mixtur is for orchestra and electronic sounds.

As someone who loves the music of both Miles and Stockhausen, the only one of Miles' recordings in which I hear any Stockhausen influence is "Rated X." The dense, atonal organs over a hard funk base seems like Miles' improvised response to Stockhausen's electronic music.

Edited by jeffcrom
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I may be able to dig some Stockhausen info up at home (I have some Miles books).

Here's an academic passage I googled, though I don't find it very informative...

Another passage here: Miles Davis, whose later albums make extensive use of studio techniques, paid homage to Stockhausen’s influence in his works. In his autobiography, he wrote that “I had always written in a circular way and through Stockhausen I could see that I didn’t want to ever play again from eight bars to eight bars, because I never end songs: they just keep going on. Through Stockhausen I understood music as a process of elimination and addition.” The collage-like quality of music from the ‘Electric Miles’ period was said to stem directly from his reaction to Hymnen and several of Stockhausen’s non-electronic pieces.

Inspired by passages in Miles's autobiography (the Quincy Troupe book), I once (years ago) looked for Buckmaster material on the web and found basically nothing. Thanks for the above tips.

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According to Buckmaster's liner notes to the On the Corner box, he brought along Stockhausen's "Gruppen" and "Mixtur" when he was staying with Miles Davis and Davis played them over and over again. Davis later found "Hymnen." Can't remember the original Buckmaster connection, but I think Davis heard him in England several years previously and then invited him to work on On the Corner. Buckmaster did provide some of the music for On the Corner and "Ife," though it didn't turn out the way he envisioned it. There's some Stockhausen influence in there, but Davis threw it into his musical blender with a whole lot of other things (James Brown, Sly Stone, Indian music, etc.).

Edited by B. Clugston
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I've no idea if Davis was aware of this record, but Buckmaster was the primary composer and arranger for the Chitinous Ensemble LP released on Vocalion in 1970. He also made significant contributions to the Third Ear Band's score to Polanski's adaptation of MACBETH. I believe a few well-turned Google searches will produce access to clips (at least) from both of these recordings.

Also Terrapin Station!

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Buckmaster gave Miles recordings of Stockhausen's Telemusik and Mixtur, and that Miles played them over and over for several days.

I'm guessing that would be the original (?) on Deutsche Grammophon.

post-282-0-82993600-1312865841_thumb.jpg

Thanks for the great responses guys. I appreciate it. On The Corner has been clicking for me like never before. I can sit through the whole disc (just the album proper) without getting bored or distracted for even a second. Whereas before I "appreciated" it, now I find it transfixing. Funny how these things just take time. Now I wish I'd gone for the box set when it was in-print. Oh well. There's still a ton to listen to. (Dark Magus, Get Up With It, etc.)

I used to have a CDR of that Chitinous LP, but now it's nowhere to be found. Great buggy stuff.

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According to Buckmaster's liner notes to the On the Corner box, he brought along Stockhausen's "Gruppen" and "Mixtur" when he was staying with Miles Davis and Davis played them over and over again. Davis later found "Hymnen." Can't remember the original Buckmaster connection, but I think Davis heard him in England several years previously and then invited him to work on On the Corner. Buckmaster did provide some of the music for On the Corner and "Ife," though it didn't turn out the way he envisioned it. There's some Stockhausen influence in there, but Davis threw it into his musical blender with a whole lot of other things (James Brown, Sly Stone, Indian music, etc.).

Buckmaster was managed by London-based agent/producer Tony Hall, who was friendly with Davis and introduced the two of them during one of Davis' UK visits (1969 I believe, must have been that visit when he played the London Jazz Fest. and the one (filmed, now lost) night at Ronnie Scotts).

I've often wondered if, before those OTC sessions, Buckmaster played Davis his 'Chitinous' session recorded for Deram (reissued a few years ago on CD by Vocalion, now sadly sold out/OOP). The last track in particular has some of the repetitive, bass-riff driven brooding that permeates 'On The Corner'. Chitinous was released in 1971 I think.

51D7MD44NWL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

I remember seeing that Polanski 'Scottish Play' on film projector at school back in the day but of course never knew of any Buckmaster connection ! First and only time I've ever seen it.

