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Circle


mjzee

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Can we get Circle back together?  Braxton, Corea, Holland and Altschul are all still alive.  Can Corea still play "out"?  Do these guys even talk?  I mean, Cream could reform, why not Circle???

(Yes, I understand that the participants on this board have no real power to effect this reunion; it's a mode of speech.)

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3 minutes ago, Guy Berger said:

Don’t you guys feel like the Holland album with Evan Parker, Craig Taborn & Ches Smith was also a nod to Circle’s music.

and Holland's early years in general...he's played with Evan Parker before.

I have a feeling Braxton and Corea don't mix.

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14 hours ago, 7/4 said:

and Holland's early years in general...he's played with Evan Parker before.

I have a feeling Braxton and Corea don't mix.

Possible something happened more recently to create antipathy, but worth noting that they have recorded together post-Circle breakup at least 1 time (1980).

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Why must there be antipathy or anything? They just don't look at music the same way these days, which has nothing to do with liking or not liking the other guy. If anything, such esthetic differences can strengthen personal bonds over times, if the bonds are at root real and not just temporal devices of commercial convenience.

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On 9/8/2019 at 9:25 AM, JSngry said:

Why must there be antipathy or anything? They just don't look at music the same way these days, which has nothing to do with liking or not liking the other guy. If anything, such esthetic differences can strengthen personal bonds over times, if the bonds are at root real and not just temporal devices of commercial convenience.

I probably read the phrase "Braxton and Corea don't mix" too strongly...

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Is there any film footage of Circle? There's the stuff of Braxton at Woodstock, NY, in 1981 with Chick, Miroslav, Jack etc., but I've never seen stuff from 1970-71.

Coda: As to the earlier inquiry about whether Chick can still play "out," the answer is of course he can. Whether he would want to play with Braxton (and vice versa) is a separate question and whether those guys playing together would produce music of quality and expression in 2019 is yet another question, though the only way to know for sure would be to actually hear it.

Edited by Mark Stryker
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21 minutes ago, Mark Stryker said:

Coda: As to the earlier inquiry about whether Chick can still play "out," the answer is of course he can.

And as a coda to that coda, I suppose it's a fair question to ask what that really means, "play out"...out/outside of what, exactly? Seems like he was always inside whatever spaces he was in, at least with Circle (and there's a few things on the first Piano Improvisations records that are might seem "out" but are actually astounding specific). What's "out" for a listener usually/often  is quite "in" to the players doing it. Sometimes it's the listener who is outside, not the music!

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11 minutes ago, JSngry said:

And as a coda to that coda, I suppose it's a fair question to ask what that really means, "play out"...out/outside of what, exactly? Seems like he was always inside whatever spaces he was in, at least with Circle (and there's a few things on the first Piano Improvisations records that are might seem "out" but are actually astounding specific). What's "out" for a listener usually/often  is quite "in" to the players doing it. Sometimes it's the listener who is outside, not the music!

Well, yes. "Out" and "free" are  vague terms. At the highest level "bebop" is too I suppose ... But in this case, I think we're talking about music outside of standard conventions of harmony, form, melody, texture. Chick still does that on occasion. Also true that any musician making music of quality is operating from a point of working "inside" of something, even that if that something is "outside" of standard conventions. Which is not to say that there aren't "conventions" within outside or free music. 

But back to Chick, that motherfucker can play anything, and he can play from nothing if he wants to. But of course, like anyone, he brings his entire history to the table when he plays, whether he's playing "from nothing" or a b-flat blues.

Edited by Mark Stryker
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Just now, Mark Stryker said:

...music outside of standard conventions of harmony, form, melody, texture...

Those "conventions" have evolved quite a bit in the last 100 years, haven't they? I mean, is there anything genuinely un-conventional left to do with purely acoustic music these days? I think the conventions are all there, it's now a question of who is familiar with them, who's not, and to what degree.

My point is that I've grown a bit weary of people talking about "out" and shit in reference to musics and practices therein that have been much more well-documented than they have been engaged. The only "out" that is realistically available is out as in away from, everything else is either stationary or toward/in. And the math there predicts that gravity will do its thing one way or the other.

If there's anything not yet done, I'm wagering that it is doing with organization, not source materials and applied maths therein/of.

"Out"...it's not there anymore. It's here. Now. Can't be surprised by that!

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Basic point, I guess, is that even if this quartet reunited and hit on all cylinders, there wouldn't be anything "out" about it unless everybody involved just hopped out of their lives up to this point and went someplace they had never been before, implicit or explicit, individually and collectively.

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51 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Basic point, I guess, is that even if this quartet reunited and hit on all cylinders, there wouldn't be anything "out" about it unless everybody involved just hopped out of their lives up to this point and went someplace they had never been before, implicit or explicit, individually and collectively.

I don't disagree.

However, just to circle back (pun intended) to what I presume to be the implication of  MJZEE's opening volley and question: "Can Chick still play out?" -- by which I think he meant:, Can Chick engage meaningfully with Braxton in a musical language akin to Circle's original aesthetic as opposed to all the other musical languages that Chick has been associated with in the last 49 years, the answer is: "yes."  

Coda: Now, taking into acount the rest of our discussion, it would be equally valid to ask whether Braxton can still play "out"?

Edited by Mark Stryker
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