Pierre Henry: Polyphonies disc one

 I was deep in conversation with my friend Adam MacGregor Wednesday night. Bombici (with me) was on a bill with Microwaves (with him) at Brillobox prior to them playing some dates on the east coast. The talk between us comes fast and varied. We share various interests, musical and otherwise. I mentioned this blog, and how I'd written blog posts about the 32-CD Messiaen set I bought at the front end of the lockdown. Also, the Morricone vinyl postings I made after Ennio's death. When I told him I had bought a 12-CD collection of Pierre Henry's music, he suggested I blog about it. Yes, well, why not? 

I like it in part because of the discipline. Find a collection of recordings, listen to it all, and regularly comment on them. I've stated before this is not a serious musicological dig, just the impressions of one musician as he digs into a library. 

So, I found a 12-CD collection of Henry's music at Half Price Books. About $30 for the set. Not bad. Do you know Pierre Henry's name? He's probably eclipsed by that of his associate Pierre Schaeffer. Schaeffer coined the term, musique concrète (MC). MC has come to be known as, technology-based composition in which the sound are drawn from the real world. What I've read is that it referred to the music existing in a corporeal form, as in a disc or tape that one could hold in one's hand. Whether this is true or not, nonetheless, Schaeffer's music was based on the manipulation of natural recorded sounds.

Schaeffer was making his first works in 1948. Soon thereafter he was joined by Pierre Henry, and more traditionally trained composer/musician. There are various works credited to the two of them. It was Pierre Henry who had the much longer, more varied career and body of work though.

The box is presented in reverse-chronological order. Start with the most recent and work backwards. All of disc one is taken up by Chroniques Terriennes, or Earth Chronicles according to Google translations. The first release of this work. It's twelve "moments" of varying lengths. On the surface, there are natural sounds, instrumental sounds (prepared or at least muted piano), and some small degree of processing. 

What are his intentions with this work, I ask myself as I listen to it. I would ask that of a student if that person was to submit this to me. (Though not to worry, nobody's submitted anything at this level.) He wrote a description, but I won't rewrite it. He considers the word chronicles in a more journalistic sense. The work has some strongly improvisational elements, as he attempts to find connections between environmental sounds and his piano. 

There are recurring sounds, such as cicadas, mixed with his piano. The piece overall has an atmosphere. Things come and go, occur and reoccur, slide in and out of our perceptions. 

I don't think I consider this to be among Henry's most essential works. But, it's Pierre Henry. He achieved so much, that when he created something, you pay attention just because it's him. This is not to say you can't be critical, but you have to trust the voice of experience. 

Charles Mingus at 100

 

I have long advocated for April 22 to be designated a national holiday. It is Charles Mingus’ birthday, and this year marks the 100^th anniversary of his birth.

 

Why recognize Mingus in this way? Why not Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker?  The evasive answer is that they all deserve it too. Of course it’s absurd to even consider that a holiday would be set aside for this artist’s birthday, no matter how deserving. The more specific answer is that it’s both intuitive and personal. 

 

Mingus is to me all things American. The good and bad, the achingly beautiful and coarsely ugly. He could be tender, sweet, loving, and mercurially harsh and abusive. His own ethnic heritage was African, Asian, and European. He was the great melting pot. 

 

I believe America is a country of immense potential, often great optimism, and crushing letdowns and ugliness. Mr. Mingus isn’t as bad as the latter, but it could get bad. Jimmy Knepper once said something to Mingus that made Charles so mad, that he punched Jimmy in the face and knocked crown out. Jimmy said he lost part of his embouchure and the top octave of his range on the trombone. And yet, they worked together again later. Charles was serially unfaithful to his girlfriends and wives.

 

These things fade into the distance as the people are gone, but the work continues to thrive. His transgressions pale in comparison to, say, those of Bill Cosby. Cosby is unredemptive and irredeemable, and any positive work he may have made will always be tainted by his private behavior. Mingus’ behavior wasn’t serially criminal, and while sometimes bad, is understandable. He had reasons to be angry. And he was a hothead.

