Anthony Braxton is a virtuoso saxophonist (chiefly alto and sopranino), as well as a virtuoso clarinetist (Bb and contrabass) and a virtuoso flautist. He's an innovator of solo reed performance, as he was the first to record an album of solo alto saxophone music. (He's gone on to record numerous alto solo discs, as well as one solo sopranino album.) His music for jazz quartet has set a new standard for the sound of one of the most common ensemble combinations in jazz. He's a master of "free improvisation," which he maintains is not free (in the sense of aimless and haphazard) at all, and has elaborated a groundbreaking vocabulary of saxophone sounds and techniques for improvisation. He has also released several albums of orchestral music, on which he most often appears only as the conductor. Pianists have recorded his notated music for solo piano, some of which has also been adapted for and performed by a pianoless ensemble.
He has recorded several "standards" albums and tributes to earlier jazz masters (including Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and Lennie Tristano), all of which are "in the tradition" in the best sense: instead of merely repeating other performers' licks, they take what is old and make it new. Braxton has also released six discs of standard jazz material on which he touches none of his dizzying array of horns, but instead plays only piano. He has filled several large volumes with notes on his compositions and his musical and philosophical theory. He is, in short, a genius, and a major figure in music - of whatever genre - of the latter part of the twentieth century.
Anthony Braxton was born in Chicago in 1945. His first musical love was Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers; he has said since that Mr. Lyman was a "restructuralist," or a structural innovator - the highest realm of artistic creativity. He names as primary influences today such diverse figures as Warne Marsh, John Coltrane, Fats Waller, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and John Cage. His early interest in jazz centered around the sweet alto of Paul Desmond; one day, however, a neighbor loaned him Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come. At first he was repelled, but quickly became fascinated, and his fascination grew. By the time he served a stint in the military, he was playing Albert Ayler and Coltrane's Ascension in the barracks - which didn't make him extraordinarily popular! Back in Chicago in the late Sixties, he joined the American Association of Creative Musicians (AACM), and recorded the historic solo double album For Alto (which is, sadly, still unavail!
able on CD) and the trio album (one track is a quartet) Three Compositions of New Jazz.
To enter Anthony Braxton's music is to enter a vast and ever-expanding universe that includes everything from swinging inside standards to the spaciest "modern classical music." In the Seventies he recorded a series of breathtaking albums on the Arista label, all of which are also now lost in no-CD limbo; he also began his work with larger ensembles. His work continued into the Eighties and Nineties on several trajectories: quartet music, large orchestral ensembles, solos, and occasional duos with a great variety of partners, from Max Roach to Evan Parker. His fascination was the juxtaposition of different musical lines. In his quartet work, various elements of different compositions would be combined and recombined in different ways, or two of the four musicians would improvise on one structure while the other two played notated material from the other. In 1995 he launched a new phase of his music: "Ghost Trance" structures that endeavor to combine all of his vast previou!
s exploration.
The possibilities in Anthony Braxton's music, my friend, are endless, and endlessly exciting.
"Anthony Braxton is the only person on the planet who can keep up with himself. For over three decades he has produced a continuous kaleidoscope of different musics."
-- Steve Day
Familiar with Anthony Braxton's work? We welcome your comments.
