Quartet Circle "Circulus" (United Artists, 1978, 2LP)

This one as to be considered a gem. At least that's my opinion. Quartet Circle was a brief quartet with four astounding players: Chick Corea, Anthony Braxton, Dave Holland and Barry Altschul. As far as i know, this group recorded and edited 4 double Lps to United Artists, end of 60's beginning 70's. Nobody knows why but the luminaries at UA never considered reissue those albuns on CD, so they remained forgotten, which is incredible due to the high quality of the music.

Quartet Circle features Chick Corea as you never heard him before and after (at least for those who don't know this group). Partners Braxton, Holland and Altschul are in high avant-garde shape with ideas and playing far from being conventional. The interplay between the quartet is amazingly top quality avant garde free music. One might expect that due to subsequent Corea's career this couldn't be possible, but it was.



About "Circulus":

double gatefold LP
United Artists, 1978


side one: "Drone" (track 1)
(trio without Braxton, recorded April 8, 1970, New York)


side two: "Quartet Piece No. 1" (track 2)
(quartet, recorded August 21, 1970, New York)


side three: "Quartet Piece No. 2" (track 3)
(quartet, recorded August 21, 1970, New York)


side four: "Quartet Piece No. 3" (track 4)
"Percussion Piece" (track 5)
(quartet, recorded August 21, 1970, New York)



Chick Corea: piano, prepared piano, vibes, percussion, bass marimba
Anthony Braxton: alto sax, soprano sax, clarinet, contrabass clarinet
Dave Holland: bass, guitar, percussion
Barry Altschul: drums, percussion, bass marimba


About the transfer:
recorded directly from the vinyl to DAT record to audio CD through CD recording (not PC).
From CD to lossless Flac files. Crisp and clean as you can hear on the deepness and colourful music. On last flac file you'll find high quality scans of outer and inner sleeves from the gatefold LP. Hope you enjoy it.

Circle - Gathering

Recorded in the studio in NYC 17th March 1971. 

Chick Corea, piano, flute, percussion

Anthony Braxton, alto, flute, sopranino, clarinet, contrabass-clarinet, percussion

Dave Holland, bass, cello, guitar, percussion

Barry Altschul, drums, kalimba, percussion.  

The second of two Circle releases which were inexplicably issued only in Japan, initially on vinyl and later on CD.  As before, if anyone can throw some light on why this music was never issued in Europe or the US, the information would be very welcome.  This rip is taken from the original Japanese vinyl, CBS Sony SOPL 20-XJ.  

The performance is a single two-sided composition credited to Corea alone, and if any listener can sense a line drawn between one man's composition and four men's improvisation, he's a better man than I.    The piece opens with much of the heat and intensity associated with the free jazz of 1971, with Altschul especially taking few prisoners, before the quartet veers off into extended flute and percussion workouts, a certain amount of navel-gazing and a question-mark of an ending.   Perhaps Corea's own words, from the liner notes, best sum the piece up:  "Our music is a focal point, constantly created anew, with each playing. … It is our opinion that creativity will play an important role (maybe the important role) in lifting our consciousness about ourselves and others. …  When we are alive in the fullest sense of the word, we are creating".  

Enjoy.  
 

glmlr 

Circle - Live in German Concert

Recorded in Germany, 28^th November 1970, location not specified.

(The record is indeed grammatically mis-titled, as above).  

Chick Corea, piano

Anthony Braxton, alto, flute, sopranino, percussion

Dave Holland, bass, cello

Barry Altschul, drums, percussion.  

The first of two Circle releases which were inexplicably issued only in Japan, initially on vinyl and much later on CD.   Why this music was never issued in Europe or the US is a mystery to me.  Can anyone throw some light on this?   This rip is taken from the original Japanese vinyl, CBS Sony SOPL 19-XJ.  