----

 

I don’t know if you can picture this, but there’s Ben Opie, aged 13 or so, in his corner room in an old farmhouse in Pleasant Valley, PA. Yes, Pleasant Valley. I had started playing clarinet in the 5^th grade (I liked how it looked) and picked up my first tenor saxophone in the 9^th. My father had a nice collection of records, which I listened to often, but had a far larger collection of 7.5” reel-to-reel tapes. This was before cassettes were commonplace. 

 

Dad taught at Louisiana State University from 1965-1970. We lived in an historic plantation house in Port Allen/West Baton Rouge. That’s a story for another time. 

 

Dad would borrow records from anyone, students and teachers alike, and dub them to those reel to reel (R2R) tapes, usually at slow speed. He could slap on a tape in his painting studio, and let it play for an hour while he worked. I had one of his old portable R2R players in my room, and would go exploring through his collection.

 

I don’t remember the order, but I discovered some great stuff in that collection of tapes: Cream, the first Led Zeppelin records, and more importantly, a tape entirely of the original Mothers of Invention.

Aside from the Mothers and Hot Rats, one tape really caught my attention. It opened with Mingus Ah Um: no song titles, just the artist and album title . That record turned me on my ear. The opening gospel cries of “Better Git It in Your Soul” sounded instantly catchy. I was drawn in. Follow that up with the dryly, sadly lyrical “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”, and I was hooked. (That one note with the two saxophones a half step apart!) Turns out, Dad had a physical copy (now in my possession) which led me to know the composition titles.

 

I consider it to be the single greatest record ever recorded. It’s a concept record before such a thing existed. Every piece is some reference to another artist or style, even in jape (“Fables of Faubus” is both my favorite work on the record, and a huge middle finger to the racist governor). So much of what I am today as a musician, comes back to the tapes of Uncle Meat and Mingus Ah Um I studied in my youth. 

----

 

I taught at CAPA High School (High School for the Creative and Performing Arts) in Pittsburgh from 1998-2008. During one of those early years, I was asked (told) to run the school jazz band for a single period (45 minutes +/-) after wind ensemble once a week. There was a hole in the schedule and it needed to be covered. This was basically an impossible task; run a dedicated ensemble for so little time each week?

 

The Charles Mingus: More Than a Fakebook had been published prior to that, and I thought, let’s just do a Mingus deep dive. The multi-part pieces translated to a big band easily. 

 

As we were digging into the repertoire, one of the trombonists asked me a question rehearsal. He was rather formal: “Mr. Opie, why does Mr. Mingus write so many wrong notes?” I had to stop for a moment to respect the question. “Maybe he isn’t writing the wrong notes,” I said, “Maybe you just haven’t heard what he’s doing yet.”

 

At the end of academic year, we played an entire Mingus program, and I insisted we do “Better Git It in Your Soul” entirely from memory. That was the Mingus way. 

 

I salute you Mr. Mingus. Despite your flaws, the world is a better place from you having been in it. I hope that those who follow me can say the same. Thank you.

 

Autobiographical ramblings

Facebook will occasionally place an old posting in your feed that is a "memory" from X years ago. One came up for me from nine years ago, something I wouldn't have remembered otherwise: "From a recent dream: I was told I have a secret name. The name does not form itself as words in the normal sense, but is closer to a musical sound, sounding something like a series of vowels. I was also told that playing the saxophone in the way that I do has been a subconscious attempt at recreating that name."

I like the poetry of that statement. I can't solely lay claim to having a dream of having a "secret name." Don't many religions, including Judaism and Catholicism, involve taking a (at least partially) new name when fully entering into the faith? It's an element of the novel Dune.

My mother, unusually (strike that, uniquely) responded via Facebook. My father has an account but only reads from it, and Mom must have access. She wrote, "You were a wonderful and mystical child, with your own language that we could not understand. You also gave us written messages that we could not decipher. You called the grandma who lived next door "Guda Guarda" and her attempts to be called Nema failed. Love, Mom."

She's told me some of this before (if not all). As a young child (between 2-5 I'd guess) she's told me I would speak in a chirping unintelligible language, and people would ask what dialect I was speaking. I don't remember hearing about the undecipherable written messages before, though I was always inclined to draw given the chance. Both of my parents being artists, there were always professional quality art supplies around. My compulsions to draw were deeper than just having good quality materials around the house, though.

