Dave Liebman on Anthony Braxton

[JSngry]

On the one hand, who cares, right? But otoh, I know so many players from the Liebman/Grossman lineage who just don't get it, and who are actually hostile to Braxton. They should read this and take it seriously.

Extracted from: https://tedpanken.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/for-dave-liebmans-70th-birthday-a-downbeat-article-from-2010-an-uncut-blindfold-test-and-a-conversation-from-the-jazz-com-zine/

Anthony Braxton, “Composition 40 (O)”  (Dortmund (Quartet) 1976, Hat Art, 1991) (Braxton, soprano saxophone, contrabass saxophone; George Lewis, trombone; Dave Holland, bass; Barry Altschul, drums)

If it’s not Anthony Braxton, I don’t know who it is. And that’s maybe George Lewis? Only because I don’t know who else… Steve Swell plays like that. These guys are masters of this shit. That head! It’s absurd, how much practice they must have done to get that head together. It reminds me of Lee and Warne 80 years later, how much Lee and Warne Marsh must have worked on their heads. This has to be similar. I mean, they’re amazingly together. Then the bass joins in. It’s unbelievable. And the rhythms, the choice of notes… From a saxophone standpoint, the articulation that Anthony is capable of, single-tonguing…it appears to be single-tonguing… I can’t speak that fast, let alone play that fast. I can’t say tatatatata as far as he was doing. Of course, he went from I guess soprano or sopranino, some weird thing, to that contra-contra, whatever the hell bass-something-or-other that he got. Then they go into the texture stuff, with the mutes, with the trombone, and then all the farting and shmooching and stuff that’s going on… These are guys are experts at sound sources, at colors, at wide intervals, difficult intervals, and odd rhythm…I don’t mean odd rhythm in the sense of the modern guys…I mean, odd, up-and-down, weird, amazing stuff.

I totally supported and was part of the decision to give Anthony the NEA. I was so glad that he was there. He did talk a lot at the ceremony… But he is a great guy, and definitely has made a contribution. There’s no question about it. Once we had a repartee at the Banff Institute when he was a guest, and he said to me, “Would you tell me how you play on ‘Impressions?’” Because I’m like post-Coltrane stuff and everything. So we had a little session. I usually play drums and then I talk about what you’re playing, etc., etc. Then he said, in that scholarly way, in the way he has of speaking, and the expression on his face was classic… He said: “You know, we had the same problem. The same challenge. We’re from the same generation.” I said, “What was that, Anthony?” He said, “John Coltrane. And we handled it in two very distinctly different ways. I went to Stockhausen and you went more inside it. Very curious. Very interesting.” I’ll never forget that, because it’s absolutely true. Being from that generation and having grown up in the ‘60s and heard Trane, seen Trane, tasted Trane, you had to deal with him if you played anything close to that instrument, let alone music, just like they had to deal with Charlie Parker. So that was very interesting.

One last thing is, once I remember he gave me a list of what he called “sound sources” on the saxophone, and 75 things from attacks to delays. Some I had no idea what he was talking about. But it goes to show his immersion in using the many woodwinds he plays in, let’s say, extra-musical ways—meaning as sound sources. Things that would not have been thought of. Now, of course, you’ve got to go back to the original avant-garde, the ‘60s, Archie and of course Albert, to find the sources of using the instrument in ways that were not orthodox. But Anthony definitely took it to another level, and he’s been doing it for 40 years. I give it to him. This is 5 stars because of the way they played, man. They played unbelievable. [Were you listening to this when it was happening?] No. I was aware of it, and I’m aware of him, but I can’t say… He’s very prolific. Like in my case, he does so much, you don’t know what years… But it’s live, too. It’s unbelievable. It’s live. [This is 1976.] That’s at the height of this stuff. That was the second-generation free guys. By the ‘70s, it had been distilled down to…the basic elements were already present by then. They were being experimented with from Cecil and Ornette on, and of course with Trane, late Trane and his inclusion of everybody on Ascension. But by the time we get to the ‘70s… The ‘80s is a different story. Then you have the next generation distilling it even further.

The other thing about this is that composition becomes equally prevalent to the improvisation. Which now is very much on the map. Oh, everybody writes long heads; boy, oh, boy, it’s composition. But this is 1976, and those guys are playing the heads that go on for 2-3-4 minutes, and it stays on track and sounds so TOGETHER, man! And it’s live. You would say it was edited. But it’s live. It’s unbelievable. I love it. Was that Dave Holland? Barry? Nice. [George and Dave Holland have said that Braxton would write 50 pages and present it at the soundcheck.] Well, they did their job. They could all read and play great. I really enjoyed the way they played, and where they went group-wise and how they went into different areas. Again, the color. Color as an element of music. Look, it starts from the first aboriginal guy. There’s a color. He’s hitting on the ground. But the use of color as a device for composition, let alone improvisation, is basically something that is a 20th century phenomenon. The color of an orchestra in the 1700s and 1800s, and Bach on an organ…yes, of course. But the use of color as color, like Varese and Stockhausen, just that…we’re going to go to that texture and use that… That’s what Anthony copped. He copped, “We can make color.” Just the mute in the trombone and the staccato in the soprano is a color, even beyond what they’re playing. It becomes the prevalent thing you hear. You’re not hearing harmony. You’re not hearing melody. You’re hearing rhythm to a certain degree, of course. Everything is rhythm, if it’s two notes. But you’re really hearing color as an absolute, on-the-map, top… Melody-harmony-rhythm, it’s a great triumvirate. Color, right up there. These guys know how to do that.

