CDOTD 03/17/2025

 Africa Express Presents...Terry Riley's In C  Mali (Transgressive)

Purchased used at The Government Center

NPR's Weekend Edition just did a story on Steve Reich, celebrating the 27-disc retrospective boxset of his works. (My wife: "You don't need to buy that.") In the it was mentioned that Reich, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass were all friends. Yes, I suppose that was true at one time, but I'm doubtful about current circumstances. Reich indeed played on the premiere of In C in 1964; Glass and Reich both played in one another's ensembles, if briefly. When Glass came to the music school at CMU a few years back (pre-COVID), someone asked him about being being lumped together with other composers under the "Minimalism" banner. He said what was interesting was how different his music and that of Louis Andriessen, Fred Rzewski, and John Adams all were. Not even a hint of a mention of Steve Reich. 

In C is the work credited with starting, or at least jumpstarting, the so-called Minimalist movement. As with most things, the reality is more complicated. Its 1968 LP release on CBS Records gives it special merit for bringing this style of pulsing, modal music to the public.

(From here on, I'll dispense with the descriptor "so-called" and use the word Minimalism for the convenience. What else to call this inclusive music? New Modalism?)

Part of Reich's development as a young composer had to do with traveling to study in Ghana. Glass in part developed his Minimalist style in part after working on a film soundtrack, transcribing and arranging Ravi Shankar's works. Riley also had a deep interest in Indian music in particular, if I'm not mistake. The non-Western roots of these composers' music run deep. Reich most directly connected what he does to Africa, but surely African music relates directly and indirectly to all of these composers' music. (Keeping in mind, Africa is an entire continent and not a single cultural force or entity.) The modes, the repetition, the interlocking patterns, there are deep correlations if not connections.

So then, In C, in Mali, certainly makes perfect sense. The original score is very easy to find, it's printed inside the cover of the original LP. What this recording is not is a traditional reading of the composition. It starts very much in character with other versions, a regular pulse with the first phrase/melodic cell introduced over it. It becomes clear pretty quickly that it's not going to be a traditional through-reading of the work though. There are brief improvised solos by some players for example. The density of the ensemble play waxes and wanes multiple times through the recording, not always with the insistent C pulse assigned in the original. Sometimes I hear other melody cells turn up, sometimes I'm not so certain. There's even a brief narration in the latter portion of the album, layered on top of the music.

I guess the question is, is it actually In C? It is and it isn't, I suppose. If you went into this expecting a more straight-forward reading of the work on African instruments (as I did), you're going to get something different. But if the nature of In C is semi-improvisational, is this just as much a reading of the piece as anything else? If this version only briefly quotes the original and intermittently, is calling it by the original Terry Riley title as much as selling point as an interpretation of the work?

I did enjoy the recording, but I think there might be an element of truth to that: that the realization in this case isn't directly In C but more "based on" or "impressions of". I mean, the CD was cheap but I noticed it and bought the thing, so as a selling point it was effective. But where do Terry Riley's intentions as a composer end and something new begin?

CDOTD 03/10/2025

 Tristan Perich: Open Symmetry (Erased Tapes)

Purchased used at The Government Center

I played a gig for Manny Theiner last night. Improvised saxophone duet preceding Microwaves and The Flying Luttenbachers. Not for the first time, I wound up spending more on CDs and vinyl than I made on the gig. It's true that the pay wasn't amazing, but considering the size of the show I was satisfied making any money at all.

This disc caught my eye, not knowing a thing about it. The description caught me: Open Symmetry for 3 vibraphones and 20-channel 1-bit electronics. And at $5, that's a price point where I'm willing to take a chance.

The 1-bit electronics is an interesting selling point. 1-bit just means there are exactly two levels of amplitude: 100% and 0%. On or off. 

What would it be? Phasing and difference patterns as in Alvin Lucier? Driving minimalism more similar to Reich and Glass? Intentionally or not, the title evokes Feldman's Crippled Symmetry, though with the electronics component I didn't anticipate this to be Feldmanesque. 

The work comes closest to the Reich/Glass side of things. The mallets evoke Reich, the electronics recall Glass' use of Farfisa organs. The piece is tightly composed, so the word "open" in the title might be somewhat misinterpreted. It possibly means there isn't such an adamant pursuit of patterns such as the phasing in Reich's pieces. It does fall into a general category of, I don't know, New Modalism? opened up by those composers and Terry Riley.

I've been meaning to find more newer works and recordings, this being released last year. I realized I've encountered the composer's works before without really knowing who he is. In the Cleveland Museum of Art, I noticed on previous visits they were carrying self-contained electronic compositions playback systems, housed in a CD case. I know now that it's Perich, his 1-Bit Symphony. (I've just been to that same gift shop, and didn't see them carried there any longer.)

There's a comment I make about some of the listening assignments in my college courses, most notably Iannis Xenakis' Concret PH. The work was first presented in the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 World's Fair, a building Xenakis himself designed. We can listen and appreciate (or not) the piece as a standalone work, but we'll never experience the work in its original presentation. So to this piece: it's perfectly fine to listen to this CD (also on vinyl, but maybe the CD is a better format in this case). The stage photo shows the three vibraphonists with ten pairs of speakers behind them. It must have been an immersive experience in a concert hall. 

I understand that it's an easy out to compare this to Reich or Glass (there is a chordal shift in the final section that definitely recalls the latter), but there probably isn't much getting around that comparison either. And who's to say there isn't room for more composers to explore these general ideas? I wouldn't mistake Perich's composition for those other two guys, just that they're in the same general territory. If anything, it's refreshing to know someone is exploring the more severe side of so-called Minimalism with gusto.

Recent viewing

Becoming Led Zeppelin

Viewed at the Manor Theater, Squirrel Hill

At one time I regularly read biographies, and occasionally still do. All but a few have been musician bios: Sun Ra, Miles Davis (both by John Szwed, both excellent), Billy Strayhorn, Spike Jones, Charles Mingus, John Cage (The Roaring Silence, not recommended), Thelonious Monk (two! one very good, one not), Frank Zappa, Iannis Xenakis, others I'm probably not recalling. 

I made an observation, or perhaps a realization, while reading the Xenakis book. When covering these creative people, the author begins from a perspective of being in the artist's corner. That is, even if there are criticisms or mention of negative behavior on the part of the subject, the author starts from the viewpoint of being a fan. A possible exception seems to have been John Baxter's biography about JG Ballard, The Inner Man. Baxter seemed lukewarm towards some of Ballard's novels, particularly those generally accepted as being among his best (High Rise, for example). The book is often informative but highly incomplete, mentioning Ballard's estrangement from his son only in passing in the final chapters.

Otherwise, each of the book subjects mentioned above was treated with at least some reverence by their biographers. But then, it's not as though the subject was Hitler or Stalin.

I had been thinking about several relatively recent musical biopics, if you can call them both that word: Theory of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents (2015) Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary (2016) and Zappa (2020). A comment I've made previously concerning Theory of Obscurity was that I thought it only briefly rose above being a fan piece and celebration of The Residents. Likewise, Zappa was entirely a celebration of Frank without directly touching on the many reasons he can be criticized. Those two films in particular were rich in footage I hadn't seen before, but I felt like important things had been left out. 

Before seeing Becoming Led Zeppelin, I a review on rogerebert.com including this passage:

"But before we absolutely abandon the realm of gossip/dirt/legend, we should say that “Becoming Led Zeppelin” wouldn’t truck in any of that stuff in the first place because to make a documentary about Zep, you need Zep’s music, and to get Zep’s music you need Zep’s approval. So what we’ve got here is the only kind of documentary you can make about Zep and its music: an authorized one. This picture was made with the full cooperation and—to judge from the interview clips—enthusiastic participation of the group’s surviving members."

I thought, yeah, okay, maybe I've been dense about this. Have I been expecting too much? Is it necessary to dig up the dirt under these circumstances? Can these films simply be a celebration of what makes these artists great, and not go digging for something negative?

