Incantation / Elaboration (part two)

I’d never seen people walk out in the middle of an early music concert before…

It was not by any means having to do with the quality of the performance, which was exemplary.  It was instead a testament to the power of music written centuries ago.  

This post might be considered a followup to the previous post from couple of weeks ago in which I wrote about a listening experience of music from before the time of Bach, and how it left me intrigued if not confused.  At the same, time I felt an affinity towards that music as an improvisor that took time to identify and articulate.  This past week I heard one of the most striking examples of this phenomenon yet, upping the ante in this process of experiencing musical connections across time.  Connections that are very much alive in this crazy period we are living through now.  Somehow it gives me hope.

The venue was the same, the Gotham Early Music Scene’s weekly midtown concerts series here in NYC.  I had written about the blend of voices in the Theotokos ensemble given that I was perfectly situated near the front of the audience.  In this case the ALBA Consort was presented and for whatever reason I decided to listen from a different sonic vantage point, from the side and rather far from the musicians.  Given the amount of reverberation in the church some of the detail was obscured but with a little extra concentration I was still able to hear quite clearly.  The first composition, by Guillaume de Machaut, was slow and spare beginning with psaltery and oud (a middle eastern string instrument) joined by a vocal duo (female and male) creating a spacious almost other-worldly sound out of minimal elements. 

As the second piece began I found myself straining a bit to lean in and discern exactly what was going on.  The vocalists were singing in an unusually low register and the reverberation was making it challenging to zero in on exactly what pitches they were aiming for.  The oud seemed to be playing a completely independent part lending a disjunct quality to the proceedings even as the percussionist maintained a steady pulse.  On the one hand I loved it and at the same time I couldn’t help wonder if they might have gotten lost and were hanging on for dear life.  At this point the couple sitting behind me starting murmuring, I wasn’t sure what about but I could make out the words “is this kind of weird?”  Well, I guess it was which made me all the more interested.  About a dozen folks felt differently though and after the piece ended they and the couple behind me filed out.  This I something I’d only ever experienced at a contemporary music concert.  Or perhaps that time at a Cecil Taylor concert years ago when a full third of the audience left not even midway through a free outdoor performance of his band (featuring the great saxophonist Jimmy Lyons) in Chicago.  Anyway, the rest of the concert was varied and involved music from Spain and Armenia as well as from Balkan, Greek and Moroccan Sephardic traditions leaving me feeling much better than when I'd walked in.  

Upon returning home I began researching that second piece of music and quickly found that its idiosyncratic sound and structure have been of note for quite some time.  The title is “Fumeux fume” written by someone under the name Solage from the fourteenth century and is included in the Chantilly Codex, an important manuscript of medieval music.  It is a three-voice rondeaux in the tradition of the French “art subtilior” (more subtle art), a kind of avant garde of it’s time characterized by a high degree of complexity often utilizing what look like the kinds of graphic scores one might encounter in the twentieth century avant garde.   Perhaps because it appealed to a smaller group of aficionados or that it was more difficult to perform or that it was more challenging for audiences the style fell out of favor.  And yet seven hundred years later some folks are still moved towards the exits.  That’s really awesome when you think about it.  

The concert was recorded and while I tend to resist disseminating on-line listening I want to at least provide something by which you may also become intrigued enough to venture out into the unexpected, in person.  Here is the link to the ALBA Consort’s performance, cued up to “Fumeux fume”.  Once you’ve heard it I invite you to compare it with a recording in which all three parts are sung as opposed to assigning one of them to the oud (which I suspect may have been truer to the original intent) by the ensemble Alla Francesca.  Additionally here is yet another vocal version, this one a bit faster, by the TENET Vocal Artists.  Upon multiple listenings I’ve acclimated to it and am deeply moved by this music.   

Also of interest are the words to this composition.  I have no idea the meaning, perhaps it is metaphorical.  I've also encountered an alternate translation that uses smoke to describe brooding and vexatious states of mind.  

Fumeux fume par fumée, The smoker smokes through smoke, 

Fumeuse speculacion. A smoky speculation.

Qu’antre fummet sa pensée, While others smoke in thought,

Fumeux fume par fumée. The smoker smokes through smoke, 

Quar fumer molt li agree’ Because smoke pleases him greatly

Tant qu’il ait son entencion’. As he meditates.

