Idle Thoughts of an Idle Mind

by Anthony Medici in Concert Reviews, Musician Reviews, Opinion Posts, Reviews

As William Congreve (not Shakespeare) once famously said, “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast” (not beast, although now so often misquoted as to form a standard quote in itself), but it seems rather powerless to cure the sick– at least in my case, as I spent the week suffering from a nasty illness that left me time to listen but not much inclination to do so. I usually suffer, as I suspect most music lovers do, from a perceived lack of time to enjoy their favorite music. It’s one of life’s cruel ironies illnes gives one the time to listen but takes away one’s capacity to enjoy it. I suppose music can often be a power for healing and would love to hear from those who have experienced that power.

@ I recently had an opportunity to see Anthony Braxton in concert with a chamber group of three music students (all female, although I’m not sure if that is particularly meaningful) on piano, violin, and bassoon and contrabassoon. Braxton, looking like a rare book librarian in brown cardigan and glasses, took turns on the sopranino, soprano sax, alto sax, and baritone sax, all played from a seated position, which, I would think, would have to be rather difficult. It also suggests something about the music itself: it didn’t swing. Not that one goes to such a concert expecting mainstream swinging jazz, but the music, as it were, remained seated and studious.

Even though I can’t define jazz, I do know to my own satisfaction, that this wasn’t jazz. As Seinfeld would say, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” This was a chamber music piece from start to finish, whose lineage stretches back to Bartok, Hindemith, and Stockhausen, not Bird, Mingus, or Miles, with the exception of a brief sixty second passage that caught a jazz sensibility, like a fresh cool desert breeze blowing into a closeted space.

The musical notation used by the musicians was like nothing I’ve ever seen before, but more like a medical diagram from an anatomy text. Imagine, if you will, an anatomist’s full-color cross-section diagram of the muscles of the arms or legs; that was what the musicians read from. How the performers made anything of it is unclear to me, although I am sure they are initiates of the Braxtonian method, which tends to recondite, Rosicrucian symbology.

Braxton has gone his own, pioneering way for a long time now, which begs the question: Is this the next direction of jazz?