Edited by sidewinder
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I've no idea if Davis was aware of this record, but Buckmaster was the primary composer and arranger for the Chitinous Ensemble LP released on Vocalion in 1970. He also made significant contributions to the Third Ear Band's score to Polanski's adaptation of MACBETH. I believe a few well-turned Google searches will produce access to clips (at least) from both of these recordings.

Also Terrapin Station!

Buckmaster also did some arranging for David Bowie, Elton John, Leonard Cohen and Shawn Phillips.

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The withdrawal of the DG recordings was a (characteristic) bit of control-freakery on Stockhausen's part. Likewise his scores and performance parts. All the recordings were made available on his own label,but they were only available mail-order from his own publishing company (Stockhausen Verlag), and even 10 years ago when I last looked they were expensive, by which I mean £20 or $30 per disc + shipping, and depending on who was in the office, they might take several months to be posted! It's a shame, because there's a whole generation of music-lovers (and musicians) who haven't had reasonable access to some extraordinary and extraordinarily influential music. Things don't seem to have changed since his death, but it will be interesting to see how his partners and children deal with the heritage. Re: Miles/Buckmaster/Stockhausen, I've never been able to pin down exact influence of particular works on particular albums, and it seems this was more about inspiration (density of texture, slow-moving pace of events) rather than the kind of "I'll borrow that bit from Mixtur" that lesser musical minds might undertake...

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I checked the Troupe and Chambers books at home (didn't bring them in to work, so can't quote exactly).

There was another quote in the autobiography (just after the one I gave above) that gives support to Stockhausen's influence being via "process". Something to the effect of "through Stockhausen I understood music as a process of elimination and addition. Like before you can say 'yes' you have to have said 'no'..." I don't know enough Stockhausen to say which specific "process pieces" might apply here. The most obvious "addition and subtraction" process piece I can think of is Frederic Rzewski's "Attica" "Coming Together".

Chambers also says that Buckmaster gave Miles recordings of "Mixtur" and "Telemusik", as well as several cassettes (contents not specified). He further writes that Stockhausen was in the Columbia studios with Miles in 1980 (Chicago area), but that the resulting material (unspecified) has never been released.

Edited by T.D.
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According to Buckmaster's liner notes to the On the Corner box, he brought along Stockhausen's "Gruppen" and "Mixtur" when he was staying with Miles Davis and Davis played them over and over again. Davis later found "Hymnen." Can't remember the original Buckmaster connection, but I think Davis heard him in England several years previously and then invited him to work on On the Corner. Buckmaster did provide some of the music for On the Corner and "Ife," though it didn't turn out the way he envisioned it. There's some Stockhausen influence in there, but Davis threw it into his musical blender with a whole lot of other things (James Brown, Sly Stone, Indian music, etc.).

Buckmaster was managed by London-based agent/producer Tony Hall, who was friendly with Davis and introduced the two of them during one of Davis' UK visits (1969 I believe, must have been that visit when he played the London Jazz Fest. and the one (filmed, now lost) night at Ronnie Scotts).

I've often wondered if, before those OTC sessions, Buckmaster played Davis his 'Chitinous' session recorded for Deram (reissued a few years ago on CD by Vocalion, now sadly sold out/OOP). The last track in particular has some of the repetitive, bass-riff driven brooding that permeates 'On The Corner'. Chitinous was released in 1971 I think.

51D7MD44NWL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

I remember seeing that Polanski 'Scottish Play' on film projector at school back in the day but of course never knew of any Buckmaster connection ! First and only time I've ever seen it.

You are right--November 1969.

Buckmaster's notes to On the Corner indicate at the time he played Miles a 30-minute piece of his called "Joint Effort," featuring guitar, cello and organ improv over a repetitive bass and drum riff. Miles quite liked it and said it was similar to some music he had just recorded, that music being Bitches Brew.

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Just listened to George Russell's Electronic Sonata (the sextet version from the sixties with Garbarek, Schoof, Chrisensen, et al), and the the Stockhausen influence is very clear there (particularly the incorporation of "world" music elements in the electronic tape music, which is VERY reminiscent of Stockhausen's Telemusik). The recent Russell biography mentions that his interest in Stockhausen came about through his work at the radio studio in Stockholm...

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  • 6 years later...

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