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"HiGH ▀ iNTELLiGeNCE tRoLLS"
_______________________________________________________________________
a r t i s t : Simon H. Fell
t i t l e : Compilation III
d a t e : 1998
l a b e l : Bruce's Fingers
g e n r e : Jazz
r l s. d a t e : May/2004
t r a c k s : 15
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 220,0 MB
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Bruce's Fingers BF 27 Composition No. 30: Compilation III for
improvisers, bigband and chamber ensemble
Recorded January to April 1998.
Nikki Dyer, piccolo/flute;
Sam Koczy, oboe;
Becky Smith, clarinet;
Charles Wharf, contrabass clarinet;
Jeremy Webster, bassoon;
Jon Halton, contrabassoon;
John Butcher, soprano sax/tenor sax;
Carl Raven, soprano sax/clarinet;
Simon Willescroft, alto sax;
Hayley Cornick, alto sax/flute;
Mick Beck, tenor sax;
Katy Hird, tenor sax;
Alan Wilkinson, baritone sax;
Jo Luckhurst, baritone sax/ bass clarinet;
Gary Farr, trumpet;
Tom Rees-Roberts, trumpet;
Joanne Baker, trumpet;
David Tollington, french horn;
Tim Page, french horn;
Paul Wright, trombone;
Carol Jarvis, trombone;
Matthew Harrison, trombone;
Andrew M. Oliver, tuba;
Irene Lifke, violin;
Mark Wastell, cello;
Matthew Wilkes, cello;
Kate Hurst, cello; J
ustin Quinn, acoustic guitar;
Stefan Jaworzyn, electric guitar;
Colin Medlock, electric guitar;
Damien Bowskill, electric guitar;
Andrew Stewart, electric guitar;
Rhodri Davies, harp;
Thanea Stevens, dulcichord;
Fardijah Freedman, harpsichord;
Guy Avern, piano/bass guitar;
James Cuthill, prepared piano;
Orphy Robinson, vibes;
John Preston, double bass;
Simon H. Fell, harpsichord/prepared piano/double bass;
Paul Hession, drumset;
Mark Sanders, drums.
_____________________________________
"Fell's Promethean aspirations become truly apparent on
Compilation III, which extends across two CDs and involves the
energies of more than 40 musicians. Far more dramatically than
Compilation I (1985) and Compilation II (1990), this sequel
effects a higher synthesis of classical composition,
contemporary jazz and free improvisation. Gilt-edged
musicianship is in evidence from performers of the calibre of
John Butcher, Alan Wilkinson, Paul Hession and Orphy Robinson.
There is seamless skill in the execution of Compilation III,
and it sounds just right throughout. Clearly, it merits far
more extensive listening than a reviewer's brief permits, but
initial exposure suggests that this is a genuinely important
work. Fell's serialist tenets are radically energised by the
shades of Mingus and Dolphy, while the baggy excesses which can
mar jazz or extended free improvisation have been pared away,
leaving a finely variegated and beautifully balanced
composition." Julian Cowley THE WIRE
"This album has been conceived on such a large scale that one
must refer for comparison to the monumental concertos Michael
Mantler wrote for Cecil Taylor and the Jazz Composers Orchestra
in 1968. Fell has written serial scores, engaged in
state-of-the-art improvisation, conceived propulsive jazz
themes, provoked skronk guitar and then montaged and overlapped
the results in the recording studio. Clocking in at over two
hours, a sense of epic adventure replaces the dazzling
simultaneity of his 40-minute gem Compilation II. There are
moments of bathos as heated abstraction lunges into palm-court
irony, or brisk Vienna Art Orchestra swing, but these are all
part of Fell's perverse vision. Such eclecticism braces the
ears for the passages that surge beyond the hitherto-heard.
Fell takes the rhythmic subdivisions of the latest
improvisations into his compositional structure, proposing a
more active, detailed listening than hitherto possible. Rhythm
sections recorded at different times are layered on top of each
other (a 'xenochrony' borrowed from Frank Zappa) to create
mind-blowingly dense yet swinging textures. This is Luigi Nono
rejecting nostalgia in favour of toothsome grooves from Duke
Ellington and Cosmonauts Hail Satan. While South Bank
publicists promote histrionic vulgarities like Mark-Anthony
Turnage's Your Rockaby as the 'ultimate' crossover between jazz
and classical, Fell is laying the foundations for utopian
music-making beyond the divide. Serious stuff: the debate about
2lst-century music starts right here. A:1*" Ben Watson HIFI
NEWS & RECORD REVIEW
"The simultaneous publication of these 3 CDs (9 Points In
Ascent, Frankenstein & Composition No. 30) demonstrates once
more Simon H. Fell's catalysing method of operations,
comparable to that of William Parker in New York. An
instrumentalist with a proven technique, the bassist has also
established himself as a composer with a passion for
experiment, and both these aspects of his personality are
evident on each of these discs. Remarkable for its ambitious
objective as well as the means employed, Composition No. 30
must be recognised as a significant event for British jazz.
