John Butcher: Spin Effects in the Production and Weak Decay of Heavy Quarks

Some of the smartest musicians I know aren’t really musicians, but geeks who’ve fed their time into reading various tomes regarding physics, chess, math and the like. It’s always startling to me when I encounter someone who has an adept mathematics facility, but can’t do music. They’re kinda the same thing – all patterns and the like. But that’s a pretty common conversation for me to have. What isn’t common, was the fact that I was able to see John Butcher perform live a year and some change ago in Seattle at a place called the Chapel. I think I paid five bucks – maybe.

John Butcher, in addition to being a sax player of the highest calling is and or was also a physicist. Penning his dissertation entitled Spin Effects in the Production and Weak Decay of Heavy Quarks didn’t move the musician into a strictly academic life. Instead, it actually helped propel him into a life of musical experimentation. The contrast between pre-figured, composed musics and the sciences is pretty slim in some ways – the vast expanse between those things and what’s been termed electro-acoustic improvisation is pretty stunning, but something that Butcher has been able to master.

So having conquered academia – kinda – and making his way up through the British avant garde during the ‘80s and ‘90s, Butcher has had around twenty years to perfect an ever shifting approach to music. What he’s settled on won’t be exactly palatable to most folks – and even some weirdo jazzbos aren’t gonna want to hear it – but in a live setting, it’s a sight that’s unmatched by too many other things.

Over time, while working out various approaches to the way in which he improvises, Butcher has maintained various partners and ensembles. Everyone from Chris Burn to John Russell and News from the Shed has put in time along side this Brit sax player. Not all of those efforts are a singular thing, though. And in 2000, Butcher along with Phil Durrant went in on Requests and Antisongs.

In the realm of straight up experimentation, this has gotta rank pretty high, even if it’s just for the conceptual part of things. As Butcher performs on sax (soprano and tenor) Durrant manipulates each note with Butcher being able to hear the affect just moments after playing the figure. It allows for the saxophonist to then adjust his playing to the manner in which his work has been augmented. It’s a process of constant reinvention – and it shows.

At some points – as Butcher plays just the pads on his instruments while inserting a stray squeak every once in a while – Requests and Antisongs than ceases being anything other than an investigation into sound. But other moments hold really musical mountaintops. “Prusik Loop” is an enormous, lower register drone brought about by Durrant’s manipulations of Butcher’s ability to hold a note for a ridiculous amount of time. It effect the track approximates a dude with a computer tapping buttons sporadically. But for two dudes and some effects pedals to create such a piece means only that they need to take it out on the road. They did.  And it made me happy.