Becoming Led Zeppelin does several things right. The first of which is that the only interview subjects are the three surviving members, with pieces of an audio taped interview with John Bonham. There isn't an endless succession of talking heads saying how great LZ was. That was an issue I took with Chasing Train; I simply don't care what Bill Clinton or Kamasi Washington have to say about Coltrane. Likewise for the more recent Ennio. I really don't care what the bassist for The Clash has to say about Morricone, especially within the framework of a 2.5 hour film. At least I Called Him Morgan, about Lee Morgan, stuck with people who knew and worked with him (and his wife) directly. Unlike the latter film, there are no staged elements; all filmed segments are either new interviews or historic footage.

Another element that happens briefly twice in the film: isolating individual instruments to hear how every player contributed. I suppose that could have gotten tired if done too many times, but I found this interesting. Show us what made each part important, each musician essential. I still say, more!

There are two substantial live performances from television: one from their first tour (pre-LP) playing "How Many More Times". What becomes clear is that they don't look like a band playing to the crowd. They're positioned pretty tight on stage, and it's a loose performance in the best possible way. I've always found Robert Plant my least favorite element of LZ, but I have been reminded by more than one friend that nobody else could have done what he did. I have to begrudgingly agree. A point made during the narrative was that he was an improvisor, he was mixing it up with bands unlike other singers. Another point, pro-Plant. 

A second clip, one I hadn't see before, features them playing "Dazed and Confused" after the first LP's release, on the road and recording the second. It's clear there's been editing for time. Again, they're even looser, more limber, and relatively close on stage playing like a unit. 

Less positive? Seeing what look like home movies of them performing, with studio recordings dubbed in to look like they're playing it live. It's nice to see visually some of the energy, but I don't like the suggestion that it's what they sounded like. Do I have a different cinematic solution? I do not! I know, it's easy to complain and not offer constructive alternatives, but I'm not a filmmaker.

Two things were mentioned in passing that, in a more complete story of the band, deserved elaboration. There was a passing mention of the availability of drugs and women during even that first tour. LZ's backstage debauchery on later tours was legendary. I'm sure it didn't reach those levels at this time, but it was a very small hint as to what things were like backstage.

More interesting to me was a quick mention Robert Plant made of basically throwing in some Willie Dixon lines when coming up with lyrics for "Whole Lotta Love". This is the sort of thing that would become a point of litigation for the band for decades to come. 

On the one hand, LZ was at its heart a mutant blues band, or at least began deeply rooted in blues playing. The blues was very much an oral tradition, with songs and lyrics passing from one person to another, often before any sort of documentation would happen. Leadbelly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" would eventually morph into the Bluegrass rendition, "In The Pines". Similar songs but not identical. Did Leadbelly base his song on some other traditional piece? I don't know. These pieces, these bits of lyrics, passed from one person to another, that was part of the nature of blues practice.

When I did a recent performance about Sonny Clark, I took some time to talk about ownership. Specifically, regarding Thelonious Monk and "Rhythm-a-ning". The essential phrase that opens that melody is known to have been a sort of stock riff that many people would have known at the time (or so I've been told). To what degree does he deserve credit? I don't have a firm answer to that question.

The fact remains, fully admitted by Plant, that he copped some Willie Dixon lyrics when creating that song. Dixon is now given co-credit, but "Whole Lotta Love" is not a Willie Dixon song and LZ didn't wholesale steal it. I suppose he deserves co-credit, but I have to ask if Dixon himself picked up those lines from someone else? 

All that said, I consider the lawsuit on the part of the heirs of the band Spirit again "Stairway to Heaven" to be total bullshit.

So, working under the assumption that my opinion means much of anything, how do I come down on LZ? I wasn't a superfan as a teen (I always thought "Whole Lotta Love" was kind of a silly song) but I had a yard sale copy of Houses of the Holy, a dub of IV, a cassette copy of In Through the Out Door. At one time I completely eschewed them, when I was going through a later time of establishing my tastes and starting to find my voice as a musician myself. I guess now it's on a case-by-case, song-by-song basis. Sometimes even within a song. For example, "Carouselambra" is far longer than it needs to be but has a slow guitar break in the middle that sounds utterly incredible to my ears. Maybe it comes back to something I've expressed on this blog before, being wary of liking or disliking something simply due to it's relative obscurity or strangeness.

Will there be a follow-up to this film? Being Led Zeppelin, Leaving Led Zeppelin? I doubt it. And maybe this is enough. It's interesting and well made enough to be worth the time, even if you're not a devoted fan. With so many films being made and so few actually seeing theatrical release, I should be happy that the story of a creative venture (such as the forming of a band) is being celebrated.

VOTD 03/03/2025

 Anthony Braxton Creative Music Orchestra: RBN---3°  K12 (Ring/Moers)

Purchased mail order from Half Price Books

Well, here's a find. I suppose it's become relatively easy to find whatever you want by way of websites such as discogs.com, if you don't mind paying a lot. In this case, I found it through Half Price Books. I only recall ever having seen one copy before in a Tower Records somewhere (I want to say DC), and would come to regret not pouncing on it then. 

Even if this was a more commonly found item, it's not the recommended entry point into the Braxton sound world. A three-LP box of a fourteen-piece big band playing a multi-section single composition? One section being devoted primarily sounds originating from balloons? 

Therein lies one complaint I have with this set. I knew from reading about this piece there was a section for balloons (if I hadn't guessed just from listening to it), but balloons aren't credited anywhere. Is that too fussy on my part? I believe I hear an oboe on side one which is also not credited, and I know it's not Anthony himself playing it. He may have explored as much of the saxophone and clarinet families as he could (and flute), but he's never credited anywhere with double reeds.

The set was recorded live in 1972 in France with an ensemble of European or Europe-based musicians. The names are largely unfamiliar to me except of Joachim Kühn on piano (he recorded a duet album with Ornette, and have sometimes recorded with his clarinetist brother) and Oliver Johnson on drums (I think he played with Steve Lacy). This would be his early creative career, pre-Arista Records contract. 

By the way, for those who are sticklers for the Braxton opus numbers, this is Composition 25. It's not his first work for big band/creative music orchestra, which according to his catalog of works dates as far back as 1969. The notes indicate something that would have been apparent from listening: that it's an extended piece in multiple sections with different sound states. There's the previously mentioned balloons (an inexpensive alternate sound source), the opening is all breath/wind sounds. You have to go about half way through the work to hit a section of Braxton's particular brand of atonal post-bop. It's at this point that the work presages some of his writing for the landmark Creative Music Orchestra 1976 on Arista.

It's a live set and the quality, while not studio, is largely pretty good. The notes mention a technical glitch on side two, left in for continuity. The notes were mostly written on a typewriter and not typeset, adding a small bit of charm to the release.

Record nerd completist talk: the album was released on Ring Records, a name that was changed to Moers Music short afterwards to avoid confusion and conflicts with a Canadian label of the same name. There are supposed to be releases of this under both the Ring and Moers imprints. My copy has LP one on Ring, and two and three as Moers. Curious! Did some of them come this way? Is it a hybridized copy of two different releases? The latter is hard to imagine.

Composition 25 is dedicated to Ornette Coleman. The shadow of Ornette's music surely hangs over Braxton's early jazz quartet recordings. In this case, I believe it's Ornette's ambition to write works such as his woodwind quintet and pieces for his group plus classical musicians that might have been a general inspiration. (Skies of America was recorded about a month after this, so it's doubtful that was on Anthony's mind.) Anthony himself demonstrates his broad ambitions on this project, being the first recording (but not first release) of his larger ensemble work, and his first single work to take up the length of an entire concert.

I wonder: do the score and parts still exist? It would be great to stage this piece again, though I'm not on the inside of the Braxton orbit to really be able to pursue such as idea. It's nice to visit this piece of history though, and taken as as while I think this is a solid addition to his recorded output.

VOTD 02/24/2025

 Riz Ortolani: Cannibal Holocaust OST (Mondo)

I think I bought this through mail order through Mondo.

It seems like a running theme or even joke in this blog, me sitting down with a soundtrack album to a film I haven't even seen. I have watched the trailer, and the film looks like an extremely nasty bit of business. 

I don't object to films being weird, or even violent at times. Cruelty and torture are a different story. I have noted that I've previously blogged about the soundtrack albums for Cannibal Ferox (which I also haven't watched) and Cannibal Apocalypse (which I have). In the latter's case, "cannibal" is overstated, even if the theme of the film is soldiers returning from Viet Nam carrying a disease that gives them a sometimes insatiable desire to bite into fresh human flesh. Okay, I admit it's a rough one. The title was no doubt meant to trade in on the notoriety of the other two films, in great exploitation fashion. It's the only film starring John Saxon (whose credits include Black Christmas, Enter the Dragon, Tenebrae) the actor disowned. 

