Listening: Trio recording of Brotzmann, Graves & W. Parker…Incredible!!!

Hold up a second. Does that really say

Listening: Trio recording of Brotzmann, Graves & W. Parker…Incredible!!!

Incredible indeed!

Armen, if you're out there and you really have nothing better to do than read this crap, might you possibly be so good as to elaborate a bit on the recording?

Which horn(s) is Brotzmann playing?

Any idea where the recording happened? Any idea when?

And if I may be so bold, how exactly can one obtain a copy of said recording?

You do realize were this third grade (and not the dignified virtual world of the blog) by now Miss St. Dennis would have asked did you bring one for everybody?

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Back in fall of 1989, (or was it spring of 1990) in his "Influence of Music" class, Milford Graves played a tape from a trio performance of the above mentioned group wherein Herr Brotzmann was playing the bass saxophone. I believe it was from a performance at "the old" Knitting Factory.

At the time, that music was second only to (in Reich's words) "the orgastic discharge." Shortly there after, it would get bumped down to third place behind a first place performance by Milford Graves, William Parker and Charles Gayle at the Webo Gallery, and the "orgastic discharge" (now in second place.)

The apocrypha surrounding the Graves/Parker/Brotzmann Bass Saxophone explosion involved a then student of Milford Grave's having to get up on stage to unbend the high-hat mid performance. Such was the force and ferocity of prana flow generated at said session.

Like Wolf Whistle before, hearing that trio make that sound asked (and answered) two (then) very pressing and important questions:

1. Are they playing "changes?"
2. Could this music be written, and if so, could it be read?

No and no.

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Reflecting on that recording naturally led to other reflections. The first, a recollection of how absolute Professor Graves was about his intellectual property. There was absolutely no way on G-d's green earth anyone on that campus was about to get a copy of that tape. Even in the early 90's, Graves could still get a good class long spleen-vent going regarding the circulation of unauthorized tapes from John Coltrane's funeral. That's just how Graves' rolled: what few tapes existed in the college music library of Professor Graves performing (not that I recall there being all that many) had attached to them a note forbidding any duplication.

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Those reflections got me to reflecting on Frank Zappa. For two reasons in particular.

Reflection reason number one is his use of the Bass saxophone on Joe's Garage (as played by Stumuk) and as a part of the horn section on last tour, as played by the late Kurt McGettrick.

As with the J. D. Parran in Dixon's chamber orchestra at the Vision fest, the Bass saxophone was a felt presence. Even amidst the electronica and amplification of Zappa's group at that time, the Bass saxophone both thickened the horn arrangements and transformed the sonic landscape when McGettrick played his "solo."

Reflection reason number two is due to my impression of Zappa's similar enthusiasm for a certain kind of control. Though in my typical pulitzer style, I cannot point to anything specific, one needn't look all that hard to find an interview wherein Frank Zappa talks about how people releasing his music before he did made him mad.

Perhaps it is better that he passed before this internet thing really caught on. The dike is huge, the holes are many and even Frank Zappa had a finite number of thumbs. As bold a move as "Beat the Boots" was at the time, now it merely looks quaint. Quaint, not unlike Frank Kofsky's arguments for equity in his book Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music. (Remember when, those innocent times when that kind of hope and belief in the economy and society still existed?)

Like the magnetic poles, the line between self-preservation and LRPD (litigious repulsive personality disorder) is a forever shifting one. Clearly it has shifted since "Beat the Boots" to say nothing of when Kofsky was writing. It is a new day. Thanks to the internet, everyone steals everything. Now that Frank Zappa is dead, it's even harder to get a hold of him to find out from him where he wants 'the line drawn' in this, our even later-capital post-everything society.

Regardless, one need only a faint pulse to find some interest and entertainment in the dialectic herein.

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Germany then came to mind, partially because of Andre_C's German appliance-like precision dialectic, which begat reflection on precise german appliances in general...like the Benedikt Eppelsheim Bb Bass Saxophone (to say nothing of their other offerings.)

While I couldn't find a price for the Benedikt Eppelsheim Bb Bass saxophone, I could find a price for a new "International Woodwind" bass saxophone. (James Carter anyone?)

Unlike Benedikt Eppelsheim, International Woodwinds is not located in Germany, but in Hollywood California, a place that for some reason always makes me think of Dresden.

And that usually means it's time to stop.