Anthony Braxton
Encyclopedia
Anthony Braxton is an American composer
, saxophonist
, clarinet
tist, flautist
, pianist
, and philosopher. Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s. Among the array of instruments he plays are the flute
; the sopranino
, soprano
, C-melody, F mezzo-soprano
, E-flat alto
, baritone
, bass
, and contrabass
saxophones; and the E-flat
, B-flat
, and contrabass
clarinets.
Braxton studied philosophy at Roosevelt University
. He has taught at Mills College
and as of 2011 is Professor of Music at Wesleyan University
in Middletown, Connecticut
, teaching music composition, music history, and improvisation.
and was involved with The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians
, the "AACM", founded in Chicago
, Braxton's birthplace.
In 1968, Braxton recorded the double LP For Alto
. There had been occasional unaccompanied saxophone recordings previously (notably Coleman Hawkins
' "Picasso"), but For Alto was the first full-length album for unaccompanied saxophone. The album's songs were dedicated to Cecil Taylor
and John Cage
, among others. The album influenced other artists like Steve Lacy
(soprano sax) and George Lewis
(trombone), who would go on to record their own acclaimed solo albums.
Braxton joined pianist Chick Corea
's existing trio with Dave Holland
(double bass) and Barry Altschul
(drums) to form the short-lived avant garde quartet Circle
, around 1970. When Corea broke up the group, forming Return to Forever
to pursue a fusion
-based style of composition and recording, Holland and Altschul remained with Braxton for much of the 1970s as part of a quartet, with the rotating brass
chair variously filled by trumpeter Kenny Wheeler
, or trombonists George Lewis
or Ray Anderson
. This group recorded on Arista Records
. The core trio plus saxophonist Sam Rivers
recorded Holland's Conference of the Birds
(ECM
). In the 1970s he also recorded duets with Lewis and with synthesizer player Richard Teitelbaum
.
In 1975, he released an album on Muse Records
titled Muhal with the Creative Construction Company
, a group consisting of Richard Davis (bass), Muhal Richard Abrams
(cello), Steve McCall
(drums), Muhal Richard Abrams
(piano), Wadada Leo Smith
(trumpet) and Leroy Jenkins (violin).
In the late 1970s, he recorded two large ensemble recordings, "Creative Orchestra Music 1976," inspired by American jazz and marching band traditions, and "For Four Orchestras." Both of these records were released on Arista.
Braxton's regular group in the 1980s and early 1990s was a quartet with Marilyn Crispell
(piano), Mark Dresser
(double bass) and Gerry Hemingway
(drums), "his finest and longest standing band".
In 1994, he was granted a MacArthur Fellowship. From 1995 to 2006, Braxton's output as a composer concentrated almost exclusively on what he calls Ghost Trance Music, which introduces a steady pulse to his music and also allows the simultaneous performance of any piece by the performers. Many of the earliest Ghost Trance recordings were released on his own Braxton House label (now defunct). His final Ghost Trance compositions were performed with a "12+1tet" at New York's Iridium club in 2006; the complete four-night residency was recorded and released in 2007 by the Firehouse 12 label.
In addition, during the 1990s and early 2000s, Braxton created a prodigiously large body of jazz standard
recordings, often featuring him as a pianist rather than saxophonist. He had frequently performed such material in the 1970s and 1980s, but only recorded it occasionally. Now he began to release multidisc sets of such material, climaxing in two quadruple-CD sets for Leo Records recorded on tour in 2003.
More recently he has created new series of compositions, such as the Falling River Musics that are documented on 2+2 Compositions (482 Music, 2005). In 2005, Braxton was a guest performer with the noise
group Wolf Eyes
at the FIMAV Festival. A recording of the concert, Black Vomit, is described by critic François Couture as sympathetic and effective collaboration: "something really clicked between these artists, and it was all in good fun."
One of his children, Tyondai Braxton
, is also a professional musician. He was a guitarist, keyboardist and vocalist with American math rock
band Battles
.
Beyond his musical career, Braxton is an avid chess
player; for a time in the early 1970s he was a professional chess hustler
, playing in New York in Washington Square Park.
