Chris Burn: as if as

Rating: ★★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Philip Thomas (p)

Label:

Confront Core Series core

Dec/Jan/2019/2020

Media Format:

CD

Catalogue Number:

09

RecordDate:

September 2009

Transcribing Derek Bailey guitar improvisations for solo pianist might seem like a uniquely pointless exercise, one that rubs against the grain of everything Bailey preached about the liquidity of improvised music; sounds that exist in, and for, the moment only. But as pianist Philip Thomas points out in his sleeve note, Chris Burn's transcriptions of material from Bailey's 1991 Solo Guitar Volume 2 give an objectified analysis of the guitarist's practice and aesthetic. Burn developed these piano transcriptions out of an earlier version he made for the improv trio Cranc, and the ‘stringiness’ of that group's violin, cello, harp line-up has bled through into his piano rethink; Thomas, you fancy, is plucking the keyboard rather than attacking it with his fingers. The most radical departure from Bailey is due to the piano's fixed tuning and temperament: some of those perfect fifths and open thirds, sheathed in overtones and resonant sustain on the guitar, sound dangerously naked on the cleaner-cut piano. As a consequence, light shines on the architectural clarity underlining Bailey's improvisations, and you're sent back to the original record to discover them anew. Surrounding the Bailey transcriptions is a set of Burn's own compositions, which reconcile Henry Cowell and John Cage with Cecil Taylor and Muhal Richard Abrams. ‘As If As’, ‘Only The Snow’, ‘Pressing and Screenings’ and the two-piano ‘The Sky A Silver Dissonance’ (for which Thomas is joined by Kate Ledger) are all scampering and elusive – sounds entirely of the piano apparently happy to escape its confines and history.

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