Fumeux fume par fumée, The smoker smokes through smoke, 

Fumeuse speculacion. A smoky speculation.

My otherwise superficial rendering of the performance and music should in no way be seen as critical.  Confusion is not a bad thing and it often motivates an investigation paying off with more grist for the mill for the process of improvisation.  As always I extend my great thanks to the folks behind this ongoing series.  Attending these concerts each week has become my therapy.

Also on my mind…

...has been the recent passing of pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn.  A wonderful artist beloved by the community, I was fortunate to have worked with her a number of times and recorded with her and bassist Michael Formanek on a recording titled “Mirage”.

I can’t help but appreciate the vocal quality of her sound and I might assert that it does not require much in the way of imagination to hear a connection to the “distant” sounds of Solage.  Perhaps a good example might be Susan’s performance of “O. Sacrum Convivum”, a choral piece by composer Olivier Messiaen whose music, while perennially modern, evokes the spaciousness and mystery of early music.   

PS...I'm adding this a couple of days after having posted the above given that in my continuing exploration of music involving chant and polyphony the following has come across the radar...

Easter Liturgy in 1673 - Old Slavonic Polyphony | Chronos Ensemble

It strikes me as yet another approach in this rich tradition and quite a bracing one at that.  Here is an except from the description provided by the artists:

The Old-Russian liturgical polyphony, as well as the folk music, did not follow the Western system of consonance and dissonance that gave birth to European harmony and tonality. The Russian polyphony was based on the diatonic modal system of the Znamenny chant. This system gave no preference to «consonances» over «dissonances», considering both equally pure and natural. The thirds are not characteristic of this chant, the fourths and seconds occurring much more naturally in the tetrachord-based system.This may partially explain why this typically early-Russian type of polyphony is so valued in the aesthetic system of contemporary classical music. 

Incantation / Elaboration

The music had already started before I realized it, taking me by surprise.  No tuning up and settling in, the ensemble members (four vocalists and four instrumentalists) were focused and ready as soon as they took their places.  Led by the cellist (using his body to direct the music) the sound immediately grabbed me and yet I wasn’t sure why.  The vocal blend, four independent voices unified in perfect intonation, constantly unfolding in harmonic motion was so beautiful that I found it difficult to think.  I could only take it in asking myself how this music held together while seemingly in a state of constant dissolution.

  

The ensemble is called “Theotokos” and they are performing a program of music from before the time of Bach.

In time I began to notice a few things, not so much about the music but more the feelings it elicited.   For one I was beginning to feel like I was in church.  Of course, this was taking place in a church quite literally, just not an actual church service.  While my church going experience is rather limited I recently witnessed an Eastern Orthodox ordination service that lasted more than three hours and this was resonating in a similar way, a non-stop unfolding ritual of chant and liturgy.  Interestingly, during that service I was sitting next to a zen monk and while neither of us knew what was going on it wasn’t wholly unfamiliar since chant and liturgy play an important role in Buddhism as well.  The music being presented on this concert utilized chant much the same way it would have been used in such services and it had much the same effect.

In religious practice chant may serve a number of purposes; a form of announcement, an incantation, a mantra or simply a unifying element for those in attendance given its focusing effect on the mind and body. Chant is typically an intonement on a steady pitch although not always.  It may be flowing and non-metered or it may be rhythmic and repetitive.  But it’s usually not considered music in the way a song would be.  The words may or may not have any literal meaning but in either case it is the embodied act of chanting itself that allows the sounds to take direct effect, bypassing rational mediation.  No matter how you may feel about religious practice it’s hard to imagine being immune to these qualities.  

As the concert proceeded a pattern emerged in which one of the vocalists would go into an unaccompanied chant which was responded to and elaborated upon by the rest of the ensemble in a form of musical polyphony.  Polyphony refers to multiple voices each moving independently of each other, this particular brand of polyphony being quite intricate with little obvious imitation or repetition between the players or within the overall form.  There were cadences (resolution points) but they tended to cascade from one to another in unexpected ways.  This all went on for an hour without stop.  Given no obvious signposts of “where we were” the music began to feel cyclical rather than linear.  At a certain point I found myself thinking about gamelan music due to the timeless quality of continuous flow.  What I couldn’t figure out was how this was all ordered, achieving such cohesiveness within such detail.