Braxton's music is difficult to categorize, and because of this, he likes to reference his works (and the works of his collaborators and students) as simply "creative music". He has claimed in numerous interviews that he is not a jazz musician, though many of his works have been jazz
and improvisation
oriented, and he has released many albums of jazz standard
s. In addition to these, Braxton has released an increasing number of works for large-scale orchestras, including two opera
cycles.
Braxton's music combines an ecstatic, primal vigor with highly theoretical and mystically
influenced systems. He is the author of multiple volumes explaining his theories and pieces, such as the philosophical three-volume Triaxium Writings and the five-volume Composition Notes, both published by Frog Peak Music
. While his compositions and improvisations can be characterized as avant-garde
, many of his pieces have a swing feel and rhythmic angularity that are overtly indebted to Charlie Parker
and the bebop
tradition.
Though much of his music can be safely classified as jazz, Braxton has worked in a wide variety of other genres and has sometimes had a prickly relationship with the jazz mainstream. Critic Chris Kelsey
writes:
Braxton is notorious for naming his pieces as diagrams, typically labeled with cryptic numbers and letters. Sometimes these diagrams have an obvious relation to the music — for instance, on the album For Trio the diagram-title indicates the physical positions of the performers, but in many cases the diagram-titles remain inscrutable. The titles can themselves be musical notation
indicating to the performer how a piece is played. Sometimes the letters are identifiable as the initials of Braxton's friends and musical colleagues.
Braxton has pointedly refused to explain their significance, claiming that he himself is still discovering their meaning. Braxton eventually settled on a system of opus-numbers to make referring to these pieces simpler, and earlier pieces have had opus-numbers retrospectively added to them.
By the mid-to-late 1980s, Braxton's titles had become increasingly complex. They began to incorporate drawings and illustrations, such as in the title of his four act opera
cycle, Trillium R. Others began to include life-like images of inanimate objects, namely train cars. The latter was most notably seen after the advent of his Ghost Trance Music system.
In the twenty-first century, he still actively performs with ensembles of varying sizes, and has to date written well over 350 compositions. He has just recently finished the last batch of Ghost Trance Music compositions, and has now shown his interest in three other music systems: The Diamond Curtain Wall Trio, in which Braxton implements the aid of the computer audio programming language SuperCollider
; Falling River Musics; and, most recently, Echo Echo Mirror House music, which is meant to hone in many different types of performance arts in addition to music. In addition to their own instruments, musicians playing Echo Echo Mirror House compositions incorporate amplified mp3 players loaded with Braxton's discography to create a unique sound-space.
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, saxophonist
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
, clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
tist, flautist
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
, pianist
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, and philosopher. Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s. Among the array of instruments he plays are the flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
; the sopranino
Sopranino saxophone
The sopranino saxophone is one of the smallest members of the saxophone family. A sopranino saxophone is tuned in the key of E, and sounds an octave above the alto saxophone. This saxophone has a sweet sound and although the sopranino is one of the least common of the saxophones in regular use...
, soprano
Soprano saxophone
The soprano saxophone is a variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument, invented in 1840. The soprano is the third smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists of the soprillo, sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass, contrabass and tubax.A transposing instrument pitched in...
, C-melody, F mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano saxophone
The mezzo-soprano saxophone, sometimes called the F alto saxophone, is an instrument in the saxophone family. It is in the key of F, pitched a whole step above the alto saxophone. Its size and the sound are similar to the E alto, although the upper register sounds more like a B soprano. Very few...
, E-flat alto
Alto saxophone
The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in 1841. It is smaller than the tenor but larger than the soprano, and is the type most used in classical compositions...
, baritone
Baritone saxophone
The baritone saxophone, often called "bari sax" , is one of the largest and lowest pitched members of the saxophone family. It was invented by Adolphe Sax. The baritone is distinguished from smaller sizes of saxophone by the extra loop near its mouthpiece...
, bass
Bass saxophone
The bass saxophone is the second largest member of the saxophone family. Its design is similar to that of the baritone saxophone, with a loop of tubing near the mouthpiece. It was the first type of saxophone presented to the public, when Adolphe Sax exhibited a bass saxophone in C at an exhibition...