Guda Guarda, or Nema, or whatever her real name, was our neighbor in West Baton Rouge/Port Allen, LA. She rented to my family the large plantation house where we lived from 1965-1970. The Sandbar Plantation House. You can look it up, it has an historical marker at the end of the driveway now. There was, no lie, an extant slave house in the back. It must have been built a short time prior to Emancipation. I was told by Dad that I was, in no uncertain terms, to never enter that building. The most I ever did was crane my neck to try to see in the window. It was dusty, dirty, and even my 5-6 year old self had enough sense to know it was dangerous. I assume it no longer exists. Some years after we left Sandbar, a hurricane blew the roof off our old house, and it needed extensive repairs. It would be hard to believe the slave house could have resisted such winds.

One of the last times I saw Guda Guarda, I was seven and in swimming trunks going to my first swimming lesson. I was running up to her house to show her, when her dog ran up to me and aggressively bit me full jaw on the ass. The doctor checked me out, I was generally fine, just some small puncture marks on my cheeks and thighs. I later spoke to Guda Guarda on the phone, who told me her dog was now "sleeping." I asked, how long? "For a very long time" she said. This confused me. Was he going to wake up years from now? I think I was ambivalent, because I didn't want this dog who attacked me unprovoked to wake up. It wasn't much longer before we packed up and moved to eastern Pennsylvania. 

As an adult, I am irreligious, non-mystical, and supposedly grounded in this world. Secular humanist. And yet I'm given pause. Do I have a secret name? Have I been searching for that name as a musician? Is it why I've been drawn to music my entire life, and more specifically to woodwinds? My mother has long commented on my innate musicality as a child. I loved to sing, and would, as she put it, learn the most complex TV commercial jingles. I still remember the Apple Jacks cereal song. When I grew older, I was far more drawn to the sound of the instruments than the voice. The instruments generally speak to me far more than any words or voice.

Perhaps my early attempts at language and writing were imitations of what I saw and heard. I was imitating writing, speaking, without getting the particular "notes" correct.

Yet, despite my atheistic ways, what if I'm wrong? What if there's something to be rediscovered? What would happen if I actually found a way to unlock my true name in my playing? Would I achieve Zen enlightenment? OR...would I unlock the hellscape beings such as in the movie Hellraiser? 

I know the latter has a lot to do with my particular taste in movies.

I think I'll take this attitude: I don't think there's a secret to be unlocked by my playing, but I will continue to try. I'll play often, play hard (I always play hard), and I'll keep searching. 

But, who was Guda Guarda? Not the actual person who lived next door, but who I perceived her to be?

Me, captured at the Bop Stop in Cleveland, searching for my secret name. 

Jerry Weber in memorium

 Damn. Damn damn damn damn damn. I'm taking to this medium again after someone else important has died recently. He wasn't the creative force of either Betty Davis or Bruce Anderson, but an important person nonetheless. 

Jerry Weber, Vinyl Man. Jerry of Jerry's Records, previously of Garbage Records and (I'm told, before my time) the Record Graveyard.

Jerry was the sort of person that gives a city its character. Every city, every town of a certain size, has at least a few. Someone you don't meet every day.

Everyone who went to Jerry's Records on at least a semi-regular basis will probably at least one or two Jerry anecdotes. I've been sharing Jerry stories on Facebook, and will repeat and add a few here. 

I found a Stefan Wolpe album on Esoteric Records there. Stefan was a pretty good mid-century academic avant-garde composer, if that sums him up correctly. When I took it to the counter, Jerry looked it over and said, "You don't see that every day. I don't know what the hell it is, but you don't see it every day!"

Jerry would tell me occasionally of the celebrity shoppers he'd had. One person was Robert Plant. Jerry: "I shoulda had him autograph his solo albums. Maybe then I coulda sold them!"

I came in one day, and Jerry told me the day before DJ Jazzy Jeff had shopped there. Jerry: "He spent $1,000 on weird stuff. Children's records, stuff like that."

Like many a good shop owner, Jerry learned his customer's tastes. He knew I liked the avant garde, independent jazz records, and the like, but bought a broad range of things. He said he had names for different types of customers. He called me a "grazer," someone who bought a little bit of everything. Once I purchased a weird primitive noise rock band album (I'd have to look up what it actually was), and he seemed a little embarrassed. He offered to buy it back from me if I didn't like it. Of course I didn't do that.