I'm definitely interested in the history of Britain's Video Nasties panic. Spearheaded by Mary Whitehouse, an outspoken hyper-conservative activist, it was an attempt to officially ban VHS titles deemed irredeemably violent and offensive. It made splashy headlines the way that the Heavy Metal backlash and Satanic Panic did in the US. And I don't mean to sound as though I am defending Whitehouse and her group, but video rental stores were popping up everywhere without any regulation. 12 year olds could walk to the corner store and rent Cannibal Holocaust or Faces of Death. Maybe a little oversight would have been appropriate, at least something similar to the US' MPAA ratings. 

Though really, teens seem to be able to handle most horror movies just fine without psychological trauma, so what do I know. Anything with the word "cannibal" made the Nasties list, regardless of content.

As its own listening experience, Ortolani's score is a bizarre and sometimes even laughable experience. It opens, with "Cannibal Holocaust (Main Theme)", an Italian folky-pop ballad I suppose you could say. Wordless vocals bring Morricone to mind. The second cut, ""Adultress' Punishment" (already suggesting more exploitation themes) begins with the grimiest synth sound imaginable, leading to semi-tonal lines for studio strings. Again, the comparison to Morricone is undeniable, plus that Moog or Arp or Korg synth sound so prevalent in other Italian soundtracks of the time. And more that whatever particular synth was being used, there's a Space Drum or some sort of synthesized that gets hit over and over in the latter half of side one. 

"We paid for the damned Space Drum and by God you're going to hit that thing!" At least that's what I imagine someone yelling.

Things dart around from track to track: light poppy funk, nasty synth, quasi-tonal strings, returns to the saccharine opening theme. Sounds like an Italian horror soundtrack to me, or at least one type. 

It is amazing that this low budget Italian vomit inducer could have the budget for a studio band with string orchestra. The Italian film industry must have been receiving its strongest support at the time. Dario Argento has complained in more recent years just how impossible it is to get anything funded in Italy anymore.

I hate the idea of any country producing films should see its industry falter. There was a small but bona fide Mexican film industry for example, which I believe is essentially a thing of the past. Even if it means cranking out movies like this, some of the time.

VOTD 02/23/2025

 Derek Bailey/Jamie Muir: Dart Drug (Incus)

Purchased used some time in the 1980s I think

Once again I find myself putting on a recording of someone recently passed. Even though his association was brief, Jamie Muir's name will always be associated with that of King Crimson. He famously only appeared on a single studio album, Larks' Tongues in Aspic. 

Jamie was clearly brought into Crimson as an X-factor, an unpredictable improvisor adding textures and density to the songs, plus I imagine pushing the improvisations further. That's always been an interesting thing about that band during most periods of its existence: tight, often complex prog rock compositions but also time during concerts to freely improvise. I'm not sure it always worked, but I commend the attitude.

Muir's association with Derek Bailey, and hence the British free improv scene, predates his brief time in the Crimson fold. His appearance on the ECM LP The Music Improvisation Company dates to 1970, and another LP dates back to 1968. Robert Fripp must have had a sense of what he was getting into, though perhaps Muir was too wild on stage.

Even though Jamie plays in a vaguely similar style to Tony Oxley, I think I'd be able to distinguish them side-by-side. Tony tends to favor more rapid successions of softly attacked sounds, on his own personal variation of a drum set. Jamie's broader, possibly louder, and probably uses fewer actual drum sounds. But then I'm doing this from memory of Tony's playing and a serious study of these two men's styles would take more dedicated listening and analysis. 

This particular session dates to 1981. I wonder why they didn't record together more? They certainly seem to be of a similar mind. The playing is generally pulseless, fragmentary, without direct connection to melody. Jamie brings the broader palette of colors, but that's to be expected considering he's the percussionist. There are times when he seems to be doing three things at once; his skill as an improvising percussionist is impressive. As someone I know once put it, do you really need more than one Derek Bailey solo album? Probably not, but it is good to hear him with an excellent partner. It's certainly less austere than Derek's solo recordings. 

There's an unusual thing about this LP brought to my attention by my friend Gino Robair. It might be the only album where the CD reissue is shorter than the LP. (At least at one time. Give the passion for vinyl now, that's probably changed.) The opening cut, "Carminative", is about three minutes longer on the original LP. In listening to it here, I can definitely hear where the cut was made. An active but perhaps slightly silly-sounding opening gives way to a more ambient texture. The CD isn't worse for the cut.

Thee second side is a single cut, "Dark Drug". I wasn't sure at one time if that was the intended title of the LP. Somewhere past the halfway point in the performance, Derek starts strumming a major chord. It's not that I thought he was incapable of such a thing, it's just unusual to hear him do such as thing. 

Back in the 80s I used to listen to a lot more recordings like this. "Non-idiomatic improvisation" as Derek described in his book, though itself was a form of style while attempted to be a non-style. It seems perfectly nice now, sitting in my basement studio with the wife doing shopping. Would I have bought this if someone other than Jamie's name was co-credited with Derek? Possibly. And who knows why it turned up used, perhaps someone was expecting something more Crimson-like? Their loss my gain I suppose. It seems a shame that there aren't more recordings of Jamie, and certainly more that are readily available. 

VOTD 02/20/2025

Edwin Starr: Hell Up In Harlem OST (Motown)

Purchased new at Vinyl Remains

Once again I find myself listening to a soundtrack for a film I haven't seen. 

I found myself in the Mt. Lebanon yesterday, a wealthy suburb of Pittsburgh. There's a modest little new/used record store there, Vinyl Remains. I usually stop by when I'm in the neighborhood, which isn't often. There was one other shopper, which maybe took off the pressure to buy something, but I was determined to buy something just to support the business. 

Jesus Christ, new vinyl is expensive. Granted, if I was to compare the prices to when I first started buying records (1976-77, based on the purchase of Leftoverture) records would seem to be expensive. But, at the time you could buy a new album for $5+, do the numbers reflect reflect inflation for the same records costing generally $25-35 now?

According to an internet inflation calculator, that $5 in 1976 would now be worth $28.43. We all know how accurate every is online! Nonetheless, now I feel like the curmudgeon complaining about "the price of things nowadays" and yes, even how much better the music was then than now. Maybe I'll tackle that subject one day, but not at a time when I'm listening to and writing about an album released in 1974.

Buying this seemed like the solution to not leaving Vinyl Remains empty-handed. Not too expensive (under the $28.43 quoted above), and an era I unironically love. I'm not an expert or completist for watching so-called Blaxpoitation, but I generally enjoy those films. There's the period, the grimy 70s, which seems so much more interesting now than when I reached adulthood in the early 80s. The films: yes, often problematic by current standards (maybe even by then-standards) but these low budget films aimed at the "urban" (read, Black) audience sometimes featured genuinely superior actors in roles they should have been playing in largely White productions. And I like the role reversal: the Black leading men are smooth, smart, handsome, frequently pushing up again evil but otherwise feckless White men.

There's an old Eddie Murphy routine that goes: "Black Caesar, the blackest movie ever made. Filmed on the streets of Harlem with an all-black cast. You have never seen a black movie like this. Black Caesar: a Larry Cohen film." (The joke killed.)

So too, Hell Up In Harlem. Like that film, starring Fred Williamson, written/produced/directed by Larry Cohen, with an (almost-all) African-American cast. Larry's an interesting story unto himself, a true New York maverick who never applied for permits when he filmed. This included the time he dressed Andy Kaufman as a cop with a rifle, during a public parade for God Told Me To.

I knew one selection from this soundtrack already, "Easin' In", a super-funky medium tempo song that was included on the Soul Jazz collection Can You Dig It? The Music and Politics of Black Action Films 1968-75. That two disc collection counts as the most played CDs in my car. Highly recommended!

What's not to like? I suppose I prefer the harder-edged funky tunes to the mid-70s ballady soul songs, but overall this is a solid contribution to the genre. It's mostly songs with a few instrumentals. Are many of these soundtracks of the time similar? Damned right they are. But they're not all alike, and if you enjoy them in general, what's to complain about? Give me a wah-wah rhythm guitar over a current Autotuned hyper-compressed pop vocal any day.