It wasn’t until later that it dawned on me that it had to have been the words.  Researching this a bit led to the term “text painting”, a through-composed compositional technique (meaning without return to previous material) in which the flow of the words determines the flow of the music.  This is what allowed the polyphony to be so rich in complexity while retaining a sense of direction.  The program was a presentation of pieces written by a half dozen different composers played from one to the other, all of which were drawn from a musical form known as a passion setting, a form of composition with roots going back to Gregorian chant.  The texts utilized stem from a tradition of recitation of the story of the passion in church services going back to the fourth century.  These particular pieces ranged from the 1400’s into the late 1600’s, a period just prior to the advent of the tonal system that defined the time of Bach onward.  It is a music rich with all sorts of unorthodox musical procedures that eventually became smoothed out with the emergent codification of western harmony combined with an increased attention to compositional structure.

In spite of the fact that I did take history of western music classes in college, this is essentially new to me.  Back then, mostly what was on my mind was John Coltrane, getting a good sound on the saxophone and figuring out how to play chord changes.  I saw very little relevance with respect to most of what we were studying in class.  I feel very differently about that now.  These qualities, born out of a tradition based on the voice and the vocal production of sound (and it’s role in the development of harmony) may seem very far away from the concerns of an improvising saxophonist from a tradition based largely upon rhythm, the heart of which is the drums.  But I wouldn’t make too much of this distinction, at least I don’t want to be held back by it even though I’m still not sure what the effects of all this listening and my practicing of Bach may come to.  After having played the Buescher tenor and Rascher “classical” mouthpiece exclusively for the past several months I went back this past week and picked up my Conn tenor using my “jazz” mouthpiece.  I’m reminded of what my voice on the saxophone is and yet the through-composed unfolding qualities of that concert resonate with the way I improvise solo saxophone.  Without a formal basis for my own process I’ve sometimes wondered whether it was all a reflection of some kind of psychodrama.  I never actually trusted that assessment but I am feeling confident that there is in fact something at the heart of it all, whether I know exactly what it is or not.

I might have guided you to the recording of this concert but unfortunately it suffers from the recording process itself.  Not that it was recorded poorly or unprofessionally, it wasn’t.  The presenters take great care in what they are doing in documenting the concerts they present.  It’s simply the fact that what happens in the room is often elusive to even the best recording processes.  The rich blend and fullness was missing completely and the result was, to be honest, unpleasant compared to what was experienced live.  Instead, I’ll guide you to an excellent example from this time period in the music of composer Carlo Gesualdo, who lived from 1566 to 1613.  Gesualdo’s musical language is highly chromatic in ways that would not reappear again for centuries and exemplifies this kind of constant unfolding.  Have a listen here to his sacred music for five voices.

Interestingly, the music on this recording, the music on this concert and so much of the music we may study from any culture throughout world history can be recognized as spiritual music.  And it is completely up to you what to make of that.

What's next...

My upstairs neighbor is a concert violinist, quite an excellent one.  His name is Georgy Valtchev and he’s practicing right now in fact.  He can also hear my practicing, which was confirmed some years back when he asked if playing Bach on the saxophone was difficult.  He seemed surprised but I told him that it was good practice for certain issues on the horn, flexibility between registers being one.  I’ve continued to practice Bach since then albeit sporadically and while my aspirations have remained high over the years I’ve often wondered whether any progress was being made at all.

Recent months have been encouraging however.  Perhaps it’s attending the weekly early music series taking place in the neighborhood which is rubbing off but one or two of the cello suites may finally be within reach.  Lately my practice has been almost exclusively “classical” using my Buescher Aristocrat tenor, a Rascher mouthpiece and Vandoren Blue Box reeds.  I’ve also recently discovered that a few of the violin partitas have been arranged for saxophone by Raf Hekkema and along with a number of the flute sonatas they’ve become part of my regular routine. One afternoon my wife came in while I was practicing and said she thought our neighbor and I were playing the same piece.  I saw him on the street some days after and he confirmed this, saying “yes, I think it was the D Minor partita”.  I refrained from asking for any kind of assessment but along with those weekly concerts, knowing there is an expert pair of ears upstairs probably helps keep me on my toes.  In terms of next steps it may be that playing some of these pieces for actual listeners could be the catalyst needed to get them where they need to be.  