Walking into the store one day, he asked if I could identify a particular artist. He put on a 7", a kind of hollerin' blues recording. It took me a moment but I recognized it as "I'm Gonna Unmask the Batman," a Sun Ra single. It was barely playable, and he said the reverse side ("The Perfect Man") was completely unplayable. He wondered if he could get anything for it. I said, a collector might give him a couple of dollars, being an original Saturn Records issue. I didn't make an offer. The next time I saw him, he gave it to me free of charge. On the blank sleeve, he wrote: "To Ben Opie 'The Perfect Man' from Sun Jerry and his Gastro-Intestinal Fookestra". Jeez, I get choked up a little even recalling that. 

 Jerry sold his store in 2017. I was talking to Mike Prosser about Jerry a few days ago. Mike worked there, has worked for Get Hip Records, currently works at Eide's. I know him from working at Borders. Mike recounted how Jerry said, "There used to be days when I'd want to talk to this many customers [holding his hands two feet apart] and there'd be this many assholes [holding his fingers two inches apart]. Lately it's been the exact opposite." According to Mike, "That's when Jerry knew he had to get out."

Jerry continued though, running a low key store out of his Swissvale warehouse. I'd been to that location only two times. The first was when he held a classical sale on a weekend, upstairs, when he still had the Jerry's Records store. I bought some Stravinsky, as I recall. The second was after he sold his store and was running Vinyl Man's Clubhouse in the bottom floor. He was selling most stock for $5 apiece. I bought: a live Don Byas collection which included some early Thelonious Monk; Keith Jarrett's "Spirits"; and on a lark, a picture disc copy of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells." (I'm not proud.) Jerry said he still had a huge collection of classical albums upstairs, knowing my interesting in 20th century composers in general. He gave me his phone number and said he'd let me in to browse for things if I wanted. 

Well, regrets. I never did follow up on that. It wasn't so long ago, a year and a half +/-? COVID-era.

If you were a customer of Jerry's, you knew he would write with a Sharpie on the outer record covers sometimes. "Great. Buy it! -J" would be typical. "Very rare," "Rare Blue Note," "Great import," etc etc. These miniature missives seem like gold leaf cast into the wind now. I have many, and like others familiar with the Jerry's experience, they seem as vital as some of the records themselves.

Two last anecdotes. 

Jerry sat on his throne in Squirrel Hill when I came in, as he usually did. He enjoyed telling me stories. "There was this young couple that came in, musta been in their 20s. He bought a record, and I said, this is a fifty year old record. You're a young guy, you'll live at least fifty more years. So if you keep this, you'll have something 100 years old. It'll sound just as good at a hundred as it does now." I think I cynically said, "Yeah, it'll be just as scratched up then as it is now." But I love Jerry's sense of continuity. We are passing through this world, but the artifacts we make and collect live on. 

---

I shared this on Facebook. This is 100% Jerry: I walked into the store one day and he said, "Hey Ben, I gotta play something for you." He put on one of the most bizarre things I've ever heard: Clarence (Sawdust) Kelley, "Twin Singing Saws On The Sawdust Trail." Imagine a bowed saw performance, with gated reverb, playing a solo rendition of "Amazing Grace." It gave me a headache listening to it, so of course I asked him how much he wanted for it. "Oh no," he exclaimed, "this is going in Jerry's 'weird pile.'" I would have given him whatever he asked. Some months later I asked about the saw record again, and he said, "Oh that? I think I sold that months ago." 

Jerry, you jerk! I still love ya man!

Below, Ben & Jerry. 

Betty Davis in memorium

 Harrumph. Coming back to my blog because another significant person has died. 

Betty Grey Mabry Davis. Mademoiselle Mabry. Backseat Betty.

For many years I knew very little about Betty. (Come to think of it, I still don't know that much.) I'd read John Szwed's excellent biography about Miles Davis, most of which I've forgotten. Betty was Miles' second wife, responsible for updating his wardrobe and getting him to listen to Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix. Betty helped usher in the Miles Electric period. Oh, and Miles helped to get her recorded as a singer.

