Lost Score RetrIEved

Composition No. 6e has long been one of those Braxton compositions where the original was thought to be lost. In my 10 years of working with Braxton’s scores I had never come across a copy of that music. On Monday October 17th, 2022, Braxton informed me that Wadada Leo Smith had left a package for him with Firehouse 12 owner and chief engineer Nick Lloyd that contained an original score of Braxton’s from the “3 Compositions of New Jazz” recording session. Braxton thought it was the piece where they all sang, but we weren’t sure. I retreived the score the next day and confirmed that indeed the score was Composition No. 6e, listed as a “Vocal Piece for Trio” in the catalog of works.

This score is particularly significant because it represents the first time Braxton’s music was committed to tape for a commercially released album. An early version of Braxton’s graphic title for this piece is shown on the original score (the final title did change). The score features an “X” clef which indicates to the performers that exact pitch reproduction is not required for the performance of this work. “Composition No. 6e has not been constructed as a virtuoso vehicle for contemporary singing … the challenge of this work has been to execute its materials without attempting to become professional singers" (Braxton, Composition Notes A, 59). This work is an effort to capture the dynamics of creative instrumentalists in all of their capacities - whether their voices are ‘schooled - naturally gifted - or not”. Upon listening to the recording and seeing the original score, it is my belief that Braxton is singing the top line, with Leroy Jenkins singing the middle line, and Wadada Leo Smith singing the bottom line.

In the Composition Notes Book A Braxton describes Composition No. 6e as “a vibrational center structure to be executed in the beginning and end of a given open improvisation … The musicians in Composition No. 6e have the option to approach the canvas of the music based on the forward occurrences taking place in the music (made real by through their sensibilities as improvisers). Throughout the whole of a given performance one can hear the use of vocal sound effects, normal talking, recitation, etc. None of these ingredients could have been notated in 1968 because I was not actually aware of the work’s extended possibilities myself” (Braxton, Composition Notes A, page 58). While Braxton may not have been aware of the extended possibilities at the time, it is clear now seeing the notated music that the while the musicians moved into open improvisation after the performance of the notated section, none of the musicians ever completely left the “vibrational center structure” of Composition No. 6e. All of their improvisations are clearly rooted within the compositional framework that Braxton put together. It makes clear how even at that time, Braxton did not conceive of improvisation and composition as two separate entities but rather two components of a whole vibrational structure “made real” through the sensibilities of the musicians.

• Carl Testa
  Tri-Centric Foundation Archives Manager
  11/1/2022