Anthony Braxton Quartet (Dortmund) 1976

For all of the amazing music, the prolific and profound Anthony Braxton has created for more than a half-century, it is hard to find any endeavor of his that was more exciting and accomplished as the quartet that lasted just a half of a year in 1976. Featuring the remarkable rhythm section of Dave Holland on bass and Barry Altschul on drums and percussion, with the leader playing his usual array of horns (alto, contrabass, and sopranino saxes, and Eb, contrabass and standard clarinet), the additional element that powered this ensemble was the introduction of the amazing George Lewis on trombone.

This Hat Hut release is from the inaugural Dortmund Jazz Festival held in Germany on Halloween and the group, which disbanded after a show in Berlin several days later, plays at a peak of precision, passion (not something usually associated with Braxton by critics), power and, fun (also not highlighted in reviews).  It helps that the group plays three versions of Composition 40, one of the most common pieces that Braxton played, and that the opener with version F is, through a Holland solo, transitioned to Composition 23J, another oft-performed work. The combined pieces take us on a stunning 26-minute journey, with a mind-blowing solo by Braxton that generates a burst of enthusisastic applause, with Lewis offering his own masterful solo after that!

Composition 40 (O) follows with some remarkable sounds, like birdcalls from Altschul and a panoply of "honks, grunts, quacks and howls" from Lewis and Braxton, "with Dave Holland tight on their tails," as expressed by Graham Lock in his thorough and enormously helpful notes.  Then there is Composition 6(C) which Braxton indicated "was composed to be a circus march type of music," though by the Dortmund concert "has provided an ideal vehicle for 'collage' improvisation."  This, Lock explains, means "a parade-ground melee" with the horns tossing off "marching riffs in glorious profusion."  Finally, there is Composition 40(B) which, Braxton observed, "was composed with respect to the implications" of such jazz giants as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Lennie Tristano, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy— but with Braxton's unique perspective.

It must be said that, complicated as Braxton's concepts can be, Lock does as a good a job as can be expected at explaining what's behind this whirlwind's approaches.  As complex as Braxton's work is, and it can be daunting, suspending preconceptions of what jazz is supposed to be, much less other forms of music, and just letting him and his compatriots take you on their wild and wonderful journey can be highly rewarding.

Anthony Braxton Live

With only fourteen posts last year and none so far this year, due mainly to less available time, the format here is switching to fewer words, but still promoting and highlighting inspiring music that others may enjoy.  So, we'll see how this goes.

This live recording from a 1970s stint on Bluebird Records, an imprint of the major Arista label, and produced by Michael Cuscuna with Steve Backer as executive producer, is a phenomenal effort.

It hightlights some of Braxton's finest early compositions, including combinations (Braxton often does this--mingles elements of compositions) of numbers 6, 23 and 40, performed by his quartet at the Montreux Jazz Festival in July 1975 and at the Berlin Jazz Days festival in September 1976.  The tour de force rhythm section at both concerts are the formidable Dave Holland on bass and Barry Altschul on drums.  Trumpeter Kenny Wheeler is the other horn player at Montreux with trombonist George Lewis at Berlin.  Braxton wields his alto, as well as soprano, clarinet and contrabass clarinet at both shows and the flute at the latter.

As Cuscuna observed in his brief liners, Braxton, Holland and Altschul were part of the brilliant, though short-lived group Circle, led by Chick Corea, and then Wheeler joined with the other three for some recordings in 1971 and future dates over the following years.  Montreux was a highlight of the band before it disbanded because, Cuscuna says, Braxton was looking for a change.

For his amazing Creative Orchestra Music from 1976, Braxton brought in Lewis and resulting performances constituted, for Cuscuna, pure magic including the last piece on this disc, which the producer reckoned  as "one of the pinnacles of collective jazz playing."

This disc is full of fantastic ensemble and solo work, as well as some of Braxton's most interesting compositions.  He's had a long career filled with many highlights, but these live performances are among the greatest this admirer has heard.

David Holland Quartet: Conference of the Birds

Master bassist Dave Holland has had a remarkable career, starting in England and flowering when he was recruited to play with Miles Davis in 1969.  His speed, power, flexibility and tremendous sense of time made him one of the greatest bass players of his era.