These things are factual but an unfair simplification for both parties. In Miles' case, something was going to shake up in his music eventually, regardless of Betty's influence. Miles was restless in that respect. He was always shifting, always probing. If you generally know his body of work but were to listen to a recording of his you hadn't heard before, there's a good chance you could pin it down to a 2-3 year period. The idea of jazz practices was stretched nearly beyond recognition with his classic Shorter/Hancock/Carter/Williams quintet. Where do you go from there? Reductionism was one way Miles went. Simpler materials, played collectively. I don't recall the exact quote, but I read one critic's comment that Bitches Brew reaffirmed jazz as a collective activity. 

As for Betty: first of all, what a startling looking woman. I find myself a bit transfixed when I see images of her. Besides the afro, well...beautiful face, doe-eyed, African and Native American and I don't know what else. In some pictures she looks like she's 3/4 legs. 

I'll write something that's been increasingly clear in recent years: this was a major artist in her own right. 

I only really listened to her music when I picked up a copy of the relatively recently issued LP, The Columbia Years 1968-69. There had been a buzz about these unearthed sessions. I was curious, and with money in my pocket one day at The Attic, I bought a copy. 

Much of it is quite good. "Politician Man" hits pretty hard in a Hendrix kind of way. Betty's a good singer, on pitch but based on these sessions, not a huge range. I thought 2/3 of the record was a solid period rock/soul statement, with the remaining 1/3 good but not amazing.

A few years ago, I met Danielle Maggio. She at the time was working on her doctoral dissertation about Betty's music. She knew Betty personally. In our conversation, I said I had bought this record and enjoyed it. She told me Betty didn't understand the fuss, these were demo tapes. 

More recently, I bought a reissue LP of Betty's first released LP. WOW. This was, as the saying goes, a horse of a different color. The Columbia sessions have some really great moments, but it's much more of its time. It is no cliche that Betty Davis was ahead of its time.

This record burns. She burns. Betty sings, coos, shouts, groans. The songs are (largely) great. They smack you in the face. They're sexually explosive years before Prince. (Controversy, indeed.) She pretty much wrote it all, sang, produced. And it doesn't sound like an extension of the 1960s. This was new and remains so.

Yes, I love this record. And I admire Betty, in ways that I can't express. This was one creative, brave, talented human.

I wanted to meet Betty, once I knew she was local to Pittsburgh. I just wanted to say, hello, I'm pleased to meet you. I wouldn't expect to talk about her music, but would have if she brought it up. I wouldn't have hit her up for a gig. I just wanted to be in her presence. A first person witness to history. 

Bruce Anderson in memorium

 Bruce Anderson died last week. Who? Bruce was the guitarist for MX-80 Sound (later just MX-80).

I had started to write a memorial blog post to him, but it went on and on and on, and was ultimately more about my pompous opinions than anything else. Better to keep it shorter. 

How do I describe Bruce's playing? Virtuosic sloppiness? That would suggest he didn't know what he was doing. I'd put him in a category with Andy Gill, guitarist for the original Gang of Four, and Marshall Allen, alto saxophone for the Sun Ra Arkestra. An action player. A very physical relationship with the instrument. 

But damn, he could burn a solo and be funky as hell. 

Personally, it takes me back forty years. I was a freshman conservatory music student at Carnegie Mellon. Okay on the musical academic side, not terrible but woefully unprepared as a saxophone performance major. 

The Ralph Records bug bit me as a senior in high school. I had most of the singles and a few records at the time. Snakefinger, The Residents' "Duck Stab." But the record I listened to over and over that freshman college year was MX-80's "Out of the Tunnel." It was unusual, noisy, energetic, and in many ways exactly the opposite of what I was studying. Was that what appealed to me? I don't know, but after repeated listenings I found it strangely comforting. I'd put it on after a hard day at school and fall into an afternoon nap.

I don't get personally grievous over the deaths of people I admire. I didn't shed tears when Ornette Coleman died. He had a good run, lived a long life, made an immense impact. 

Bruce? I was more saddened by his passing than usual. I had no idea it might happen. I haven't followed MX-80 in many years. His death reminds me of a long gone time, when his blistering solos set my hair on end, but also comforted me. 