This is not one of those cases where the rehashing of some
elephantesque reunion group substitutes egocentricity for real
dialogue between the participants. The short sequences or
interludes for full brass or strings are written, and serve
mainly to underline or support a multitude of small ensembles
(from duo to string octet) consisting of unusual instrumental
combinations; for example the piccolo opposed to the stunning
contrabass clarinet of Charles Wharf. As for the formal aspects
of this work, it refers to numerous sources of inspiration:
ballad, straight jazz, contemporary classical music but always
with an overall predominance of free improvisation. Intriguing,
unexpected, surprising, disturbing but always impassioned and
thrilling, Composition No. 30 fully realises the fruit of its
ambitions." Gustave Cerutti IMPROJAZZ
"Two hours of music, 42 musicians, one mad genius at its
centre. I am starting to believe that Simon H. Fell is one of
the most important composers alive, and releases like this just
make the case more cut-and-dried by the minute. It's a suite of
pieces, unified by structural elements of Fell's serialist
compositions, assembled in the studio from performances of
notated sections and from improvisations. The sound-world is
generally either free-improv or free jazz, which might sound
like an obvious statement but the two styles cross and re-cross
with considerable complexity, forming one of the most immediate
means of orientation within this massive piece of work. So
there are big-band sections influenced by Mingus and, one
suspects, AACM arrangers like Muhal Richard Abrams, rubbing up
against spaced-out ambient improv and scratchy, angular
interplay. What is unique about Fell's project - his genuinely
swinging serialist jazz heads are impressive enough, but
there's more - is his co-option of what Zappa called
"'xenochrony", in which completely distinct performances are
united, any apparent interplay between the musicians being
purely coincidental. The listener works on such material,
hearing correspondences between the parts which could never
have been intended by the musicians. Zappa is rather scathing
about this in the sleeve notes to Sheikh Yerbouti, but the
truth is that the listener often plays as great a part in the
creation of musical cohesion as the performers, not only in
xenochronous pieces but in more conventional ones as well.
Composition No. 30 makes xenochrony the rule rather than the
exception; the result is utterly unexpected, even unexpectable
music which nevertheless seems completely logical." Richard
Cochrane RESONANCE
"Simon Fell is a wise and canny experimental composer, leader
and bassist who continues to document his steady output of both
large- and small-scale works on his Bruce's Fingers label. The
monumental Composition No.30, which represents Fell's third
'Compilation' for large ensemble, is, in my view, an important
monument in the history of late 20th Century music. Based on
the large assortment of compositional techniques utilized in
the creation of Composition No. 30, it's almost a miracle that
it should be as uniformly good as it turned out. According to
the copious notes, the 125-plus minute work is entirely based
on a single 12-tone row, and there is an "ornate and
mathematical basis to every aspect of its existence". But this
is clearly a serialism of which many purists would disapprove.
There is a good deal of free improvisation, some blues, and a
hunk of big band Jazz writing and riffing. One can also find
liberal grafting of material originally improvised over one
sort of background onto settings of an entirely different
nature. Other modern methods of musical creation are, no doubt,
also lurking around. The result has a scope and sound somewhat
reminiscent of Braxton's orchestral epics, but there is a wider
variety to Fell's giantism. In this single piece one finds not
only Ives, Webern, Cage, Ligeti, Partch, and Boulez, but also
Ellington, Mingus, Sousa, Sun Ra, and even a little urban
blues. It's as if all of Braxton's varied and copious output
were microscoped into one audacious work for large ensemble.
Fell seems to me to have created a piece of music on the level
of Boulez' Pli Selon Pli and Ives' Holidays Symphony. It's what
Bernstein and Berio may have been trying (unsuccessfully) to do
with their Mass and Sinfonia (respectively), and what Ornette
Coleman and Butch Morris are striving for in Skies of America
and in countless large ensemble "conductions." Fell's
Composition No. 30 for Improvisers, Big Band and Chamber
Ensemble is nothing less than a summing up and distillation of
the experimental strains of Western music at the end of the
millennium. It's a resounding success. Based solely on the
sound of the music produced (I've neither seen the score nor
attempted any sort of formal analysis), I'm inclined to think
that Fell has exaggerated the import of adherence to ex ante
mathematical prescriptions in this work. Fell may be too humble
to believe it, but the credit lies not in the numbers or even
the stars, but in himself (and a few of his wonderful
colleagues): together they have produced a modern masterpiece.