, and contrabass
Contrabass saxophone
The contrabass saxophone is the lowest-pitched extant member of the saxophone family proper. It is extremely large and heavy , and is pitched in the key of E, one octave below the baritone.-History:The contrabass...
saxophones; and the E-flat
E-flat clarinet
The E-flat clarinet is a member of the clarinet family. It is usually classed as a soprano clarinet, although some authors describe it as a "sopranino" or even "piccolo" clarinet. Smaller in size and higher in pitch than the more common B clarinet, it is a transposing instrument in E, sounding a...
, B-flat
Soprano clarinet
The soprano clarinets are a sub-family of the clarinet family.The B clarinet is by far the most common type of soprano clarinet - the unmodified word "clarinet" usually refers to this instrument...
, and contrabass
Contrabass clarinet
The contrabass clarinet is the largest member of the clarinet family that has ever been in regular production or significant use. Modern contrabass clarinets are pitched in BB, sounding two octaves lower than the common B soprano clarinet and one octave lower than the B bass clarinet...
clarinets.
Braxton studied philosophy at Roosevelt University
Roosevelt University
Roosevelt University is a coeducational, private university with campuses in Chicago, Illinois and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university is named in honor of both former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The university's curriculum is based on...
. He has taught at Mills College
Mills College
Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers bachelor's degrees to women and graduate degrees and certificates to women and men. Located in Oakland, California, Mills was the first women's college west of the Rockies. The institution was initially founded...
and as of 2011 is Professor of Music at Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...
in Middletown, Connecticut
Middletown, Connecticut
Middletown is a city located in Middlesex County, Connecticut, along the Connecticut River, in the central part of the state, 16 miles south of Hartford. In 1650, it was incorporated as a town under its original Indian name, Mattabeseck. It received its present name in 1653. In 1784, the central...
, teaching music composition, music history, and improvisation.
Biography
Early in his career, Braxton led a trio with violinist Leroy Jenkins and trumpeter Wadada Leo SmithWadada Leo Smith
Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith is a trumpeter and composer working primarily in the fields of avant-garde jazz and free improvisation.-Biography:...
and was involved with The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians
Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians
The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians is a non-profit organization, founded in Chicago, Illinois, United States, by pianist/composer Muhal Richard Abrams, pianist Jodie Christian, drummer Steve McCall, and composer Phil Cohran....
, the "AACM", founded in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Braxton's birthplace.
In 1968, Braxton recorded the double LP For Alto
For Alto
For Alto is a jazz double-LP by composer/multi-reedist Anthony Braxton. Delmark Records released the double-album in 1970. The tracks on this album are performed by Braxton on alto saxophone, with no additional instrumentation or musicians and no overdubbing.The Penguin Guide to Jazz gives For...
. There had been occasional unaccompanied saxophone recordings previously (notably Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...
' "Picasso"), but For Alto was the first full-length album for unaccompanied saxophone. The album's songs were dedicated to Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and...
and John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
, among others. The album influenced other artists like Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy , born Steven Norman Lackritz in New York City, was a jazz saxophonist and composer recognized as one of the important players of soprano saxophone....
(soprano sax) and George Lewis
George Lewis (trombonist)
George E. Lewis is a trombone player, composer, and scholar in the fields of jazz and experimental music. He has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians since 1971, and is a pioneer of computer music.- Biography :Lewis graduated from Yale University with a...
(trombone), who would go on to record their own acclaimed solo albums.
Braxton joined pianist Chick Corea
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...
's existing trio with Dave Holland
Dave Holland
Dave Holland is an English jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader who has been performing and recording for five decades. He has lived in the United States for 40 years....
(double bass) and Barry Altschul
Barry Altschul
Barry Altschul is a free jazz drummer who gained fame in the late 1960s with the pianists Paul Bley and Chick Corea.-Biography:...
(drums) to form the short-lived avant garde quartet Circle
Circle (jazz band)
Circle was an avant garde jazz ensemble active in 1970 and 1971. The group arose from pianist Chick Corea's early 1970s trio with Dave Holland on bass and Barry Altschul on drums and percussion with the addition of Anthony Braxton in a leading role on several reed instruments...