I’ll tell you one last story about Anthony. When Bob Moses and I tried to form a cooperative, because we felt it was time for us to get out of the lofts and play for people (this was 1970), we called a meeting of all the cats who had been hanging at my loft and his loft. Among them was Michael Brecker and Bob Berg…there were 30 guys sitting on the floor of my loft on 19th Street. Moses invited Anthony to come up and talk to us, and Leroy Jenkins—two different occasions. Leroy came at 7 o’clock, and Anthony came at 10 o’clock. Leroy was on the verge of racist. He was like, “You have to have grass roots and meaning…” I don’t know what the hell he came up there for, to basically say, “You can’t do it because you don’t have a raison d’etre. You don’t have no political…” Remember, this is ‘70, this is the height of the shit. Then Anthony comes up at 10 o’clock, peace-and-love, do-your-thing, go-for-it… I’ll never forget. He was so positive. We’re all 22 years old, basically trying to get our lives together and find a way to play in a very bad period of jazz, which was the late ‘60s-early ‘70s, as you know, before the fusion thing hits. Business is bad, and here we are playing that kind of stuff, or trying to. And Anthony is completely supportive. I’ll never forget that from him. We reminisced at the NEA about these things. I’m very glad he got the award.

[HutchFan]

I was just reading that too. The whole interview is great.

Jim, if you haven't read Liebman's book, What It Is: The Life of a Jazz Artist, you should.  It's fascinating -- even if you don't really groove to his music.  Lieb's just HONEST. No bullshit. And articulate. Even when you don't necessarily agree with him, you can tell he's thought things through.  What more could you want from an autobiography?

My son is a sculptor, and I gave him the book and said, "I'm not a artist, and I'll never know what it's like to live the life of an artist.  But this book strikes me as a very honest account of what it's like to be one."

Later on, I met Lieb and told him that I'd read his book and then given it to my aspiring-artist son. I could tell that he liked that I'd passed it along. 

[JSngry]

Haven't read that one, but did, for some reason, buy the Lookout Farm book back in the day and was immediately taken with just how aware of things Liebman was. At the time, I figured him to be one of these guys who played out of exercise books and Coltrane solos because that was "what we do", but reading this, it was like, whoa this guy is more than that. I've held him inincreasingly higher regard as time has passed, especially when he to the step of putting his tenor away for a looooong time because he felt the need to develop a truly personal voice, and that that was going to be on soprano. That was a ballsy thing to do, an adult thing to do, and artist's thing thing to do.

https://www.amazon.com/Lookout-Study-Improvisation-Collective-Experience/dp/B000K5W6VQ

I don't feel bad about not liking his playing more than I do (and I don't dislike it, it just doesn't grab me like some other players do, it's not him, it's me), I don't need to like his playing to feel a lot of respect for the guy as a human. That's far more important than liking his playing, I think. Hell, not everybody plays, but everybody is a human. At least to this point...

[king ubu]

Thanks for the alert - too much to read on the screen for my liking, but I'll have a print-out with me, on the long train ride to vacation in a couple of days  

[JSngry]

If you're going to have that much time on your hands, go to the link and grab the whole thing. It's a good read, and a long one.

[king ubu]

12 minutes ago, JSngry said:

If you're going to have that much time on your hands, go to the link and grab the whole thing. It's a good read, and a long one.

That's exactly what I did

I read bits here and there and am looking forward to reading the whole thing!

[Steve Reynolds]

Like Jim, I’ve never connected to Liebman but he’s an interesting, honest and funny guy based on the above and the link. I do wish he didn’t believe “that after Trane there ain’t nothin’ to play on that instrument” referencing the tenor saxophone. Certainly the last 50 years have proven this wrong. Lots of new things have been and continue to be said/played on the tenor. 

[HutchFan]

5 minutes ago, Steve Reynolds said:

I do wish he didn’t believe “that after Trane there ain’t nothin’ to play on that instrument” referencing the tenor saxophone. Certainly the last 50 years have proven this wrong. Lots of new things have been and continue to be said/played on the tenor. 

Yeah. I agree with you, Steve. 

I wonder though if Liebman's (and also Braxton's) proximity to Coltrane -- coming right after him generation-wise -- made Coltrane's HUGE, seemingly inescapable influence seem even greater than subsequent generations would find it. . . . Comparable maybe to the way that someone like Brahms had to wrestle with Beethoven's influence in ways that Schoenberg (and others after him) didn't have to -- simply because the later generations had more time to discover ways to deal with that huge "influence shadow" and find new ways to get out from under it.

Just thinking out loud here. . .  

[JSngry]

Just now, HutchFan said:

Yeah. I agree with you, Steve. 

I wonder though if Liebman's (and also Braxton's) proximity to Coltrane -- coming right after him generation-wise -- made Coltrane's HUGE, seemingly inescapable influence seem even greater than subsequent generations would find it. . . . Comparable maybe to the way that someone like Brahms had to wrestle with Beethoven's influence in ways that Schoenberg (and others after him) didn't have to -- simply because the later generations had more time to discover ways to deal with that huge "influence shadow" and find new ways to get out from under it.

Just thinking out loud here. . .  

I think that's a good thought. Distance leads - or should led to - familiarity. Mysteries become less mysterious as mechanics are revealed.

Magic is wonderful, but it's meant for the moment.