By early September 1970, Corea and Holland had both left Miles' adventurously electric band, and quickly settled into acoustic free jazz territory.   After a brief studio fling which  month which produced "The Sun" LP (with Liebman, Grossman, DeJohnette and others),  they cemented themselves with Braxton and Altschul, and Circle became the focus of their joint activities over the following 9 months.  This concert features two side-long Circle staples:  Dave Holland's "Toy Room - Q&A" and the standard "There is No Greater Love".  Both pieces will be familiar to Circle fans but, as ever, these interpretations are intriguingly different. Classic Circle trademarks are all here in good form:  Corea's propulsive piano, Braxton's Chicago-inflected blues, Holland's melodic hold on the roots and Altschul's meticulously tuned percussion.   And there's a little "fly in the ointment" - on side B behind Braxton's alto solo, either Corea or Holland double up with him on …  flute?  oboe?  musette?    A teaser for your ears.  

Enjoy. 
 
 

glmlr 

Circle - Quartet Pieces Nos. 1, 2 & 3

Following on from the recent Hamburg Concert, and with special thanks to Boromir for posting the interim Bergamo piece, we continue with Circle.

"Quartet Pieces Nos. 1, 2 & 3".
Recorded in the studio - New York - 21st August 1970.

Chick Corea, piano, prepared piano, vibes, percussion, bass-marimba
Anthony Braxton, alto, sopranino, clarinet, contrabass-clarinet, percussion, voice
Dave Holland, bass, cello, acoustic guitar, percussion
Barry Altschul, drums, percussion, bass-marimba, vibes.

These three fascinating pieces are the earliest example of Circle's other side, their work in a lifeless studio, with no engrossed audience to offer inspiration, challenge or acceptance. All three pieces were issued only on a Blue Note 2LP set called "Circulus", under Corea's name, and have never appeared on CD, to my knowledge. This rip is taken from the original vinyl, with apologies for the occasional surface noise. The music is also the first recorded evidence of Braxton playing with what was until then Corea's trio.

In the opening minute or so, the musical aesthetic promptly reveals itself to be far closer to developments (in 1970) in European-style free improvisation and contemporary classical music, rather than the conventional notions of jazz. All three pieces are open improvisations, stark, spiky, a tad austere, with a disorienting use of space, unnerving deviations, terse twists and turns. A volcanic highlight appears on Piece No. 2 at the 5 minute mark, where Corea suddenly hits upon a single note, wrings the life out of it in seconds and sends the entire band careering off in a wholly unexpected (by them) direction. All the musicians use a wider-than-usual range of instruments, e.g. Holland on acoustic guitar, Corea on vibes and Braxton's vocal contribution at end of Piece No. 2 will surely raise an eyebrow or two.

The musical results show thrilling interplay, rich in detail, and no lack of careful listening among the players. What is more extraordinary is that just three days before these recordings were made, Corea and Holland, both on electric instruments, played an explosive set with Miles at Tanglewood on 18th August and followed it up a few days later with Miles' Isle of Wight Festival appearance on 29th August in front of a mere half-million people. In between the two, they tossed us these three acoustic gems.

glmlr

Circle - Nefertiti - Live Bergamo March 1971

This comes as a liberated track from a bootleg Chick Corea compilation LP, seeded by inamorata (many thanks to him for letting it out). The original lineage is not clear, probably an FM broadcast, good quality. I don't worship at Braxton's shrine, but I do like this.

Details:-

Circle
March 19, 1971
Third International Jazz Parade at Bergamo Teatro Donizetti, Bergamo (Italy)

Anthony Braxton, sss & as
Chick Corea, p
Dave Holland, b & cello
Barry Altschul, dr & perc

01 Nefertiti (Wayne Shorter) 17:42

I guess someone, somewhere has the remainder of this recorded concert. Anyway, it's a track to add to the Hamburg concert recently posted.

As it's only a short recording, I'm posting in Flac only, link in comments.