The back cover of the LP uses a reproduction of the movie poster for an image. It's one of those great 70s montage paintings; anyone reading would instantly recognize the style. Depicted next to a large-sized Fred is a trio of beautiful women. The (as far as I can tell) Asian woman, on careful inspection, is depicted nude. I can find no such women listed in the credits. I guess it doesn't really matter.

VOTD 02/16/2025

 Willem Breuker Kollektief: Live in Berlin (BV Haast/FMP)

Once again, I can't recall where I bought this.

There's a hopefully antiquated idea that one has to be Black to really be able to play jazz. This isn't to overlook the fact that the music is fundamentally derived from the African American experience, and that most of the idiom's greatest artists are indeed Black. I'm happy to say I haven't heard anyone state that thought out loud for years.*

An old college friend had his variation on this idea: you didn't necessarily need to be Black to play jazz, but you did have to be American.

Well, that's just bullshit.

And again, this is not to overlook that jazz is a distinctly American creation. America has made several unique contributions to the arts, one of which is jazz music, another is the form of the comic book. Nobody's making the claim that you have to be American to be a great comic book writer and illustrator.

If anything, I think it's important to bring techniques and perspectives to jazz from people outside of the American experience. I want to hear more jazz (whatever that word even means) with artists from the Middle East, Asia, Northern Europe, Central Europe, the Balkans, people who could expand what Americans have come to know was "swing" and "groove". 

When I hear Willem Breuker's music, even if I didn't know better, I'd guess he was European. The marches! The well-known wacky Dutch humor! The orchestrations that don't sound like he's trying to imitate Ellington, Basie, or the Dorseys. 

Kurt Weill is definitely a reference point, though. The first time I saw the Kollektief (easily one of the best concerts I've ever attended), they began with a ripping, through-composed arrangement of Weill's "Cannon Song". That might be my favorite of song Weill's oeuvre, so I was immediately on board. On the second piece, the trombonist took a solo by crouching on all fours and barking like a dog. What sounds dumb came off as fresh and funny. I definitely didn't expect that. 

I really should find out more about Breuker's compositions. Four of the six tracks on this LP are taken from some sort of suite by him, La Plagiata. Breuker composed a number of longer-form compositions and suites, but I don't know much more than that. 

This is an early live session, recorded in 1975. None of the players' names are familiar, outside of the bandleader. Personnel: Breuker on saxophones and clarinets, with alto sax, tenor sax, flute, trumpet, two trombones, horn, piano, bass, and drums. Not too far from the instrumentation of one of my bands. All players with the exception of the bassist, get some sort of solo in the program. Once again I come back to a basic principle: if you collect great players, give them something to do. Feature them to their strengths.

It's interesting how divergent this music is from Robert Graettinger's, the subject of my post yesterday. I'd consider one no less serious than the other, but Breuker's humor is very much on the surface here. Graettinger was pulling the music closer to Schoenberg and pushing against the principle of tonality, whereas Breuker happily works within a tonal framework. (At least, most of the time.) And maybe most importantly, Graettinger left little room for improvisational input. Breuker, for as arranged as some of the music is, leaves space for his players and himself to blow.

Breuker lived longer than the tragically short life of Robert Graettinger (died at 33) but still passed entirely too young at 65. Thankfully there are many recordings of Breuker, and maybe it's time for me to do a deeper dive.

* I have had several people say to me, "You don't play like you're White." I know it's meant to be a compliment, even if I disagree with the principle. Usually I just smile and shrug my shoulders.

CDOTD 02/15/2025

 Bob Graettinger: City of Glass (Capitol Jazz)

Purchased new, probably at Borders

What constitutes "outsider" music? Outsider Art is a sort of established descriptor or category, with at least one museum devoted to the subject (The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, which I can't recommend highly enough). Even then, the topic doesn't cover one single type of artist, whether it's driven primitives (Howard Finster, Adolf Wölfli, Judith Scott) or obsessives with highly developed technical skills (Joe Coleman, Alex Grey).

So too in Chusid's book, there are those who are primitive musicians with a complete lack of irony (The Shaggs, Wesley Willis) as well as schooled musicians with a particular obsession or drive (Harry Partch). It's through his book that I learned about Robert Graettinger, in the latter category.

Chusid describes him thusly: "He was convinced he could outwit the grim reaper with a steady diet of scrambled eggs, milk, and vitamins. He was an impotent alcoholic in a shabby wardrobe with concave cheekbones and a bad complexion." He died at 33 from lung cancer, due to no doubt heavy smoking and a terrible lifestyle.

I'm probably misquoting Gilda Radner as Rosanne Rosannadanna when she'd say, "You sound like a real catch!"

But I'm not here to comment on someone's appearance or lifestyle. This CD is a collection of Graettinger's music performed by the Stan Kenton Orchestra. Stan was an interesting figure himself, trying to navigate the popular big band world while at the same time attempting to create a more colorful and "serious" ensemble. It's no doubt that his interest in this so-called seriousness is why Graettinger had a job with Kenton.

This very principle of elevating jazz music to classical standards as a concert music has a history nearly as long as the music itself, and it's a tricky subject. Where does the music belong, why isn't jazz a high enough art form in and of itself? Paul Whiteman (heh heh, white man) commissioned Rhapsody in Blue; Debussy and Stravinsky wrote works inspired by early jazz; Ellington composed extended jazz concert works. At the same time, jazz improvisation is a sophisticated language in and of itself, without the need to be in some way elevated. And at the same time, there is room in the world for jazz or jazz-inspired works for the concert stage and not just the clubs.

Then there's the Third Stream movement, a term created by Gunther Schuller in 1957 to represent a kind of classical/jazz fusion or half-way point between the two. Graettinger's music was Third Stream before there was such a thing, predating Schuller's term by as much as a decade. Like Schuller's interests, Graettinger was more about drawing on modern techniques than trying to make the jazz orchestra sound like a 19th century Romantic orchestra. 

An immediate reaction to the works on this CD: there's very little improvisation. Most works are tightly composed or arranged. The ensembles are often augmented changed from standard big band instrumentation, including strings and several prominent French horn lines. (I think Kenton often used horns.) The music largely sits somewhere in an area of vaguely/ambiguously tonal to blatantly atonal. I'm thinking of the quote from I think it was Schoenberg, "the emancipation of dissonance" because it definitely applies to Graettinger's music. The second cut on the disc, an arrangement of "Everything Happens to Me" begins with an atonal-sounding introduction before breaking into the song proper with vocals with traditional harmonies. By contrast, the opening composition, "Thermopylae", has blasts of a cluster voicing over an ostinato, suggesting some anchoring to tonality (if somewhat ambiguous). It's funny that the piece was released on 78 as the B side of "The Peanut Vendor", one of Kenton's more popular singles. I wonder what people thought when they turned over the record?

There are a few of what I might call programmatic titles for his pieces, "Incident in jazz", "City of Glass" (four movements), "Modern Opus". But most titles are most minimal: "A Horn", "A Cello", "A Trumpet", "An Orchestra", "A Thought", "Some Saxophones". That suggests to me an intention of removing any non-musical associations from the music. To me it recalls Morton Feldman, who both created some great descriptive titles ("Triadic Memories") but also had many "still life" titles ("Piano Violin Viola Cello"). 

Dying as he did at age 33, once again I must ask, what might have Graettinger accomplished had he lived a long, full life? I can picture an academic post, a lecturer, maybe having written a book or two on composition and theory. I can picture him in discussions and debates with other "serious" composers. I'm certain he'd be better known and respected. What a shame, but at least there's this document. 

CDOTD 02/12/2025

VA: Beat at Cinecittà (Crippled Dick Hot Wax!)

Purchased used at Jerry's Records Future Zone

This blog isn't serious music journalism, criticism, nor musicology, so maybe I shouldn't apologize for making the narrative about me much of the time. As recently as yesterday I posted question about whether I had anything left to offer in this forum, yet here I am again.