I wish I could have told Bruce in person. So I advise anyone reading to express your appreciation to you favorite unheralded artists. They deserve it. 

This was the B side of their first Ralph Record single. I assume it was recorded at the same time as "Out of the Tunnel," but I didn't understand why it was left off. I understand it's named for Dan White. Look it up. 

Peace out. 

Another Messiaen post

It's been a number of months since I last wrote to my little audio diary and promotional blog. I made a few drafts, but never got around to finishing them. Yesterday I discovered a Messiaen work with which I was unfamiliar. Because I spent so much effort months ago listening to his music and writing my impressions, I figured I would follow up.

The story begins at the library. Ah, the library, one of my favorite places to be. It's quiet. The staff is not only usually helpful, they are sometimes enthusiastic to be of assistance when you need it (which is not often in my case, I know my way around our main branch pretty well). You can not only browse literally tons of materials, in most cases you can take them home. I usually have something that I'm hunting down, but half the enjoyment is browsing whatever else is on the stacks. One of my greatest disappointments during the pandemic lockdown has been the closing of the libraries. At one point you could order and pick things up, but what's the fun in that?

Recently I've had a particular interest in the German post-war composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann. That itself is an aside. Some months back, Duquesne University sold off its entire remaining collection of vinyl LPs to Jerry's Records. (I write "remaining" because I'm uncertain whether students and faculty had the option of picking through the collection first.) As far as I know, it's overwhelmingly classical recordings, and the majority of that is "standard practice" era (1750-1900). There are some very nice 20th century and avant garde recordings scattered throughout, which is what interests me and a few other people. My favorite buys from the collection have been some Zimmermann recordings, most significantly his opera Die Soldaten on a three-LP set. For $5, that's value.

The library reopened for browsing (with limitations) about a month ago. I'll take it! I've been checking out Zimmermann scores recently. When looking for the score of his ballet Présence, I noticed a Messiaen score with an unfamiliar name, Chant Des Déportés. Having listened to over 32 hours of Messiaen's music during the initial lockdown and not recognizing this title, I had to check it out. 

It's a work that was once considered to be lost in the Radio France archives. It was performed once in 1945 to mark the end of the war, filed away, to be rediscovered before the composer's death in 1992. 

When you consider the work, it's not surprising that it's not performed more often (apart from being considered lost at one time). It calls for a reasonably sizable orchestra (woodwinds, brass, percussion, glockenspiel, piano, "many" strings) plus a sizable choir of sopranos and tenors only. For all those numbers, Chants takes under 3.5 minutes to perform. You could fit it on one side of a 45rpm 7" single.

I'm not big on analysis. That is to say, I'll examine scores and look for basic elements: form, structures, densities, particular harmonies, and so forth. But I'm not looking to understand the significance of the two tetrachords in measure six, etc. However, looking at this score, I had a pretty immediate reaction to its relative simplicity of materials, despite its density.

There are three basic elements of the piece:

• The melody. It's sung by the chorus, sopranos and tenors singing entirely in octaves, generally simple rhythms and longer note values. This is doubled and harmonized in the strings and brass, with tuba and basses playing only on the longer notes.
• The glockenspiel plays a constant eighth note triplet line, everyone of which is a three-note chord, until the last note. This is reinforced in the flutes and oboes, with occasional rests along the way for breathing. 
• The piano is the center of the third element. It has a rhythmic cell, displaced by an eighth note between the left and right hands, longer note values but all based on 16th note lengths (no triplets). This is doubled in the clarinets, bassoons, and percussion. 

The piece has the melody out front, but the other elements add a general level of density that underscores the piece. Also, it's entirely in 4/4 time, no tempo changes, and scored as being in B flat major.

Two notes in, there's no question that it's Messiaen. A few more notes, and there's little question that it's period Messiaen, 1940s, when he's in his prime. 

What's curious is the work's brevity. I'm sure it was written pretty quickly. It bursts out, no preparation, no build, it's just there, stays basically at a single dynamic level its length, and before you know it, it's done. It sounds like the concluding section of a much longer movement. 

Here's a video with not only a performance, but some additional background information: