Anthony Braxton - 'Five Compositions (Quartet) 1986' (Black Saint)

I wonder if Braxton went to his label in 1986 and said "hey guys, guess what, i got a new album for ya!" and the Black Saint brass were like "o sweet what is it called?" and he was all like "Five Compositions (Quartet) 1986" and they were like "wait, didden we just do that?" But this is the next logical step, right? Keep Gerry Hemingway but replace Marilyn Crispell with David Rosenboom and put Mark Dresser on bass. What changes? Everything. Rosenboom is a chop-chop pianist and introduced a much more rhythmic (if not hyperactive) melodic structure, which Hemingway works well with on the toms. The compositions are swirling and dense, and retain the darkly inflected quality of the last LP, only with a somewhat more jazz cloud around it all. They're back in Milano for this (which makes me ask - why the fuck do we English speakers shorten Milano to Milan? I understand difficult foreign names like Köln we might want to make Cologne, or Götebørg as Gothenberg, but, seriously, what English speaker is not capable of saying Milan-O? or Roma?) and the recording quality is a bit murkier, yet strangely dry at the same time. The first four pieces blaze through with few moments of relief - there are the occasional moments of bass/alto sax interplay that really stick out, but generally it's an onslaught. The final track, 'Composition - No. 101 (+31+86+30)' (which has a pictograph that sorta looks like a roll of toilet paper) beings with a very small, quiet section. The drones that are built up are extended breath pieces, with bowed bass and percussion to push them along, and it's not unlike some of the outer-breath experimentations that Evan Parker did with the Electro-acoustic Ensemble a decade later. When the band does come in, they never show their hand, and it's a bit more of the eerie dance I've gotten accustomed to after listening to 10 Anthony Braxton records in a row. But now, sadly, it's time to move on for an even more daunting gauntlet....

The David Boykin Outet - 'Evidence of Life on Other Planets vol. 1' (Thrill Jockey)

This quintet is actually an outet, and if you are wondering why it's because Boykin is gonna take you to the outer reaches of the stratosphere, man. To prove it, he's thrown on a pair of Zubaz and he's playing his saxophone on a rock, to remind you all of how spiritual and connected-to-nature a jazz saxophonist can be. If he's trying to buy into the whole myth who can blame him? He's in Chicago and there's a hell of a scene there to grow up in. The picture makes him look pretty young and you'd think there wasn't a band since none of them are pictured, but this is very much a group deal. Boykin takes the center a few times for some tenor soloing but lots of the tunage is shared, particularly with the flautist, Nicole Mitchell. There's no point where this thing erupts - it's more concerned with constructing an atmosphere, one of spacey flowing melodic interplay. The tones hover around like a spaceship, with the drummer relegated to atmospheric percussion for most of side 1. 'Astro Lilly' does remind me of something off late 50's Sun Ra, only maybe better recorded. It's gotta be an influence, I guess, with the space imagery, and John Gilmore worship -- but I can't help but feel this is more of a chill out, down in the dirt, salt of the earth kinda record instead. Each track ends with such lackluster applause I'm amazed they kept it on the record -- it's like most of the audience was out in the lobby or something. I jest; there's no reason to rag on the David Boykin Outet, for their only sin is really being too rooted in the post-skronk anti-tradition, and that's no crime if you ask me. There's a lot of nuanced playing and the final track, 'Hypnotic', may not quite live up to its name but it's at least catchy, painting images of smoky air, wooden floors and brown trousers. There's a lot of vocalising but it's recorded sorta weirdly, so it's easy to tune out, though I like it. It's been twelve years since this was recorded and I haven't heard anything about Mr. Boykin so who knows where he is now. It's kinda weird this is on Thrill Jockey - almost like they owed someone a favour or something? I mean, the design/layout of the sleeve is practically shocking compared to the aesthetic they usually push and you think they were putting out Jim Shepard records around the same time as this ... what a funny world we live in. I remember this guy came to town once but it was a solo sax show so I skipped it.

Air - '80º Below '82' (Antilles)

Source: Ross, in August 2002.

A new decade, a new label, and finally the Gauntlet of Air records comes to an end here at Dislocated Underbite Spinal Alphabetised Encourager Templates. Maybe this is a mark of my musical immaturity but I look at the 1980s as the Zyklon B of artistic jazz. It's kinda sad to hear the bug creeping into even fine purveyors of musical exploration such as Messrs. Threadgill, Hopkins and McCall but it's there. I don't know what's happened in the three years since Lore but we got them opening with another Jelly Roll Morton piece, smashing through it in an absolutely dull fashion. Things pick up a bit on the Threadgill originals but there's just a little bit too much sheen on things for my tastes. I keep this in on the shelves for the last piece, 'Do Tell', a circular jam with the bass thumping it along that reminds me a bit of Can or that one Buzzcocks jam. Its a bit lunkheaded (given the high pedigree of these musicians) and maybe that's why I love it. I think this album is some sort of conceptual work about Chicago freezing into stasis (at least from what I can tell by the cryptic poetry scrawl at the bottom). You always have to like a record that uses the front cover image on the back, only in negative.