In a review of this nature, I can't do more than touch on a few
of the highlights and dark patches that can be found in this
wonderful recording, but here are a few (in no particular
order) that come readily to mind. The reed work of Wharf,
Butcher, Wilkinson, Beck, and of all the flutists is terrific
throughout. There is a nifty transcription of Webern's opus 30
Variations for big band, utilizing Fell's very different tone
row (and his deft walking bass). The contributions of all the
percussionists (and, besides vibes, I here include also
prepared piano, harpsichord and dulcichord) are quite
wonderful: a good example may be found on the Boulez-tinged
Quartet. The polyphonic writing is a brilliant example of
lucidity amid complexity. Check out Construct 3 for one example
of how a Byzantine (not to say "Carterian") architectural
intricacy can be consistent with perfect intelligibility. The
misterioso opening of Part 5 reminded me of Ligeti's spacey
Lontano. Stefan Jaworzyn's killer guitar work leaves terrifying
footprints wherever it touches down. Much of Fell's work with
Wharf on Construct 5 seems physically impossible: it's no
surprise that their recent duo release Frankenstein is so
arresting and off-kilter. Composition No. 30 should not only be
considered as one of the top ten recordings of the year, but
(move over all you Cardews, Birtwistles and Ferneyhoughs!) as
one of the most important musical works to come out of Britain
since the Sixties." Walter Horn CADENCE
"Composition No. 30 refers to Simon H. Fell's most adventurous
large-scale work to date, Compilation III (Compilation I & II
date from 1985 and 1990), "for Improvisers, Big Band and
Chamber Ensemble", Involving 42 musicians. The results are
exhilarating. Strategies include improvisation, serial
notation, and studio contrived "xenochronous combinations" -
constructing works from parts of recordings made at different
times/places. The work's wide-ranging tone-colours, derived
from unusual instrumental combinations, are immediately
impressive; for instance, a quartet of contrabass clarinet,
contrabassoon, piccolo and dulcichord in Part 1 and Part 6.
Likewise, unpredictable transitions from non-idiomatic improv
to notated avant-garde chamber to swinging, Mingus influenced
jazz are achieved with bags of gusto. Among the high points are
John Butcher's, Mark Sanders' and Fell's finely controlled,
mysterious meeting at the strand of nightmares (Part 2); the
delicately applied, luminous tones of Orphy Robinson, Rhodri
Davies, Sanders and Fell (Quartet); and the traumatically
inventive noise improv of Alan Wilkinson (on wonderfully gutsy,
commanding form), Stefan Jaworzyn and Fell (Part 5). At about
126 minutes, Compilation III is a major statement which demands
repeat hearings to appreciate the intricacies of Simon H.
Fell's ingenious structural vision. Complex it may be, but
never too clever by half. And it's especially heartening to see
the National Lottery putting its money into art that really
matters." Chris Blackford RUBBERNECK
"Composition No. 30 is a new landmark in the building of a
boundless music: a Tower of Babel being built by a utopian
engineer of sound. Charles Mingus refracted through John Cage,
serialism through swing. This work, at the same time both
precomposed yet truly open to freedom, must mark the beginning
of a new era." Alexandre Pierrepont JAZZ MAGAZINE
"Simon H. Fell is one of the most under-recognized bassists in
contemporary music. Having made exceptional records on his own
Bruce's Fingers record label since 1985, Fell's improvised work
has ranged from the power free-jazz of the
Hession/Wilkinson/Fell trio to the quiet, AMM-like subtleties
of the VHF group with Graham Halliwell and Simon Vincent. Fell
is not exclusively an improviser, however. He is also a highly
original and extremely ambitious composer. Composition No. 30,
a positively massive, two hour piece for 13 improvisers,
17-piece big band and 12-part chamber ensemble, is Fell's
largest-scale recorded project and most impressive of his
composed works. His compositional style is somewhat of a
melting pot of Anthony Braxton's hyper-complex musical systems,
John Cage's belief in the virtues of chance and indeterminacy,
Charles Mingus' swinging arrangements and Charles Ives' love of
quotation and simultaneity. What results in this piece is an
amazingly individualistic and exciting approach to musical
composition and group improvisation that certainly meets (if
not surpasses) Barry Guy's work with the London Jazz Composers'
Orchestra. Like Guy and the LJCO, Fell allows for familiar
combinations of musicians - such as the Hession/Wilkinson/Fell
trio or Ist - to emerge from the mix but also takes advantage
of the unfamiliar by occasionally restricting a player's
ability to hear the other players, desynchronizing the
recordings of individual musicians, or actually moving solos
from one context to another to discover new and unexpected
possibilities. In the liner notes, Fell writes that the piece
is "unnecessarily complex, ornate and mathematical" It is this
that the total serialists of the 50s and beyond, such as Pierre