Hardly a week goes by when I don't pay a visit to at least one of our local record and CD shops around Pittsburgh, and often more. You wouldn't know it to see my studio/mancave at home, but I go home empty handed more often than not. I didn't walk into Jerry's today intending to find anything in particular; that's probably not how Jerry's works anyway. If you're lucky, something you want or looks interesting turns up. Good stuff, even if the prices have largely increased since the time Jerry sold off the business, tends to move quickly. 

During those recent years, the 78 room was cleared out to make space for other non-LP media: CDs mostly, DVDs, laserdiscs, VHS tapes, cassettes, books, and other odds and ends. New CD adds are closest to the door.

You just don't know what will turn up. I recognized the tiny blimp on the spine of this disc for the Crippled Dick Hot Wax! label. This takes me back to a time when I worked for Borders for two or three years in the 1990s, the apex of compact discs as a popular medium, VHS just on its way out with DVDs just starting to quickly take over. Several items on that label turned up at the store which I probably bought with my employee discount (40% off for part time employees!). I don't remember this one in particular but we did have Jerry Van Rooyen's At 250 Miles per Hour, Gert Wilden's Schulmädchen Report, and particularly Manfred Hübler/Siegfried Schwab's Vampyros Lesbos: Sexadelic Dance Party. All European soundtrack collections.

I've seen Jess Franco's Vampyros Lesbos. The most memorable thing about it is the music cue used as the opening cut on the CD collection. Oh of their were beautiful nude women who I guess were vampires. There was also a scene with those Aurora monster models in it. Franco's not known for his tight plotting. Still, with a title like Vampyros Lesbos, you ought to come up with something memorable.

The subtitle to this particular collection reads: "A sensual homage to the most raunchy, erotic filmmusic of the Italian 60s & 70s cinema." That's a lot to live up to. Like I've quoted David F. Friedman before, "Sell the sizzle, not the steak." A number of these pieces, if you were to ask me the country of origin, I'd probably guess Italy. There's a certain sound to them, similar to how Italian films have a certain look to them. I've seen enough Italian horror movies that I feel I can guess if something's Italian by its look and production, and not just the clearly dubbed voices. 

What makes them sound Italian? There's the era for one thing, the swingin' 60s and 70s, with lounge-y blues-rock. Certain uses of guitar, especially as a trebly twangy lead instrument. And definitely the wordless vocals, scattered throughout these excerpts. Only one track is a song with lyrics, all other voices are vocalise. It's possible this overall Italian sound originates with Ennio Morricone's pop orchestrations, but I don't know enough on the topic to say that definitively. Morricone is nowhere to be found on this collection, but a single Bruno Nicolai piece is. Often on Morricone soundtracks, you'll see Bruno listed as the conductor. 

It's Riz Ortolani who appears most often here. Riz might be best known for his soundtrack for Mondo Cane, but the work I know better is Cannibal Holocaust. There's another example of me having listened to the soundtrack without ever having seen the film. (And I don't need to see it. It just looks gross and cruel. I don't feel like sitting through Hostel either.) The opening theme for CH is pure vocalise Italian pop, followed by a really grimy, ugly minimal synthesizer cue. Very strange. 

I guess part of my personal attraction to sitting down with these soundtracks and collections is the weirdness of them when they're separated from the visuals. Plus it's a different era, and a country besides the US, it all contributes to it feeling alien to my experience in 2025. That's a good thing. If Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, and Taylor Swift are the state of popular music these days, I'll gladly stay in the past.

The woman at the register was enthusiastic when she saw I was buying this, and said there were more sold off by the same person to be put out. I guess I know where I'm going Tuesday when they put more stock in the new bins.

VOTD 02/11/2025

Matching Mole: Matching Mole's Little Red Record (CBS)

I don't remember where I bought this.

I suppose one of the pleasures of a sizable collection of LPs and CDs is not remembering that I owned something. Have I bought duplicates of anything unintentionally? Not many things, but it's true. There are some records that come in series, such as the Spectrum series on Nonesuch, that have covers similar enough that I don't always remember if I have a particular issue. I've learned, yes I probably do have a copy, and even if I don't, don't spend the money unless it seems essential.

I knew this record from my college radio days. I can't recall if I was told or read about it, or if I came across it in my thorough hunting through the WRCT record library. The attraction would have been Robert Wyatt's name primarily. 

It's poignant that I think Robert's best work is after he became a paraplegic. He drunkenly fell out of a building, losing the use of his legs. If he sounds like he has the saddest voice ever heard, he's certainly earned it.

If you didn't know, Matching Moles is a play on the name of his former band Soft Machine (I mean itself a direct WS Burroughs reference). In French, the name is "machine molle." There's no hiding their political leaning, both the title and the blatantly Maoist cover painting of the band. This in itself seems amazing given the current times politically. Not that this music could attract the attention of even a minor subsidiary of a major label now, but the blatantly Communist images would have been a non-starter. I mean, you could find some way to get it released in this form, but my guess is you'd be on your own.

Somewhat similar to Soft Machine, the music sits in a place somewhere between Canterbury-scene prog leanings and jazz-rock. It's a good record but I get the sense that CD length might have done them well on this. A little more room to stretch might have done the music some good, but who knows? Maybe the LP length reeled them in from going too excessive, kept the results tighter. The group only lasted as long as two LPs before disbanding, Robert's accident happening later.

There are some odd touches to this that says it's a studio project and not simply a document of the band playing, specifically quiet voices speaking in spots in groups. Brian Eno makes a synth appearance on side two. There's an odd, slight pitch shift and what sounds like a loop near the end of side two that's a studio creation for sure. The pieces run together and are generally not discreet songs, making identification difficult. At moments, when Robert's singing, the music wouldn't have been out of place on Rock Bottom. 

I don't recall if I noticed that Robert Fripp is credited as producer. This would have come at an interesting time for him too, in that general time frame when the Boz Burrell/Mel Collins/Ian Wallace band was winding down, and the Wetton/Cross/Bruford/Muir lineup was forming. 

Robert Wyatt is an excellent drummer, by the way. I'm not fond of how the drums are recorded/produced here, they sometimes sound flat and almost muted at times. Maybe it's an accurate capture of his sound. I can't strike it up to the state of the art of recording though; Bill Bruford's drum set always sounded amazing on Yes records: tight and snapping. I even believe the first problem with Tales From Topographic Oceans is Alan White's dead and thuddy-sounding kit. 

I am starting to wonder again if I'm running out of steam on this blog, whether I really have anything to say and it's not just an empty exercise. However, if it meant I picked out this record for a good re-listen, then at least there's that.

VOTD 02/10/2025

 Emil Beaulieau: Abusing the Little Ones (Self Abuse)

I can't recall where I bought this. I note this under the title because at one time I could told you where I bought most of my individual records, but no longer.

If one of the basic tenets of punk rock was to learning to play an instrument by forming a band first, where does that put noise artists? To go from unrepentant instrumental primitivism to no discernable skill whatsoever?

I feel like this is something I've covered in previous blog postings, so I'll avoid prattling on too long on this subject now. 

The most interesting "noisicians" have skills, but they're necessarily in any way traditional. Some of it might have to do with synth patching, audio editing, or at least new and creative ways to put together sound-generating electronics. And even if their intention is to annoy or even crush the listener with sound, there has to be an ear for getting interesting results.

Unfortunately, sometimes the imagery or subtext these people use is reprehensible. I know there's an argument to be made for unsettling imagery to accompany unsettling music, but often find that too easy. I don't need to see autopsy or medical atrocity photos, and that's assuming the person involved isn't flirting with fascist or even blatant Nazi imagery. I mean seriously, I think it's fair to assume Hitler would not have approved of your recordings, if his regime banned jazz and too many syncopated rhythms. And really, think about that: a government agency banning a musical rhythm. Those Nazis sure were fussy.

Okay, while Nazis of any era are thoroughly worthy of ridicule, I also don't want to treat the subject too lightly either. 

Emil Beaulieau: AKA Ron Lessard of RRRecords out of Lowell, Mass. It's no secret that one is the other. Ron told me that Emil was actually the mayor of the small town in New Hampshire where he grew up. And who was going to know or complain?

Abusing the Little Ones is definitely intended as a provocative title, but it refers to Ron manipulating and reworking of a series of 7" records on the same Self Abuse label. Of the eight noise bands worked over, only the names Atrax Morgue and Crawl Unit are familiar to me, the latter being a generally noisy drone project.