He has had, however, relatively few dates as a leader, but his 1973 (recorded late 1972) ECM album Conference of the Birds is an exceptional recording and a true classic of experimental jazz that has the rare virtue of employing two of the giants of modern saxophone: Anthony Braxton and Sam Rivers.  Any fan of these two knows this was the sole recorded meeting of these venerable figures and they make the most of it, thanks to the stellar rhythmic support of Holland and drummer Barry Altschul.

Holland very simply explains that the title came about because of a regular "conference" of birds singing in his apartment's garden early in the mornings and the spirit of these performances were to be shared with other musicians and people broadly.

The opening tracks "Four Winds" has a nice, memorable melody and then the quartet takes off with a tight and telepathic performance that features an angular and elliptical solo by Rivers, whose sense of timing in working with the deep grooves established by Holland and the precise timekeeping of Altschul is really something to behold.

Rivers may have been seen as "far out" in the "free jazz" sense, but he also was masterful in working with rhythm sections in his playing, as aptly demonstrated here.  Braxton joins in toward the end, the two rephrase the theme, and then Braxton works his way with some melodic expression before taking off into the stratosphere, taking Holland and Altschul with him in some very powerful moments.

Braxton's playing has been depicted as cold, intellectual, and forbidding, but with Holland and Altschul hewing to a steady groove, his playing meshes well, just in a very different way than that of Rivers.  Towards the end, Rivers jumps back in for some spirited back-and-forth with Braxton and the theme is restated to close out a staggering display of performance.

After that blazing opening, "Q & A" starts off more quietly, but with a particularly inspired choice in having Altschul demonstrate a broad tonal range of percussion.  He's been accused of being too busy and showy, but this is an excellent example of how a great drummer utilizes the full resources of a kit.  The horns enter with Rivers on flute and Braxton on clarinet and the combination works really well in the context of the call-and-response format the title indicates.  Holland goes arco in some of his playing, as well, moving the piece into more of an atmospheric evocation of sound, but the piece never meanders unnecessarily, partially because that rhythm section keeps the proceedings well grounded.

Holland takes a solo turn on the title track and, invariably, many people shudder at the thought of listening through another interminable bass solo.  Holland, however, keeps it short and then gets into a nice strumming groove with the melodic statements offered by Braxton and Rivers on clarinet and flute.  Altschul mainly keeps things simple on cymbals for color.   The overall effect is a beautiful and classic piece.

"Interception" moves things back into speedy territory, much like "Four Winds" and Rivers takes the first solo, followed by Holland's strong and nimble solo.  After a restatement of the theme, in comes Braxton for his distinctive voice as he utilizes a variety of resources, including overblowing, long sinuous runs and voice-like statements in his amazing work before the ensemble returns to the theme and closes out with an Altschul solo.

"Now Here (Nowhere)" begins with a subdued intro and interplay between the horns and bass with some percussive effects and is another example of emotion, economy and interplay that shows that "free jazz" can also be highly melodic, atmospheric and imaginative.

The closer is "See Saw" and Rivers begins again, with his solo another example of how well he integrates with the bass and drums--just a gorgeously executed performance from a greatly-underappreciated master.  A brief evocation of the theme then leads to Braxton and it is another broad expression and a roaring solo at that.  When Rivers joins back for the end, there's a sense that this remarkable recording, being the only meeting between these two giants and supported and promoted by a sterling rhythm section, is a truly rare example of how experimental jazz is at its most successful.

Holland may also be somewhat underappreciated, if not for his playing, then at least for his ability to compose excellent material and then recruit some of the finest musicians in jazz to execute a stellar album.  Conference of the Birds is a summit of selfless musicians at their best and ECM, a new label at the time primarily formed to record Keith Jarrett deserves all praise for recording it.

