Anthony Braxton galore ....

By Stef

According to Wikipedia, Anthony Braxton released 149 albums between 1968 and 2008. I do believe this is underestimated, because several albums are missing. Now, Braxton created the "TriCentricFoundation.org" website, to which you can subscribe with a monthly fee, which gives you two albums a month for $13. That means 24 albums a year if my arithmetic skills are still intact.

Braxton has always been prolific, but I guess now he will even surpass his own prior achievements. The good thing is that the saxophonist/composer is incredibly inventive, willing to take risks and to go beyond where many musicians dare to go, experimenting en route, and exploring new avenues if they present themselves. And to his credit, each of these musical avenues Braxton develops is coherent by itself, in the sense that he has a clear idea of the sound, the interaction, the structure, to which he and his bands then stick.

The end result is that the listener can become part of all the various projects and directions that Braxton took over the years. Some are really excellent, some less so, and through this immense variety, it is often hard to pick what is personally gripping.

Anthony Braxton - Septet (Pittsburgh) 2008 - (Tricentric, 2011) ***½

The septet consists of

• Anthony Braxton: Baritone Saxophone, Bass Saxophone, Alto Saxophone, Sopranino Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Contrabass Clarinet, Contrabass Saxophone
• Taylor Ho Bynum: Flugelhorn, Trombone, Cornet, Bass Trumpet, Piccolo Trumpet
• Jessica Pavone: Violin, Electric Bass, Viola
• Jay Rozen: Tuba
• Mary Halvorson: Guitar
• Carl Testa: Acoustic Bass, Bass Clarinet
• Aaron Siegel: Drums, Percussion, Vibraphone

Together, they play one long "Composition 355", on which the band rarely plays in its totality together, rather, you get shifting groups of players, moving the single, hour-long piece forward. As a result, it feels quite light in texture, yet compelling too. It's a great album to listen to, but it will not figure on his discography as one of the most memorable ones.

Anthony Braxton - Quartet (Mestre) 2008 - (Caligola, 2011) ****½

This is the best album in the series, with Anthony Braxton on soprano sax, alto sax, contrabass clarinet, live electronics, Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet, flugelhorn, piccolo, bass trumpet and valve trombone, Mary Halvorson on electric guitar, and Katherine Young on bassoon. The music is varied, the playing excellent. And I am not usually a fan of Mary Halvorson, but on this performance I start to understand what the hype is all about. And all four players are at their best. The small band and the absence of percussion and bass gives the music a chamber jazz kind of feel. Light-textured, captivating, and extremely varied for again a composition/improvisation that lasts more than an hour.

Anthony Braxon - Composition No. 19 (For 100 Tubas) (Tricentric, 2011) ***½

The "100 tuba" album is without a doubt conceptually the wildest in the series, but because of the nature of the band, and the incredible control, the sound is quite slow and dramatic, nothing like a marching band, but more like a dark, black cloud coming up at the horizon, an omen for oncoming catastrophes, with the wind still low, but the breeze in your hair slightly shifting, announcing that what will come, inevitably, massively, destructively, yet not here yet, just coming near, setting nerves on edge, awakening deep fears and unknown anguishes, ...

That's the feeling I get : its Bill Dixonesque in a way. 


The band is :

CONDUCTOR: ANTHONY BRAXTON
Allen, Brian
Altieri, John
Buttery, Gary
Carlsen, Eric
Davila, Jose
Dorn, Jonathan
Gillmore, Stewart
Grego, David
Jami, Hakim
Krush, Jay
Lang, David
Mandel, Josh
Regev, Reut
Robinson, Scott
Rozen, Jay
Washburn, Chris
Winograd, David

CONDUCTOR: TAYLOR HO BYNUM
Blacksberg, Dan
Burbank, Gregory
Bush, Jeffrey
Buzzart, Monique
Christianson, Michael
Cifarelli, Michael
Collins, Ernie
Cox, Ian
Daley, Joe
Dorbin, David
Erway, Chris
Furman, Jeff
Moore, Scott
Weisz, Deborah
Wright, Ben

CONDUCTOR: JAMES FEI
Evans, Wiley
Felkner, Gerry
Fenlon, Andrew
Hendricks, Darryl
Hofstra, David
Holmes, Bud
Keady, Joe
Koci, Nathan
Kulik, Sam
Lanz, Benjamin
Malloy, William
McCurty, Greg
Meeder, Christopher
Schleifer, Daniel
Yakata, Hitomi

CONDUCTOR: MATT WELCH
Dulman, Jesse
Lambiase
McFaden, Sheila
McFaden, Francis
McFaden, David
Parton, Jack
Pass, Matt
Pedulla, Frank
Pleshar, Rob
Press, Gary
Quartaro, Melissa
Rhindress, Stephen
Rodgers, Andy
Sasamura, Ken
Scott, Evan
Silver, Debra
Sopko, Beth
Stewart, Mark

(In reality I count only 65 tuba-players, but I guess that's not really the point).

Anthony Braxton - Two Compositions (Festival of New Trumpet Music) 2007 (Tricentric, 2011) ****

This album is also unique and absolutely astonishing. The fist piece, "Composition N° 103" starts with classical orchestral music and recorded ambient sounds over which the band starts improvising-performing. Obviously, because it's written for trumpet, Braxton limits himself to the conductor role. The band consists of the incredible line-up of Taylor Ho Bynum, Tim Byrnes, Forbes Graham, Sam Hoyt, John McDonough, Nicole Rampersaud and Nate Wooley, all on trumpet or cornet. The composition has the typical Braxton elements of abstract and high intervallic jumps, either fully arranged - often staccato - moments, with intermittent solo improvisations by the musicians.

The second piece, "Composition N° 169" is played by Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet, Nate Wooley on trumpet, Mark Taylor on French horn, Reut Regev on trombone and Jay Rozen on tuba. Because of the broader range of instruments, the sounds is a little warmer than with the seven trumpeters, slow, with a kind of decided forward motion, yet again with the typical Braxton cerebrality that creates a shade of too much intellectual distance in his search for aesthetic control. Classical music is never far off - but then of the more modern kind - and I am a jazz man at heart. Give me some more improvisation and soul and rough edges and humanity in the unpredictability and potential for mistakes. Great stuff, but I wish the reigns could have been more loose.





PS - If anyone has the complete Anthony Braxton discography, I'd be really intrested in publishing it here.

© stef