Anthony Braxton - 12 Comp (ZIM) 2017

Compositions 408, 409, 410

No one sends me into conceptual space the way Anthony Braxton has over the past 20 years. Sure, the the Arista recordings (e.g., Five Pieces 1975 and New York Fall 1974) were interesting, what with the first pulse track structures and all, but they also sounded pretty kick ass. The work of the past twenty years has been not so kick ass, but it has been far more interesting and far more surprising. And, although I don’t think Braxton actually cares about this, at times much more beautiful.

I haven’t dived into a long series of Braxton compositions since 9 Compositions (Iridium) disappointed a bit in 2006. So, I was ready. When they asked, “Which of the twenty ZIM compositions do you want to do?” I really had no reason to choose one over another. I chose these three because 1) I wanted a set done all by the same group of musicians, 2) I wanted to hear Adam Matlock’s accordion (I play accordion) with Tomeka Reid’s cello, and the two harps of Jaqui Kerrod and Shelly Burgon. Add Dan Peck’s tuba and you’ve got a mf’er of a Braxton “rhythm section” playing at the Firehouse (Connecticut) in April of 2017.

In the documentation, a series of dozens of Braxtonian aphorisms and epigrams from which his ideas emerge with uncertainty, Braxton writes:

ZIM music = a glider airplane that circles in a downward and/or upward spiral

This is shockingly concise. Earlier on it’s clear that the central idea of ZIM is gradient logics, i.e., things moving from one state to another in relationship. “It gets faster or slower. It gets louder or softer … A change of seasons. A change of temperature,” et many cetera.

The sun slowly rises = gradient logics

You may be wondering why I haven’t yet talked about how it sounds. Partly this is because I don’t think Braxton cares how it sounds, in the way we use the phrase. His compositions aren’t a function of control – if we do these things it will sound like THIS! And his music, has stopped being primarily about the one way relationship of performing for an audience. Rather, I think ZIM is about creating sound experience spaces. Braxton isn’t manipulating sound, but creating conditions in which musicians in relationship can – through provoked improvisation – can manipulate sound that has a probability of being fulfilling to musicians and listeners. Maybe a “good” composition is one with a high probability of being fulfilling. I’m not convinced Braxton is even that goal oriented. He may be someone for whom the journey (the gradient?) really is the destination. Keith Prosk’s phrase “unfixed states” seems especially apt.

So how do these compositions sound? I’ve been falling into them for the past two weeks and have been mesmerized. They share a quality with his orchestral compositions in that they become meditative or reflective over time, but unlike his larger works, the individual musicians stand out as individual voices. There does seem to be a structure of foreground instruments and “rhythm” instruments throughout (though who is in each role changes over time), and I can’t help myself from hearing conversations going on – sometimes arguments, sometimes comedy bits – throughout. But the conversations happen with the Greek chorus of whoever is serving as the rhythm at that moment. Braxton and Taylor Bo Hynum (Has he become Braxton’s most consistent partner of the 21st century?) are genuinely astonishing, which should surprise no one. When For Alto came out in 1971 it was clear that Braxton was – among everything else – a wellspring of creative melody. That’s still true. And the rest of the group has a playful, theatrical, reckless quality that allows them to shift from dread to structure to waterfalls with facility.

In 2018, freshly wedded, my partner and I decided to honeymoon in Naxos and Thera. Nearly all the flights seemed to connect through London and, since we’re not frequent international travellers, I took this as perhaps the only chance I might ever have to visit Cafe OTO, a kind of mecca for this music, if there was something amazing happening. A three-day Anthony Braxton residency, presenting some new ZIM system, serendipitously aligned with our return trip from the Cyclades. So we booked it. And we honeymooned with Braxton. At the time, I wasn’t able to find much information on ZIM but I now know we saw the septet of Braxton (reeds), Taylor Ho Bynum (brass), Jean Cook (violin), Jacqueline Kerrod (harp), Adam Matlock (accordion, aerophones), Miriam Overlach (harp), and Dan Peck (tuba) perform compositions 418-420, the last three performances presented on 12 Comp (ZIM) 2017.

A few flashbulb memories. The oppressive heat of the first night, every performer sweating through their clothes before even beginning to play, possibly enfeebling performance and seemingly cutting it short - though you certainly can’t hear it in this recording. The startling immediacy and intensity of Adam Matlock’s voicings, some operatic vibrato alternating intonations between the funereal and braggadocio. Miriam Overlach’s own otherworldly voicings into the harp soundboard. The scrape and hiss and depth of Jean Cook’s tensive string noise. The many embouchures of Taylor Ho Bynum emitting a menagerie of sounds and the occasional humor of it, like a wet smothering mouthing sounding like some flustered water fowl. Peaking over to see a player’s notes containing some confusion around aspects of the language musics no doubt relatable to many experiencers. And catching a glimpse of some Z-series inserts, seemingly some evolution of the pulse tracks developed around the time of the Crispell/Dresser/Hemingway quartet. The ensemble a parabola with Braxton and Bynum co-conducting at the roots. The enthusiasm of Braxton’s hand signaling. Indeed how the energy of the sound imbued Braxton with an uninhibited genuine joy that permeated the room. And of course the dizzying density of the music.

Like the performatively impossible density of ZIM notation requires players to extract a performance from it, the density of a performance - let alone the mass of this set of twelve - requires a listener to extract an interpretation. And like this extraction process creates a gradient of valid performances and interpretations, the salient characteristics of ZIM all deal in gradational processes or gradient logics, the eleventh of Braxton’s foundational language musics. It’s telling that many of my memories are of textural techniques, and I think that listeners will find ZIM among the most textural of Braxton’s systems. Compared to discretized pitches in tonality, the pervasive use of extended techniques in these compositions illuminate the spectrum, or gradient, of timbral identities. The ensemble does something similar on the macroscale, transposing patterns across instruments, the tuba picking up a melodic line from the accordion that picked up the melodic line from the trumpet, like fluid percolating through the various local porosities of a material. A gradational zooming, most obvious in Braxton’s sax, occurs too, the smooth curves of melodic lines transitioning back and forth between flurries of notes like the raw data points that form the curve. And the music is always mercurial, its dynamics and densities swiftly traversing hilly countries, a constant contraction and expansion, sometimes together through complete stop-start strategies or a noirish orchestral throb. Extramusically, this particular ensemble might resemble some gradationial synthesis of genre, with apparent roots in jazz and classical but other musics too, the tuba and accordion perhaps recalling oompah or polka, the harps something Appalachian.

By virtue of its density and duration and nature, especially when taken as a set of twelve, ZIM performances - each seemingly beginning and ending in media res - might induce a feeling unfixed states, unsure how you got there and where you came from, how you are there and where you are, how you’re going to get there and where you are going. It invites you to zoom in but it takes time to hear the trees for the forest. So I hope it’s understandable, if still unsatisfactory, that it’s difficult to describe individual compositions. Various players have their nights in the spotlight, and I think you’ll hear the whole ensemble become increasingly energized from 418 to 419 to 420. 419 might emphasize stop-start strategies and 420 transposed patterns. But, as with all grand statements of Braxton’s systems, there’s a special joy not in knowing its nooks and crannies upon meeting but in knowing it is an endless well of new experiences with each listen.