I know the intention of some of these....what do I call them? Musicians? Broadly stated it's true, but I'm sure some would bristle at the description. "Noise artists", even if I've used it above, seems clinical. But whatever you call them, bludgeoning the listener with sound seems to be a frequent objective. That requires volume. But ironically, I sometimes enjoying listening to records like this at a relatively low volume and find them relaxing. Maybe it's a similar thing to people who listen to white or pink noise generators at a low volume aid with sleeping.

A detail about this record I like: side one ends with a lock groove. Turn the record over, the audio on side two begins with the same passage. Renaldo and the Loaf's Songs for Swinging Larvae does something similar. Another reason I continue to like vinyl records.

02/09/2025

 The Monkees: Head OST (Rhino)

Purchased used at Vinyl Remains

Superbowl, Superbowl, Superbowl. The closest I come to caring is that I'd rather see Philadelphia win than Kansas City, for no particularly good reason. That's about as much passion I can muster. I like to say that my general distaste for American football originates with having watched five seasons of my high school's generally bad team from the band bleachers. To be fair to them, they played teams from generally much larger schools. And to be fair to myself, I probably wouldn't care too much about football anyway. 

So, put on a record, blog some thoughts, possibly finish the Dune book I'm reading (#3). Looking for something to put on, I was unsure if I had listened to this one completely. 

I think it was Michael Weldon (Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film) suggested watching Head to see The Monkees perform "careericide." I suppose the plotless, trippy feature would endear them to a certain audience in the long run, but this wasn't the cute quasi-sitcom from network TV that I'm sure many expected at the time.

I've seen I think two of those made for TV documentaries about The Monkees. The creation of impresario Don Kirshner, he specifically wanted a 100% image band that he could control completely. So what happens when the band rebels and decides to go their own path? What happens when a manufactured band becomes a real band?

I'm naturally inclined to side with them over Kirshner, but as with most things in life, the truth is a little more nuanced. They did sign up to be part of a television program playing a fictitious rock band. The instigator is acknowledged to be Mike Nesmith, who was starting to establish himself as songwriter outside of The Monkees. He'd later pen The Stone Poneys hit "Different Drum". In one of the docs, Don said he rued the day he met Mike Nesmith. 

But you know, what did he expect? They were talented singers (mostly), it was an era of questioning authority, it comes as little surprise that they'd want to be treated like adults and artists. Kirshner would later score a 100% image band by co-creating The Archies. 

What of the music, this record? It starts strangely enough with a musique concrète edit of clips from the film, not the way to start a pop album in the least. Even The Beatles put "Revolution #9" in the middle of the album. Of the six proper songs on the album, two were written by Peter Tork, one Mike Nesmith. Tork's "Do I Have To Do This All Over Again" is a fairly strong 60s rocker, as is Nesmith's "Circle Sky". "Daddy's Song", written by Harry Nilsson, is an okay song but always kind of struck me as a take on Paul McCartney's "Your Mother Should Know" from Magical Mystery Tour.

I find the standout is the opening/closing song for the film, "Porpoise Song" cowritten by Carole King. There's a demo recording of her singing the song, probably on Youtube somewhere. It's slow and dreamy, interesting chord progression, with an orchestral arrangement that again recalls what George Martin did with The Beatles. In this case I don't consider it a knock, I like the orchestration.

I guess the question with The Monkees, or any music for that matter, is: if you like it, does the source matter? It's easy to look down on their early recordings as prefab, but some of the songs are quite good. They had excellent songwriters working for the show. Ironically, in this age of the mega pop star, those vocalists all seem manufactured to me. I don't know one voice from another, and the vocals are so thoroughly processed that I don't think it matters. The songwriting is often by committee. It's as though they're trying to be a package the way that The Monkees were intended to be, whereas The Monkees strived to break out of that box. 

VOTD 02/06/2025

 Anthony Braxton: Creative Music Orchestra 1976 (Arista)

Purchased used decades ago

Back to Braxtonia.

Forgive me for namedropping Anthony yet again. After I worked with him in 2008, I returned to graduate school. I was flush with excitement from the experience, and devoted at least one of my assigned papers to his work. 

There was an interview I read in my research I intended to paraphrase in my previous blog post, but failed to do so. (These missives are largely unplanned and come close to an improvisation in themselves.) What he said was effectively that there was an essential challenge considered by some creative musicians of his era. The push in jazz was that the music had grown increasingly fiery. Once you get to Coltrane (and Shepp and Sanders), how much more fiery could you really go? Instead, some of his early work goes in the opposite direction: small, intimate, pointillist. Consider his debut LP on Delmark with a lineup of Leroy Jenkins, Wadada Leo Smith, and Muhal Richard Abrams, as well as his two BYG LPs, one can see this idea played out. It must have also been confounding to some people; where's the jazz?

Point being: For Trio (Composition 76) definitely is an extension of this idea. However, if you know his mid-70s quartet recordings though, there's fire aplenty. The quartets with Dave Holland, Barry Altschul, and either Kenny Wheeler or George Lewis, could blow flames with the best of them. I recommend Quartet (Dortmund) 1976 (unreleased until 1991) for a particularly good example.

Then there's this album. I guess at one time, similar to Ornette a generation or so earlier and John Zorn a few years later, there was the lingering question of whether Anthony actually knew what he was doing. If you wanted to provide evidence to the prove he did, it was probably this session. Braxton in his personal lexicon eschewed the term "big band" in favor of "creative music orchestra." The instrumentation is more-or-less similar to a big band throughout, even if track two (Comp. 56) includes clarinets, contrabass clarinet, soprano saxophone, timpani, and no standard drum set. 

The music itself covers a wide range of expression. It's programmed with every other work being either upbeat or more pointillist/textural. Atonal bop - - chorale and points - - march - - more points with group voicings - - more atonal bop - - long tones with and textures and yes, more points.

It's fair to say that the standout piece ends side one, his Sousa-inspired march. It starts almost shockingly straight forward, but heads into more Braxton-ish territory for solos, with a rousing (and again traditional) closing.

I've always loved this piece dearly. It's as openly funny as Braxton gets, but there's no doubting that he enjoys marches. I managed to get my hands on an arrangement of the score and played the piece with OPEK twice; the first (and better) time is posted to Youtube.

He shared with me one anecdote from that session. The percussionist wasn't playing the bass drum part correctly. Frustrated, pianist Fred Rzewski took the mallet and read the part down, enabling the ensemble to get through that tough passage. 

In the liner notes of the Creative Orchestra (Köln) 1978, the liner notes refer to the march as "the greatest closer ever." I'd love to play it again but it would require more rehearsal. Really, a dream show of mine would be to play this album in its entirety, plus maybe add one or two more recent creative music orchestra pieces into the mix. But such a show would cost a lot of time and money, and if I'm going to throw money at a vanity performance, I'll make it my own music. 

But no question, if I did stage such a show, we'd end with the march.

VOTD 02/04/2025

 Anthony Braxton: For Trio (Arista)

Purchased from Jerry's Records

I've been taking advantage of the university's robust interlibrary loan system to access some scores unavailable to me in the general Pittsburgh area. The public library has its own ILL, but the school has one portal that allows me to search specific libraries and select request with a single mouse click. Very convenient. Specifically, I've been using this to access scores by Stockhausen and Braxton. Perhaps I'll think of others, but there isn't much that comes to mind that I can't already access locally that I want to view.

The published Braxton scores are a more recent development and extension of the Tri-Centric Foundation, the non-profit devoted to Braxton's work. There isn't a long list of published scores, and some of them I already had copied. When I worked with Anthony in 2008 (! time rushes by) he invited me to make copies of anything we used for myself. I made a point of printing up everything. 

One of the scores I ordered was the basis of this recording, Composition 76 in his opus list. The pictographic title is represented on the cover. No mention of the instrumentation appears on the cover, which I suspect was intentional. It's a different lineup on each side with no rhythm section in either case, only reed players. In addition to Anthony, side one has Henry Threadgill and Douglas Ewart, side two Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman. All AACM-associated players, the latter two of the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Putting on the record I thought, hey! I can follow the score! The score begins with an identical passage for all three players, and side one begins completely differently. Okay, maybe the record labels are switched. Side two: no, same story. Returning to side one, I made no attempt to locate where they might be in the score, which is probably how one should listen to it anyway.

