| Discography of Joe Fonda | 1995 |
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Lineup
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 Composition 187 |
Recorded November 24, 1995 at the Tri-Centric (Thanksgiving 1995)Festival
at the Knitting Factory, New York City.
Released 1997 by Braxton House [BH-007]
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CD Reviews
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Thom Jurek for All Music Guide This performance of "Composition 187" by an 11-piece ensemble is an attempt by the composer — who also performs — to erect a sound sculpture along contructivist principles regarding time and space. How this comes off to the listener is as a series of long repetitive phrases by the reeds and winds and a series of contrapuntal responses by strings and percussion entwined in a third harmonic equation by the entire ensemble tonally as the piece goes on. Members begin to break off into smaller groupings until the theme itself has transmuted into another tonal dimension and becomes a fragmentary element in the sonic construction of musical terms and their relationship to the time/space continuum. These musicians, many of them Braxton's students, are very disciplined, to a fault even. Where the compositions notes call for a slide on a chromatic register, they do it precisely rather than allowing that color to establish itself along harmonic or counterpoint lines. It hardly matters, though, in the sense that this is brave new work for Braxton, who is writing more often now for larger ensembles and is allowing his sense of humor — which is profound, believe it or not — to enter into his writing and recording. There are sounds here that evoke carnivals and circuses as well as parades and rallies. All of them are balanced by shifts of timbre and meter in his architecture. The intervallic structure alone is a dynamism that turns back the notion that interval is merely a device for enhancing or restricting improvisation. Braxton makes it an end in and of itself with a host of instruments creating the necessary shifts for intervallic invention mutate from one to another without seam or stitch. This is a brilliant work. Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2006 All Media Guide, LLC and Thom Jurek. All reviews written by Thom Jurek:
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