Speaking of that early music concert series, I’m appreciating that playing Bach well is in fact a high bar to reach for.  A case in point was a concert last May by Canadian harpsichordist Geneviève Soly in which she offered a program called Eight Diptychs from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 (1772).  Her performance was incredibly alive and I was excited to have the opportunity to speak with her afterwords and relate my feeling that she played that music as if she had written it herself.  She seemed pleased to hear that and so I followed by asking about her process with respect to phrasing.  She explained using the word “agogic” meaning that certain parts of a melodic phrase are heightened such that they are displaced from the strong beats in a measure.  It’s related to the idea of a kind of rubato or freedom within a tempo so as to create a sense of movement while emphasizing the natural tensions and resolutions that occur throughout the piece.  I appreciate this in much the same way I appreciate swing in jazz.  They are quite different and yet based in similar principles.  Even so, it’s interesting just how elusive it seems to be for classical musicians to swing and for jazz musicians to play classical with an authentic rhythmic feel.  

Since her performance felt so personal it seemed appropriate to ask about interpretation.  To my surprise she responded by saying that it was all about analyzing the score in great depth.  Bach did not offer many interpretive indications in his manuscripts so one might assume there would be a great deal of latitude in making choices.  She asserted that with the exception of some slight tempo differences she did not vary her approach from performance to performance.  I was almost skeptical of this and could have asked more questions given the myriad ways that Bach is played but out of respect thought it best to accept what she offered and consider it seriously.  My sense is that she was following a rigorous process, finding reasons for her choices and imbuing the music with an undeniable integrity and life force.  Certainly there are musicians who will make different choices and there is often argument or criticism involved among those who take these things seriously.  It’s all completely fascinating and leads more and more to the idea that ultimately there is little difference between this process and improvising.  If you’re going to make a piece of classical music alive you must know it deeply and play it as if you wrote it yourself.  It’s much the same effect as when a great improviser creates music on the spot with a sense of inevitability that convinces you that there was no other way it could have gone.  

And speaking of improvisation, how might we as improvisors create that kind of inevitability in our playing?  Our equivalent to analyzing scores comes by way of solo transcriptions.  These are usually rummaged through in search of “licks” but a deeper examination can reveal how phrasing creates and maintains a sense of movement via tension and release.  But then what?  Unless you’re going to play that transcription verbatim on a gig you’re going to have to come up with your own content and bring it to life, on the spot.  

I recently gave a music lesson to a visiting saxophonist from out of town.  He had taken a lesson some months prior and I was curious as to what effect that lesson may have had on his playing.  He told me that his personal practice was gratifying but when it came to time to play a gig he often found himself uncomfortable, falling into old habits wanting to reach for things that worked even as they elicited a sense of dissatisfaction. “It’s as if I’m doing an impression of myself playing the saxophone” he said.  

The lessons I give these days are open-ended all-afternoon affairs.  There is plenty of time for discussion but the emphasis is on gaining insight through playing.  I might ask a question and tell a student to answer it on their horn, guiding the process and looking for openings based on what I hear.  In this way every lesson is different.  Over a period of some hours we took a number of approaches dealing with harmony in creating melodic ideas, often going into areas that may have been less comfortable but ultimately yielding greater results. 

After a number of gambits at a certain point I found myself saying “play like a vocalist who is trying to sing like a horn player”.  Somehow that seemed to click (you never know) working as a natural way to focus on phrasing to create his ideas.  The trouble was, not all of those ideas sounded good or convincing to him.  He was certainly capable of playing good ideas and yet I pointed out that “when you played something you didn’t like, I actually found it more interesting.  It jumped out at me, eliciting the anticipation of what’s next?  In other words, you had my attention!”

A light bulb blinked on in his expression.  We then spoke about content, the idea, what it is and how it functions.  By allowing our idiosyncrasies and even our mistakes into the mix content becomes less a matter of fixed recitation and more a matter of dynamic unfolding.

A great classical musician also understands this dynamic unfolding.  They have to apply it to a score whereas we have to create our content and deliver it on the spot.  It’s wonderful when a classical musician creates a sense of improvisation out of a score. Equally, as an improvisor I’m always striving to play something that sounds like it has a compositional integrity. Towards that end I sometimes wonder if improvisation itself is “enough”. It’s been years since I’ve composed anything and while I’ve not closed the door on that there is something I’m after with just the horn and this moment. I think that 2025 may offer opportunities to pursue some further solo concerts and see what develops.