Is either side a complete realization of the work? I suspect not. I speculate that there could have been a complete reading by both ensembles edited to LP length. It would be easy to achieve. Both performances are pockets of activity separated by significant silences; excising material would be simple. It is in keeping with Braxton's stated aesthetic that the piece could begin anywhere and end anywhere, or fold back onto the start. The Threadgill/Ewart side is more spare, pointillist, fragmentary, probably with longer silences. On the Mitchell/Jarman side, the ensemble sounds as though it comes together for group passages more often and clearly, most notably a loud bass/contrabass saxophone passage.

The description on the score reads "twenty-six pages of three dimensional notation.' It's all printed on flat paper, though some staves lean up, down, expand, contract, and connect in ways that are meant to suggest three dimensions. Could there be a holographic rendering of the score that would make this happen?

It's amazing enough that Anthony would have been signed to a major label. If he didn't use the opportunity to release decidedly non-commercial recordings like this, would he have had a longer contract with Arista? I suspect not. He was never going to make money for the label, and a producer's faith and stock in an artist can only go so far. Even his most jazz-like sessions, New York, Fall 1974; Five Pieces 1975; Creative Music Orchestra 1976; The Berlin/Montreux Concerts are never completely in the free-jazz mode entirely. And as the joke goes, there's a reason they call it free jazz, because nobody can sell it. It's when he veered into entire LPs of improvisational chamber music with this and the Composition 95 for Two Pianos (performed by Fred Rzewski and Ursula Oppens, no less) or the sprawling three-LP For Four Orchestras that he challenged what a major label could release from a so-called jazz artist. The multi-orchestra work probably bankrupted him, likely not for the first or last time.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not a fan of the multi-orchestra piece, but I'll be damned if I don't admire it. In the notes he suggested there'd be works for orchestras on three planets by 1988, five planets by 1990, different star systems by 1995, and different galaxies by 2000. It's a beautiful thought, I wish I could muster that level of optimism. 

VOTD 02/03/2025

 Mauricio Kagel: Match Für 3 Spieler/Musik Für Renaissance-Instrumente (Avant Garde)

Purchased at Preserving Records

I was contemplating why I, as a musician and listener, have taken such particular interest in particular composers and performers, and have ignored or neglected others. I was about to write "we" but it seems to me I can only speak for my own experience.

There are the obvious reasons: something about the person's work appeals to us personally. That composer (and I'll just stick to that term specifically) has a particular voice or even body of work that resonates with me in some way. I've written about Morton Feldman and Olivier Messiaen on this blog multiple times, and there's something about each man's work that just....does it for me. Each are highly different, each are in many of their works immediately identifiable. And their music doesn't affect mine in any sort of direct way; if anything, I know enough to know that if I tried to draw directly on their music, I'd only sound like a pale or even bad version of what they do. And I don't like every work that either composer has written, which in itself I think is a good thing. It means that in some respect they didn't write the same work over and over.

Something else occurred to me. There are so many composers and musicians whose work is worthy of my time and attention, that I can't possibly pay attention to everyone. That's a case where a recording on a particular label can be very helpful, because I will notice anything that's on DG's Avant Garde imprint 

I know the name Mauricio Kagel. I know very little about him, and have only one or two other recordings of his music. Coincidentally, I had been studying one of his scores prior to purchasing this LP a few weeks. Well, studying is maybe too strong a word. I looked over a copy Acoustica at our university library, for loudspeakers and unusual acoustical sources. I was interested in its non-linearity, of a composition not defined by beginning-middle-end, but as a set of resources for constructing a performance. 

Match (1964) for cello and two percussionists comes off as a disjunct, post-War and possibly Darmstadt-style composition. I don't say that as a critique, I like some of that generation of European avant garde composers. I imagine it must be lively to see performed (and I wonder who might perform such as this in this era) and there's a sense on the recording of it having a bit of an absurd side. Aggressive cello playing (the score must be crazy) but also a vocal shout, a policeman's whistle, in addition to the more standard percussives and marimba. 

Musik (1965/66) opens with a ghostly chord played by the all pre-Baroque instrumental ensemble. It sounds like an effective use of instruments that largely lack the richness of more modern instruments. Both works are textural as opposed to melodic. I did take the time to look up the score online through school, and as I suspected it's thoroughly written out on staves, unlike Acoustica. There are also many instructions. Not only on the pages of introduction leading into the score, but also in the score itself. I don't really need to read through them.

It reminds me of an observation a student once shared with me regarding Stockhausen's music. He said that Karlheinz would make the circumstances of performance so difficult, that it probably meant his works get played less frequently than they might. I think any composer has the right to define or ask for anything they want, but it does get to be pretty ridiculous in scores such as these.

I like the latter work in particular. It's a kind of rolling, escalating/deescalating sound world. The question is, do I now dive deeper into Kagel's work? Maybe casually, but I don't expect a shelf full of Kagel recordings alongside the masses of Feldman, Ligeti, Messiaen, and Cage recordings I've acquired.

VOTD 02/02/2025

 VA: The Best of Doris Wishman (Modern Harmonic)

I think I bought this new at The Attic

In the spirit of my previous post, I pulled this out. Doris Wishman, what a character. In a sense I think she's something of a feminist hero. The exploitation film world was highly dominated by men to put it mildly. But there was Doris, an independent operator, riding the trends as she was able from the early 60s into the 1970s and beyond. She started in nudist movies, moving into lurid roughies, and then...weirder territory. She's probably best know for her two features starring Chesty Morgan, Deadly Weapons and Double Agent 73. I guess Doris went where the work went and directed a few porn features under pseudonyms in the 70s. I'm not making excuses when I write that I've never seen any of those. The tracks collected here (conveniently) overlook those movies.

I almost had the chance to meet Doris. The Warhol Museum scheduled her movie Bad Girls Go To Hell, with Doris flying up from Florida to make a personal appearance. Unfortunately, there was a major hurricane that grounded her, and she couldn't come. I wrote a brief piece dedicated to her, recorded on the second Water Shed 5tet CD; I wanted to present her with a copy. I was later able to get copies to Doris' biographer Michael Bowen; in return, I got an autographed promotional still from that same film. nice! It hangs framed in a powder room in my basement, alongside autographs of Herschell Gordon Lewis, Ray Dennis Steckler, Mink Stole, and John Agar. 

The Warhol showed the movie regardless. I took my wife, and told her one of Doris' techniques to keep her movies cheap. She'd film without sync sound, and voices were dubbed into reaction shots. In other words, you'd see the back of someone's head as he's speaking to someone who's facing the camera, and then it switches when the response is spoken. It gives Doris' movies an additional level of "wrongness." Pretty quickly there's an all-reaction shot conversation in the movie, and my wife started going into a serious giggle fit. She couldn't stop laughing, almost howling. I wouldn't have cared, were we not in a full theater with friends around. I eventually managed to help her calm down. It was funny though.

The better part of this LP are the audio from various Wishman film trailers. "You! You! You! Do you know that....bad girls go to HELL?" As fellow exploitationeer David Friedman would say, "Sell the sizzle, not the steak." Side one is taken up with her nudist pictures, the craziest one being Nude on the Moon. Astronauts land on the Moon to find it's inhabited by a race of alien nudists! And conveniently, they communicate telepathically! Do they return to Earth or decide to stay! Watch it and find out!

For as barebones cheap as Doris would go, there are original songs in some of these pictures. Five on are side one, all written by Judith Kushner (not a Wishman pseudonym, I looked) three sung by the syrupy-voiced Ralph Young. I know it's such faint praise to say the song aren't awful, maybe even not bad. It's some post-50s schmaltz to be sure. The small studio backup band is professional, slicker than some of the original music examples on side two. The music on the trailers is clearly library music, at least some of the time.

Side two is centered on her 1970s pictures. Selling the "healthiness" of the nudist lifestyle is replaced with grittier, nastier titles and themes. "Another day, another man!" The music starts to sound more rocking, more far out! 

In some respects, we live in a pretty amazing time. You can make a feature film on an iPhone; someone made a feature using Zoom and it's supposed to be really good. The material costs of film have been potentially reduced to nearly nothing. The cost of a hard drive.