Sam Rivers: Trio Live

It was almost a year ago, at the end of 2011, that the underrecognized Sam Rivers died at the age of 88.  A multi-instrumentalist, who played tenor and soprano saxopones, flute and piano, Rivers came up in the jazz ranks in Boston, but remained a little-known figure elsewhere until his former sideman, the teenage drum phenom Tony Williams, recruited him to join the Miles Davis Quintet in 1964, when Rivers was already 40.

While Rivers' tenure with Davis was short, because his playing just was too free for the leader's tastes, it is definitely worth hearing the long-delayed release Miles in Tokyo, which demonstrates just how inventive and distinctive Rivers' sound was.

After that brief period with Davis, though, Rivers was signed to Blue Note Records and delivered some interesting, if not particularly high selling, albums during the mid-1960s.  After another period of obscurity, the Impulse! label signed him in 1973 and a couple of fascinating live albums were released, including Streams, which was this blogger's introduction to this amazing performer some twenty years ago.

However, the Trio Live album, while somewhat similar in structure of the group and arrangement of the pieces, is just a bit better.

The first three pieces, a suite called "Hues of Melanin," present 44 minutes of perfomance at Yale University in November 1973 and teamed Rivers with the supple and creative Cecil McBee on bass and the polyrhythmic and vigorous drumming of Barry Altschul.  McBee was also outstanding on Streams, which also featured future disco-era hit maker Norman Connors on the traps.  While some suggest that Connors was not suited for Rivers' style, and this may be true, Altschul did seems a better fit.

The rhythm section does do a great job creating an accompaniment that holds up to Rivers' prodigious playing.  It's one thing to be a master of a chosen instrument, but Rivers was spectacular on three.  His tenor playing was truly his own, not sounding like any of the masters before him, and his navigation from the lower to the higher ranges is impeccable, though on Trio Live, he only played this instrument on one five-plus minute section of this concert.  

In the 34-minute first section, he plays expansive on both soprano sax and flute and, on the former, he displays a stamina, clarity and expressiveness that would give such better-known masters as Steve Lacy and John Coltrane a run for their money.  His flute playing is also excellent and it is on this instrument that he tended, in these extremely free trio performances (the only type, he said, where he felt he could be truly free) to engage in a stream-of-consciousness series of yelps, screams, and other forms of vocalizing that might turn some listeners off, though it strikes this listener as a joyful reaction to the freedom he and his bandmates were enjoying.

While there is no comparing him to any of the greats, his piano section, comprising just over four minutes, finds him playing quite well, with flowing, graceful lines that cascade and flow easily and attractively.

The last two pieces are called "Suite for Molde" and take in just under 20 minutes of a show at the Molde Jazz Festival in Norway in August 1973 with Arild Anderson playing bass.  Anderson plays well and works smoothly with Rivers and Altschul, with his bowed work on the second part meshing nicely with that of Rivers, though he doesn't have the strength and elasticity of McBee (but, then, few bassists did.)  This work has over half the time, denoted as part two, devoted to Rivers playing tenor and he is simply awesome here, ranging rapidly and mightily on this highly expressive and emotive instrument. 

But, Rivers' work on the first part with the subtitle "Onyx" used for the soprano sax portion and "Topaz" for the flute section.  It would be interesting to know just what the bandleader felt distinguished each by the names of the precious metals, while perhaps the denotation of "Ivory Black" for the piano section of "Hues for Melanin" seems obvious, while the term "Violet" for the tenor portion of that Yale performance might reflect something visceral and striking?

Those terms would aptly describe the entire recording and it is interesting to read Rivers' comments from the original 1978 liner notes:  "You can come out here and be an intuitive musician and be really happening, but your dreams and visions won't last forever.  If you don't get into the books and get this technical thing together while your intuitive things is happening, it's over."

This could be interpreted to mean that the spiritual vibe that animated much free jazz in the 1960s and early 1970s was driven more by the former quality, which has its virtues, but that the technical ability developed through much hard work and practice can take that intuitiveness and give it something more solid and substantial.  Conversely, technical talent alone, with the emotive power of intuitive improvisation, can come across as cold.  This might be an apt way to distinguish craftsmanship (technics) with artistry (intuitiveness), provided that the exceptional artist has both.

That, the great Sam Rivers had in overflowing abundance on these performances.