Ornette Coleman & Collin Walcott [Updated 10/12/11]

It just occurred to me that I have not updated this blaaaggh in a month! Here are some oldies that I've had in the can for a while, but I haven't shared them before.

Ornette Coleman - Macho Woman

This one was recorded by Ornette's Prime Time quintet, and released in 1978 on Body Meta. I will probably be sharing some more tunes from this album from time to time.

Collin Walcott - Margueritte

[Chart updated 10/12/11. Please make sure you download the new version to replace the old.]

This is a beautiful tune, the opening track on Walcott's first album Cloud Dance. I remember reading somewhere (maybe the liner notes??) that Margueritte was the name of Walcott's wife, but I could be just completely making that up.

A different version of this tune was recorded on Oregon's 1974 album Winter Light. I'll post that in the future.

The tune is one of two quartet tunes on the album, with Jack DeJohnette playing drums. I posted the other one at an earlier time; click the "Collin Walcott" label below to find it. The rest of the album consists of duos and trios with Dave Holland and John Abercrombie. This is a really good, very accessible 70's jazz album that I can't recommend highly enough.

I've got a pretty busy July but hopefully I'll get around to doing some serious transcribing at some point. I noticed a couple requests for "Splash", which is definitely encouraging. I'll give it a try soon.

On a side note: readers of this blog might be interested in a series I've been working on over at my other blog. This is a series of the earliest recorded examples of free improvisation that I've been able to find, with the point of demonstrating the wide variety of approaches that have led to it.

The Music of Anthony Braxton

[Note: In an interview, Braxton once gave a couple of examples of titles that he would never use for his compositions, like "The Sun Came Over The Mountain" and "Braxton's Blues". I originally titled this post "Bracky's Blues", because that's what I remembered him saying. I noticed the error and changed the title, but you can still see "Bracky's Blues" in the URL to this post. No disrespect was intended toward Braxton, then or now.]

Two tunes off of Anthony Braxton's New York, Fall 1974 album on Arista. Side A of the album is played by the quartet of Braxton, Kenny Wheeler, Dave Holland and Jerome Cooper. Side B contains collaborations with a proto-World Saxophone Quartet, and ex-Musica Elettronica Viva member Richard Teitelbaum. The final track features the original quartet with the addition of Leroy Jenkins on violin. All in all, a very solid, if unusual, album.

Anthony Braxton - Composition #23C

UPDATE: the ineffable Gary Prince found a typo in this transcription. So, I've updated it. Please re-download this new one!

Braxton describes this piece as an "additive repetitive structure", to be played as written, observing all repeat signs once. The result is a form like: 1, 1-2, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4, etc. The tune becomes "progressively revealed" until the end, when it is played straight through. For Braxton's notes on the piece, see restructures.net.

Anthony Braxton - Composition #23D

A more straight-ahead tune, with free solos. I'll leave it to Braxton's own notes to tell you the rest. Read on restructures.net.