soprano raze brent is a professor. of course he would be. he looks like a professor. a soprano sax-playing professor. i'd never heard him play. i heard things from friends who aren't friends anymore, back when they were still friends, still fuzzing up the clear parts of the mind globe. i heard he played experimental electroacoustic music and did a lot of sound processing, manipulating his sax with effects. thought i'd ask him to play on something, because why not? he was interested, but busy. time passed. i thought i'd try again. he was less busy. we made plans. you can find a review of him on one of those "rate my prof" sites where a former student says, "arriving in his class every day was like standing before the firing squad — a very painful death." he teaches composition. i was asking him to improvise on top of a few pieces with very free structures, without hearing anything beforehand. you add those things together, and you start to think the math is telling you maybe he's going to shoot you with invisible bullets too. he came over this afternoon. i didn't get shot. i didn't die. he was really nice and easy to work with. he didn't bring any effects pedals or processors with him. he stood in front of a microphone with his sax and PLAYED. it was more wayne shorter than kenny g. i had no idea the man could blow like that. the balance between technique and soul was ... well, if i could do that on a horn, i'd probably just listen to myself play all the time and smile through my embouchure. made me wish i'd thought to try writing something like a bona fide jazz song for him to play on. but you can't have it all. unless you're donald trump's hair. then the world is yours. 160216 ... raze on the shorter of the two pieces i thought he would end up getting fractured, fragmented. instead he's the one thing that's nakedly itself, slicing its way through the storm, fighting to be heard. you can't plan these things. they work themselves out. it's more rewarding that way. 160515 what's it to you? who go blather from