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Anthony Braxton Plays Standards for Lovers


Teasing the Korean

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Here is a fun activity:

Open up two InterWebz tabs and go to YouTube on both of them.

On one, open up an Anthony Braxton solo album.  (I go for the 1979 solo alto improvisations.)

On the other tab, open up any one of many ubiquitous, polite Music Minus One jazz soloist tracks.

Play them together and adjust the volume of each accordingly.  

The results are sometimes hilarious, but also, things eerily match up from time to time.  

It is pretty funny when he keeps playing after the tune ends.  

Have fun, and you're welcome!

Edited by Teasing the Korean
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1 hour ago, Teasing the Korean said:

The results are sometimes hilarious, but also, things eerily match up from time to time. 

Well of course they do. There are no notes or combinations of notes that don't go together, there's only contexts that make them seem like they don't (or do). And even then, the meaningfulness of the contexts mean nothing apart from one's perceptions of them.

Try watching a NASCAR race and a WNBA game superimposed on top of each other, and then tell me if you do or do not feel like LeRoy Neiman, at least a little bit.

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8 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Well of course they do. There are no notes or combinations of notes that don't go together, there's only contexts that make them seem like they don't (or do). And even then, the meaningfulness of the contexts mean nothing apart from one's perceptions of them.

I was really struck by how perfectly certain things lined up.  If I had hit the play button on one or the other a second earlier or later, it wouldn't have happened that way, but another fortuitous combination would have occurred.

I'm a Grand Prix guy, not Nascar.  Gran Prix is all about European elegance, champagne, Anouk Aimee, bossa, and Steve McQueen. 

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7 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Here is a fun activity:

Open up two InterWebz tabs and go to YouTube on both of them.

On one, open up an Anthony Braxton solo album.  (I go for the 1979 solo alto improvisations.)

On the other tab, open up any one of many ubiquitous, polite Music Minus One jazz soloist tracks.

Play them together and adjust the volume of each accordingly.  

The results are sometimes hilarious, but also, things eerily match up from time to time.  

It is pretty funny when he keeps playing after the tune ends.  

Have fun, and you're welcome!

brilliant! 

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It sounds like what Ron Rubin said when Mike Taylor wouldn't give him the changes to a tune they were recording, and told RR to play bass notes as far away from the right changes as possible. When no critics were able to recognize this in their reviews of the record, Rubin called it "The Jackson Bollocks Syndrome".

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9 minutes ago, sgcim said:

It sounds like what Ron Rubin said when Mike Taylor wouldn't give him the changes to a tune they were recording, and told RR to play bass notes as far away from the right changes as possible. When no critics were able to recognize this in their reviews of the record, Rubin called it "The Jackson Bollocks Syndrome".

Well..."as far away as possible" is (mathematically) a trtione, and I know you know how logical all that ends up being, right?

But now I gotta ask - how would the dude know what to play as far away as possible from if he didn't have the changes to begin with? As far away as possible from what?

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5 hours ago, JSngry said:

Well..."as far away as possible" is (mathematically) a trtione, and I know you know how logical all that ends up being, right?

But now I gotta ask - how would the dude know what to play as far away as possible from if he didn't have the changes to begin with? As far away as possible from what?

"End of a Love Affair". Mike told him, "I want you to play as far away from the standard chords as you can". Ron goes on to say, 'Which I did-random notes, and flying all over the instrument. Among the mostly glowing reviews, not one critic said anything about the dodgy bass lines or harmonies. Is there no such thing as a mistake? I call this the Jackson Bollocks syndrome."  [Extract from diary read during interview with Ron Rubin, October 2007]

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7 hours ago, sgcim said:

"End of a Love Affair". Mike told him, "I want you to play as far away from the standard chords as you can". Ron goes on to say, 'Which I did-random notes, and flying all over the instrument. Among the mostly glowing reviews, not one critic said anything about the dodgy bass lines or harmonies. Is there no such thing as a mistake? I call this the Jackson Bollocks syndrome."  [Extract from diary read during interview with Ron Rubin, October 2007]

I'd think he would already know the changes to that one, so why did Mike Taylor refuse/wouldn't give him the changes? Why not just call the tune and then tell him to play as far away etc...which, btw seems to me to be a different directive than to avoid the changes altogether?

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7 hours ago, David Ayers said:

That’s how I used to find those Jamie Aebersold LPs. It was like those guys had NO IDEA what I was playing. 

On the early ones, it was because they were actually playing along with Jamey himself. So...think like Jamey if you want a love connection.

I heard stories that on the Woody Shaw play-along, they were actually playing along with Woody himself. Never seen that confirmed, though, and even if true, no indication that Wood was being recorded while playing. But that's one of the better Aebersolds to play along to, imo.

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5 hours ago, JSngry said:

I'd think he would already know the changes to that one, so why did Mike Taylor refuse/wouldn't give him the changes? Why not just call the tune and then tell him to play as far away etc...which, btw seems to me to be a different directive than to avoid the changes altogether?

He didn't know the changes.

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Wow. So he was asked to play as far away as possible from something that he didn't know where it was.

And then he did not find what he was not looking for, two negatives cancel each other out and become a positive, which he then blames on critics rather than process, but he's happy enough to be able to complain that he has a name for it at the ready.

I am amused, entertained, and enlightened without once hearing the music, and in fact feel that hearing it would be besides the point now that the meaning has all been extracted from the experience.

Highly conceptual! My kudos to all involved, not the least of which is the data conveyor (you), without whom none of this would have been possible.

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6 hours ago, JSngry said:

Wow. So he was asked to play as far away as possible from something that he didn't know where it was.

And then he did not find what he was not looking for, two negatives cancel each other out and become a positive, which he then blames on critics rather than process, but he's happy enough to be able to complain that he has a name for it at the ready.

I am amused, entertained, and enlightened without once hearing the music, and in fact feel that hearing it would be besides the point now that the meaning has all been extracted from the experience.

Highly conceptual! My kudos to all involved, not the least of which is the data conveyor (you), without whom none of this would have been possible.

I think it's pretty obvious that he purposely played out of the key, which Taylor had to give him. He just wasn't given a sheet.

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On 9/16/2019 at 3:46 PM, sgcim said:

It sounds like what Ron Rubin said when Mike Taylor wouldn't give him the changes to a tune they were recording, and told RR to play bass notes as far away from the right changes as possible. When no critics were able to recognize this in their reviews of the record, Rubin called it "The Jackson Bollocks Syndrome".

This anecdote about two musicians I have never heard of CHANGES EVERYTHING

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