“Going to hear Anthony Braxton in Times Square is a unique event," writes trumpeter/ composer Dave Douglas in his commentary on the second night's first set. “The quizzical looks of tourists who just happened to come down for this set and seem to be asking themselves if this is some sort of introduction to something else or if in fact this is the thing itself. Rapt listeners aware that we are in for a very special treat. The tension was palpable, and it was inspiring to think that after all these years of brilliance--years of composing, performing, teaching, writing, living--this man is still on the front edge of what it means to hear new music, to be in time, to exist. There is a power in this music that urges us to do better, to learn, to grow, to change and adapt. To excel in each moment."
“Braxton is one of the past forty years' great radical musical thinkers," explains AllAboutJazz.com Senior Editor John Kelman. “He simply operates on a different plane than the vast majority, and his compositions reflect the kind of rich complexity that is so beyond the conventional that one really has to listen to them with a different set of ears." His groundbreaking and continually evolving approach to music, developed over the past five decades, embraces a wealth of musical traditions ranging from jazz saxophonists Wayne Marsh and Albert Ayler to innovative American composers John Cage and Charles Ives to pioneering European Avant-Garde figures Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis. Fanatically documented by a dedicated following around the world, his multi- faceted career includes hundreds of recordings, an influential legacy as an educator and author of scholarly writings, and awards such as the prestigious John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship. “The multi-reedist/composer might very well be jazz's last bona fide genius," adds the All Music Guide's Chris Kelsey. “The best of his work is on a level with any art music of the late 20th century, jazz or classical."
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Getting To Know Anthony Braxton:
+ He began playing the alto saxophone and clarinet in his teens, but he has since performed and/or recorded on every instrument in the clarinet and saxophone families, as well as piano. On these Iridium dates alone he plays everything from the sopranino to the rarely seen Eb contralto clarinet, which, as The New York Times' Ben Ratliff pointed out in his review of Saturday's first set, “looks like a giant paper clip."
+ His musical coming of age is closely associated with his hometown of Chicago and its musical renaissance of the mid-to-late 1960's. This relationship includes membership in the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1966, the influential trio Creative Construction Company with violinist Leroy Jenkins and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, and his groundbreaking 1968 2-LP set For Alto on Chicago's seminal Delmark Records label, the first-ever improvised solo saxophone recording and one of Braxton's most enduring musical statements.
+ Collaboration with his peers has always been a major part of Braxton's career. The most obvious examples are the quartet Circle (with Chick Corea, Dave Holland and Barry Altschul) and his own longstanding group of the 1980's and 90's featuring Marilyn Crispell, Mark Dresser and Gerry Hemingway. He also appears on classic recordings such as Muhal Richard Abrams' Levels And Degrees Of Light (Delmark) and the David Holland Quartet's Conference Of The Birds (ECM), and has recorded duets with Derek Bailey, Ran Blake, Andrew Cyrille, Joe Fonda, Hank Jones, Mario Pavone, Max Roach, and Richard Teitelbaum among many others.
+ Braxton and his music appear on more than 230 recordings from the past 40 years on dozens of labels from around the world. Although he is a prolific composer, he is just as apt to record music by John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Andrew Hill, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Lennie Tristano or any number of his collaborators and former students, as he has done frequently throughout his career.
+ Many of today's most innovative young musicians know him primarily as a teacher and mentor, either as a bandleader or via his well-documented teaching career at Mills College and most recently as a tenured professor at Wesleyan University. His wide-reaching role as an educator has included training and leading ensembles, conducting private tutorials with graduate students, and teaching courses in electronic music, jazz improvisation, and music history spanning Western Medieval composer Hildegard von Bingen to contemporary masters such as John Cage and Ornette Coleman.
+ With very few exceptions, most notably the series of 36 autonomous one-act operas he calls Trillium, Braxton's exclusive compositional focus since 1995 has been what he calls his Ghost Trance Music (GTM) series, which incorporates inspiration from Native American Ghost Dance rituals of the late 19th century among other world musical traditions. The music on 9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006 is the culmination of that 11-year compositional journey and showcases the unprecedented versatility and inclusiveness of his approach. “But of course," added Nate Chinen in his New York Times preview listing for the original concerts, “the reason not to miss this engagement is Mr. Braxton himself, whose playing is as terse and riveting as ever, and whose concept has never faltered in its evolution."
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Selected Quotes:
“The most ambitious of musicians, Braxton is an unprecedented figure in the music."
--Richard Cook, Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia (Penguin Books)
“...there is no questioning the originality of his vision; Anthony Braxton created music of enormous sophistication and passion that was unlike anything else that had come before it."
--Chris Kelsey, All Music Guide
“Those who've followed Braxton's work over the past four decades have relished tracking his constant, evolutionary reinvention. While many of his peers have settled into particular approaches to music making, Braxton has constantly tweaked and changed his ensembles and pushed his music in new directions."
--Michael Rosenstein, Signal to Noise
“Through recurring hailstorms of critique he has endured, following his own highly individual course and in the process challenging and changing the fabric of modern music."
--Derek Taylor, AllAboutJazz.com
“Whatever the prevailing definition of jazz, Braxton's music conforms majestically: rhythmic, virtuosic, powerfully emotive, constantly reinventing itself. He has been able to translate his solo concept (in the late '60s he pioneered unaccompanied saxophone performance) to the largest orchestral scale."
--The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (Eighth Edition)
“The approach may be cerebral, but in Mr. Braxton's hands the music has passion as well as wit. He finds the world in a grain of music."
--Jon Pareles, New York Times
“Mindful as he is of music's profound implications, [Braxton] doesn't neglect the pleasure principle. No heady composer conveys more joy through his music..."
--Kevin Whitehead, Village Voice
“As always, Braxton's music remains intriguing, sometimes mystifying, but always worth hearing."
--Ron Wynn, Nashville City Paper
“And, for what it is worth, this writer regards him as an obvious genius, although the huge quantity of his work can be rather daunting. Anthony Braxton's accomplishments and contributions to jazz will take decades to fully assess."
--Scott Yanow, All Music Guide
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