Boulez and Milton Babbitt, failed to understand, and it is that
which is responsible for a significant amount of this
composition's brilliance. Fell utilizes dry and rigid
mathematical principles as part of his compositional process
but then breathes life into his music rhythmically (a few
sections really swing) or by adding the flexible elements of
improvisation and indeterminacy. Pre-determined and improvised
sections aren't merely brought together in a segregated yet
amiable fashion like in the work of Guy or Michael Mantler but
are instead truly fused into a homogenous mixture of
contemporary classical composition, abstract improvisation and
jazz. Listening to this music, I feel as if it is an
inexhaustible document - that there is more substance, more
happening than I could ever take in. Even in the most abstract
of sections, there is an underlying sense of logic. This is
truly a land-mark recording in contemporary music" Tom Pratt
SIGNAL TO NOISE
"Fell is a leading bass player on the British scene and an
increasingly ambitious composer. One of the busiest bass
players on the European free-improvisation circuit, he
condenses everything he has learned into epic projects he calls
Compilations. He has recently completed Compilation Ill, a
double CD that uses orchestra and soloists to inter-mingle jazz
themes, improvisations, and experimental composition - serial,
aleatoric, and polytonal. It is tempting to claim that nothing
has been attempted on both the physical and conceptual scale of
Compilation Ill since 1968, when Michael Mantler released his
landmark Third Stream double album, Communication. The bane of
many European "free-improvising" big bands is chaos and murk.
The music of Compilation III sounds crystalline. This clarity
offers a chance to appreciate the group's individual voices:
Orphy Robinson's vibes are set like gem-stones, and Colin
Medlock's British-blues-boom guitar suggests Eric Clapton
jamming with Eric Dolphy. To go from death metal that
out-skronks Sonic Youth to Ist's spectral chamber music
illustrates a breadth of vision akin to that of John Zorn,
although Fell makes less use of postmodernist citation and
pastiche. Fell also dispels another curse of European free
improvisation: the fear that composition and post-production
must inevitably sacrifice spontaneity and truth. Like Ellington
or as with a long line of auteur filmmakers, Fell has learned
to make best use of what's at his disposal - a new "jazz
pragmatism," born the unlikely town of Haverhill, in Suffolk,
England." Ben Watson JAZZIZ
"The segues work very well. It's a very difficult area,
composing for improvisors, and Compilation Ill is one of the
most successful I've heard." John Butcher JAZZIZ
"It's almost like channel surfing on the television but the
stations are free atonal music, music concrete, group ensemble
jazz, frenetic improvisation, sophisticated urban jazz, ethnic
world music, ambient soundscape, multi-phonic sound textures,
swing, jazz/rock fusion. The list goes on and on. It's like a
parade. Not everything is easily categorized, by the way. It is
a dance between representational and non-representational
music, between noise and silence, between pretty and strange,
between fast and slow, between filled in and sparse. Listen to
it with focused attention or put it in the background of your
next party. If you walk away from it not knowing anymore about
your own musical tastes than before, then I pity you." Glenn
Engstrand THE IMPROVISOR
"A mighty two-disc work which, despite its rigorous structural
undertow, nevertheless seems like a phantasmagoric
improvisation from end to end, where the performers arrive and
depart in predetermined but spontaneous ways. Many of the
'constructs' which exist within the piece are clearly organised
to the last letter, but only if you want to hear them that way.
We prefer to hear it as the lifetime masterpiece by a major
contemporary musician - except, of course, Fell is hopefully
going to be delivering much more music to us yet. ****" THE
PENGUIN GUIDE TO JAZZ ON CD
"In Composition No. 30 Simon Fell shows how an orchestra of
improvisers can be organised without suppressing their
personalities. What he calls 'xenochrony' - the overlaying of
passages recorded at different times - generates new rhythmic
complexities, ensuring his orchestra never retreats into
generic modernist symphonic sound. His disc is not a substitute
for the event but an event in its own right." Ben Watson THE
WIRE
_______________________________________________________________________
Compilation III cd1
01-Part 1: Prelude, Swing & Variations [12:55]
02-Part 2: Klangarbenmelodie [12:05]
03-Part 3: Blues [09:27]
04-Construct 1 [03:25]
05-Construct 2 [01:27]
06-Quartet [06:30]
07-Construct 3 [08:52]
08-Part 4: Rhythm [11:17]
09-Interlude [03:50]
Compilation III cd2
01-Part 5: Guitar [07:02]
02-Construct 4 [06:47]
03-Construct 5 [10:14]
04-Construct 6 [07:11]
05-Trio [03:14]
06-Part 6: Chord Progression [22:36]
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126:5
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