Speaking of 2025, the new year is now upon us and there is no avoiding the palpable degree of uncertainty around the increasingly volatile aspects of social and political life requiring our attention, expression and action.  The music and arts scene has traditionally played its role offering comfort and disruption as is needed.  In a way we seem to have an advantage in that the processes imbedded our very work offer insight into how we might act in the world, and yet I still wonder, is that enough?  Perhaps a better question might be, how thoroughly we can apply these lessons?  Or perhaps, how wisely?

The degree of openness to “what’s next” required to play music generates an energy that is extraordinarily powerful.  This power need not be associated with force or violence (consider the power of gentleness for example) and can take any form.  Music renders it all simply as energy and as musicians we call on the full range of these energies, channeling them all towards positive action, healing action if you will.  In our lives the entirety of these same energies run through the whole world and through each one of us, taking all kinds of forms in action and with serious consequences.  These energies can harm or heal, in an instant. 

As artists, ironically it can become easy to separate ourselves from the rest of the world based on our very ideals and aspirations especially when they take the form of ideologies and politics.  We may rightly feel that humanitarian issues should not be political yet we make it so by virtue of creating conflict out of that very sense of separateness.  Even positive energy can bring harm when it comes in the form of self righteousness, even when the cause is worthy.  But at the same time, knowing that it’s all “just energy” means that the potential to do harm is also the potential to refrain from doing harm, to do good.  We are the ones who qualify that energy as good or bad and therefore we are ones who can transform it through creativity and renewal.

That may be a lot to take in so as in music it’s probably a good idea to try and simplify that action.  Breath in, breath out…what’s next?

There have been a number of passings in our community of late and while I often take note on the blog I sometimes find myself hesitating, not wanting things to feel too heavy.  But if I take what I’ve written seriously, this too is part of our constant unfolding and I remind myself that in life, death, sickness and health, we are whole.  As a friend recently reminded me, when one is ill, another takes care.  In zen it’s often said, “not two”.  In this spirit I want to acknowledge a few friends and musical colleagues who have passed in recent months.  

Trumpeter Herb Robertson and I played frequently over the years in a number of bands.  Standing next to him night after night I was often struck by the fact that I could always find it in myself to loosen up even more.  Herb knew the study and discipline of music but he was in no way inhibited by convention.  We would sometimes think of Herb as a kind of shaman, having this direct connection, right though whatever he was feeling at the moment.  It was often startling as he channeled all the energy that pulsed through him.  In spite of the shock of his sudden departure all I can really think about was how much love he had in him and how it came out in his music.  I’m thankful to have known him. 

A couple of years back another friend and musical colleague, trumpeter Tom Williams passed.  Tom and I met in college, in our hometown of Baltimore.  He sounded fully formed (jaw-droppingly so) the first day he arrived, just swinging hard and nailing the changes.  We played fairly often in Baltimore at that time, including a steady gig with drummer Harold White doing arrangements from his former employer Horace Silver.  Tom recorded for the Criss Cross label in the nineties and performed with Jimmy Heath and Gary Bartz among other greats all the while being an inspiration to those in the community in which he lived and played.  We didn’t see each other so often after I left Baltimore but he remains an inspiration to this day.  

Tom tells a great story about meeting Freddie Hubbard, it’s still posted…

One of things that surprised me when I first arrived in NYC, in 1983, was a sense of camaraderie among those of us who were new to town.  Somehow I expected a pretty cutthroat scene given some of the things I’d heard but I remember very well to this day many of the folks who I met and hung out with at jam sessions, listening to music and trading gigs with each other.  That created a real bond and even as we each found our own musical paths, branching out and forging new musical relationships I appreciate those formative years and experiences.  One of the first people I met was baritone saxophonist Claire Daly.  

Claire passed a few months ago and even as we hadn’t seen each other in years it hit me pretty deeply given that she was such a stalwart part of the NYC scene, genuinely dedicated to the music and someone who everyone felt positively towards.  Claire was also the first person to turn me on to George Garzone and The Fringe.  My friend, drummer John Arnold, referred to her as “the real deal”.