Circle - Hamburg, March 1971 - complete concert

From our friend glmlr comes this marvellous Circle concert from Hamburg in 1971, together with this detailed write-up;

Circle was a band born in a pressure-cooker. During its brief existence (roughly mid-70 / mid-71), it played with an anarchic flair and a reckless drive, rare for that time. Chick Corea and Dave Holland were coming off a 2-year stay with Miles Davis, in which they were his first ever full-time white band members, amid the Black Power era. Driven by Jack DeJohnette, they took the music more out than at any time in Miles' life. Said Corea, "We kept pushing and playing free, waiting for Miles to say something about it. He never did, so we pushed harder". Said Miles of Corea, "Just look at the guy. Music is pouring out of him".
In May 1969, this trio had been the core of Corea's raucous "Is" sessions", (thankfully reissued properly in 2002 on a Blue Note 2CD). Hard blowing, uninterrupted, free-form, open-ended improvisations and compositions. Then, enter drummer Barry Altschul, a master of pulse and miniaturized mayhem on his carefully tuned percussion. A man who could float 60's Paul Bley on the most delicate of gauze, yet drive a powerful free-jazz quartet with the most minuscule of sounds. In April 70, the trio of Corea, Holland and Altschul recorded "The Song of Singing", a studio session which still rings with a freshness and an inherent energy which refute its years. August 70, while Corea and Holland were still Miles' sidemen, enter Anthony Braxton. Wildcard. A man with a musical conception which threatened never to allow him to be anyone's sideman, and the inventor of a musically philosophical verbal jargon understood by few members of the human race. But Circle was a co-operative band, and the four members adapted fast. The music which happened in the studio suggested serious connections to the European avant-garde or the modern classical of the time, as much as free jazz. Live, anything could happen.
The recordings. Shamefully Blue Note has not issued on CD much of the band's first recorded session with Braxton, 21 August 70, (which appeared on the "Circulus" 2LP under Corea's name), whereas much of the October 70 session (originally issued as "Circling In" also under Corea's name) has appeared on the "Early Circle" CD. In January 71, the trio without Braxton recorded the superbly crisp "A.R.C." in a German studio. Mysteriously, two other Circle LP's were issued only in Japan, one a German concert of 28 November 70, the other a New York studio session from 17 March 71. An excerpt also exists of a heated concert given in Bergamo on 19 March 71.
Live performance was Circle's forte. The finest recorded evidence is the "Paris Concert" of 21 February 71, issued first as a 2LP, then 2CD, by ECM. A vivid, thorny, raw document of the band in full-flight, whether on standards such as Wayne Shorter's "Nefertiti" or on Holland's own intricate twinning of "Toy Room" and "Q&A". For those old enough to remember, in 1971 this was daring music.
Looking back, it was perhaps inevitable that this band would blow itself off the stage. Stories circulated of Corea breaking a glass onstage and rubbing the microphone into the shards, band-members taking to playing any instrument at random, Holland scraping the bass strings and his chest with the mic, much use of small percussion and, in the end, a sense of alienation took over. When the band finally ground to a halt, Corea said, "We were sending our audiences up the river… ". And thus the bubble burst.

But here's the band, very much alive and well in Hamburg in early March 1971, courtesy of NDR German radio. With humble thanks to the unknown recordist / source, may you enjoy.

glmlr

Circle - Live at the Jazzhaus, Hamburg
3 or 4 or 5 March 1971
Anthony Braxton - alto saxophone, sopranino saxophone, clarinet, flute
Chick Corea - piano
Dave Holland - bass
Barry Altschul - drums, percussion

1. Composition 6A - 23:17 (Anthony Braxton)
2. Rhymes - 08:10 (Chick Corea)
3. Toy Room - 07:30 (Dave Holland)
4. Q & A - 11:04 (Dave Holland)
5. Composition 6I - 22:57 (Anthony Braxton)
6. Composition 6F - 10:25 (Anthony Braxton)
7. There Is No Greater Love - 25:03 (Marty Symes, Isham Jones)
Recorded and broadcast by NDR - Norddeutscher Rundfunk.
Discographical information from Circle Discography: http://www.jazzdiscography.com/Artists/Corea/circle-disc.htm