And yet, what a time Doris lived in. She was able to produce, direct, shoot, and edit her own feature films and get them into some sort of theater or another, and largely from Florida. The drive in circuit was a viable place to get your movie played, if it was fun or entertaining or shocking enough. yes, Doris' movies can be difficult to watch sometimes. But there's a great spirit to them, and she lived in a cinema world that no longer exists. For all of our advances, sometimes I think we've lost a lot too. 

CDOTD 01/30/2025

 VA: Sex, Sleaze and Soul (Nice Treat)

I don't recall where I bought this, possibly mail order.

I like movies. (Well, who doesn't?) I like movie trailers, largely. I like radio. I like movie ad spots for radio.

I don't know if I knew exactly what I was getting when I bought this, but I've gotten my money's worth and then some. 41 tracks, all but twelve being radio ad spots for exploitation, Blaxploitation, Gaysploitation (? if that's a thing) Kung Fu, and other generally disreputable films. 

And I love it. Often the theatrical trailers are better than the full length films, and the radio ads crank up the sales pitch even more. "The naughty stewardesses, they're a piece of class." I know, a shade misogynist there, but I can partly laugh it off due to the era. 1970s, some possibly some dating back to the 60s. 

These ads were often distributed to radio stations as 7" records, some 12", some reel to reels. I don't have any original examples and I don't really want to start throwing money at this sub-sub-set of vinyl oddities. There closest I have is a six minute one side 12" to be played in the lobby for Brainstorm and The Woman Who Wouldn't Die, "special lobby fear-delity." I know nothing about those films, nor many on this collection. But it's the sales pitch, the energy, the earnestness that I enjoy.

The remaining cuts are mostly music cues  and themes from Blaxploitation movies, and they're great. No credits are given, but I'm reminded I should seek out a couple of them. I need to look up the availability of Johnny Pate's Bucktown soundtrack. Even Rudy Ray Moore paid for a solid band for his super-cheap, independently-financed The Human Tornado. 

The label, Nice Treat, has only this collection to its credit as far as I can tell. No return address. Thrown together graphics on the package. Clearly fly-by-night, which seems appropriate for the subject matter. Still, I don't understand why I can't locate more collections such as this. I'd gladly buy more. Older movie radio spots, more recent, horror, sci fi, monster, mainstream films or fiercely independent, they'd get my business. As long as they sell it.

CDOTD 01/27/2025

 Hijokaidan: Romance (Alchemy)

Purchased used, probably at Eide's

It's a Monday afternoon, my wife's out of the house. It's not as though I need to fear putting something on down in my studio/man cave (I prefer the former, she calls it the latter) but it's easier sometimes not having to explain it. She walked past recently when I put on a Rusty Warren LP (famous for Knockers Up!). It's pretty tame by more current standards, but she found it strange that I'd put something like that on. It wasn't the content she wondered about so much as the what sounded like a Las Vegas show. Which I guess is partly true. 

It's easier not to have to explain this one either, considering it's a full CD length track of blistering, unrelenting noise. There are three people involved: JoJo (Hiroshige) on guitar, Junko (Hiroshige) on voice, and T(oshi) Mikawa on...the Mikawa. Presumably some sort of electronics. 

What sounds originate from whom? Sometimes I can tell, but it's such a wall of noise that it's not always possible. And does it matter? Just when I think a high long sound might be the voice, I hear something else that sounds like distorted vocals under it in the mix. I suspect the majority of the sound mass originates from the guitar.

Really, what does it matter? How is possible to judge this? I guess you either accept it or you don't. There's no way to criticize this; what, it's not extreme and offputting enough? A friend once said that it's hard to tell one of these hardcore noise/power electronics groups apart from each other, particularly if there are no vocals. I think there's more to it than that, certain groups do have a particular sound or aesthetic. That said, there's vocals here and I'm still not sure.

I've been looking over the discogs.com page for the label, Alchemy Records. It's a larger catalog than I imagined, with over four hundred releases dating from 1984 to last year. I only really know them from some of their noise releases (Merzbow, Incapacitants, Masonna) but I see the catalog is broader than that. The ones that I have mostly turned up in the used shelves. I mean, who's distributing Alchemy Records releases new in Pittsburgh? I suspect I know who may have bought and later dumped the ones I found, but I'm not naming names. Is it possible I've come across the psychedelic and progressive rock CDs that Alchemy has released and just didn't pay attention to them?

The packaging on some of the Alcheny releases seem almost non-sequitor with respect to the sound. They're not like some industrial/noise artists who make things look dark, or illicit, or hint at fascism. You can see from the image below that the front cover here is a sunset over Greek ruins, with an inside image of what I guess is a desert fox of some sort. I like that intentional disconnection. It's easy to make things seem dark and shocking (a complaint I've always had with Marilyn Manson); it's more interesting to do something actually extreme and present it in a way that makes it look "normal." Maybe that's part of the essence of Surrealism.

The recording fades out just past the hour and seventeen minute mark, pretty much the entire length of a standard CD. They kept going? Cred for energy, and they certain have created a group identity, even if it's applied towards an extended chuck of distortion.

CDOTD 01/24/2025

 György Ligeti: Etudes Books I and II (1-14a) (Naxos)

Bought from my neighbor at a yard sale

There was an elderly couple who lived next door to us for a few years. They had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina, and I think it was family ties that eventually brought them to Pittsburgh. The husband was also a Holocaust survivor.

They had a pleasant wine and cheese gathering for the closest neighbors. The couple were active concertgoers, and particularly fans of opera. The wife (Naomi) said they'd hold informal chamber opera readings in their former living room, just an accompanying pianist and several vocalists reading through Mozart as an example. While I'm not generally a fan of opera, I found it impressive that they were so involved.

During our little party, the husband (Gabriel) said that they'd recently gone to see Imani Winds perform, a (then) all African American woodwind quintet. (Bassoonist Monica Ellis came from Pittsburgh and I think attended CAPA High School, where I once taught as well.) He said that they had performed a work by a composer who he had known in his youth, clearly thinking that nobody would recognize the name. I asked, who was that? "Oh," he said, "György Ligeti."

"You knew Ligeti as a kid????" I asked in near disbelief. "Of course I know about Ligeti!" My wife added, "Ben doesn't get that excited about anything." Gabriel clarified, "György was good friends with my younger brother. I knew him from around, but we weren't close."

Another neighbor asked of me, "Could you sing one of his melodies?" I said, "His music isn't like that."

I view artists such as Ligeti from a distance, only familiar with his work. I really know very little about him personally. It's funny to find this connection land so close to me. 

Gabriel was already in his 80s when they moved in. Within a few years, he suffered a very fast decline from dementia. Naomi said she knew something was wrong when he stopped listening and singing music around the house, which before he did all the time. She would tell us later that after moving him to a care facility, he didn't last very long.

They had a big house sale when they moved out. I basically took his collection of Ligeti CDs, probably about eight releases including his opera.

A friend (someone different) told me that Stockhausen claimed that Ligeti wrote the same piece too often. I'm certain that 100% of the comments and "facts" I've written to this blog probably aren't accurate. So I take that comment with a grain of salt and only mention it because I don't agree. There is a certain sort of piece I associate with Ligeti, specifically the more sound-mass style works such as Requiem, Atmosphères, Lontano. 

These piano etudes are appropriately named, they have the dazzle of virtuosic piano music. At times they sound quite post-Romantic, almost suggesting tonality but never quite crossing that line. There's another CD I bought from that collection of "transcendental etudes" which go back and forth between Ligeti and Liszt. Some selections are clearly one composer or the other, some pieces are not so clear if you aren't paying close attention. 

While Ligeti can't marshal the forces on the piano to produce those micro-polyphonies that he's known for (as in Requiem, for example), he's also clearly not trying. These etudes sound nothing like Boulez, Stockhausen, or Barraqué. There was a brief moment in the first book that could have been taken from Messiaen, whose piano music is more similar to this than those other composers. I'm sure there are pitch formulas and modes that Ligeti uses, but he doesn't seem as as intensely mode-oriented as Messiaen. Nor does he lapse into a major chord or open fifth like Olivier. These pieces seem to exist in a space that's neither Romantic nor Modernist, while drawing on the language of both. I'm okay with such ambiguities. I find the pieces engaging and not a dour slog of a listen, as some modernists can be.