, around 1970. When Corea broke up the group, forming Return to Forever
Return to Forever
Return to Forever is a jazz fusion group founded and led by keyboardist Chick Corea. Through its existence, the band has cycled through a number of different members, with the only consistent band mate of Corea's being bassist Stanley Clarke...
to pursue a fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
-based style of composition and recording, Holland and Altschul remained with Braxton for much of the 1970s as part of a quartet, with the rotating brass
Brass instrument
A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...
chair variously filled by trumpeter Kenny Wheeler
Kenny Wheeler
Kenneth Vincent John Wheeler, OC is a Canadian composer and trumpet and flugelhorn player, based in the U.K. since the 1950s....
, or trombonists George Lewis
George Lewis (trombonist)
George E. Lewis is a trombone player, composer, and scholar in the fields of jazz and experimental music. He has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians since 1971, and is a pioneer of computer music.- Biography :Lewis graduated from Yale University with a...
or Ray Anderson
Ray Anderson (musician)
Ray Anderson is an independent jazz trombone and trumpet player. Anderson is a boisterous trombonist who is masterful at multiphonics. Trained by the Chicago Symphony trombonists, he is regarded as pushing the limits of the instrument. He is a contemporary and colleague of trombonist/composer...
. This group recorded on Arista Records
Arista Records
Arista was an American record label. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment and operated under the RCA Music Group. The label was founded in 1974 by Clive Davis, who formerly worked for CBS Records...
. The core trio plus saxophonist Sam Rivers
Sam Rivers
Samuel Carthorne Rivers , is an American jazz musician and composer. He performs on soprano and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet, flute, harmonica and piano....
recorded Holland's Conference of the Birds
Conference of the Birds (Dave Holland album)
- Track listing :All compositions by Dave Holland.# "Four Winds" – 6:32# "Q & A" – 8:34# "Conference of the Birds" – 4:34# "Interception" – 8:20# "Now Here " – 4:34# "See-Saw" – 6:40- Personnel :...
(ECM
ECM (record label)
ECM is a record label founded in Munich, Germany, in 1969 by Manfred Eicher. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a wide variety of recordings, and ECM's artists often refuse to acknowledge boundaries between genres...
). In the 1970s he also recorded duets with Lewis and with synthesizer player Richard Teitelbaum
Richard Teitelbaum
Richard Teitelbaum is an American composer, keyboardist, and improvisor. Born in New York, he is a former student of Allen Forte, Mel Powell, and Luigi Nono. He is best known for his live electronic music and synthesizer performance. For example, he brought the first moog synthesizer to Europe...
.
Muse Records
Muse Records was an American record label which released jazz and blues music.Muse was founded in the early 1970s by Joe Fields, who had previously worked as an executive for Prestige Records in the 1960s...
titled Muhal with the Creative Construction Company
Creative Construction Company
The Creative Construction Company was an American jazz ensemble active briefly in the early 1970s.The ensemble recorded two albums for Muse Records and was composed of six noted improvisationalists: Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, Muhal Richard Abrams, Richard Davis, and Steve...
, a group consisting of Richard Davis (bass), Muhal Richard Abrams
Muhal Richard Abrams
Muhal Richard Abrams is an American educator, administrator, composer, arranger, clarinetist, cellist, and jazz pianist in the Free jazz medium. Abrams compresses both contemporary and traditional ideas into lean, elegant pieces.- Biography :Abrams attended DuSable High School in Chicago...
(cello), Steve McCall
Steve McCall (drummer)
Steve McCall was an American jazz drummer.McCall was born in Chicago and began his career there in the 1950s. One of his early gigs was playing behind blues singer Lucky Carmichael. McCall befriended Muhal Richard Abrams in 1961, and went on to be one of the founders of the AACM in 1965...
(drums), Muhal Richard Abrams
Muhal Richard Abrams
Muhal Richard Abrams is an American educator, administrator, composer, arranger, clarinetist, cellist, and jazz pianist in the Free jazz medium. Abrams compresses both contemporary and traditional ideas into lean, elegant pieces.- Biography :Abrams attended DuSable High School in Chicago...
(piano), Wadada Leo Smith
Wadada Leo Smith
Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith is a trumpeter and composer working primarily in the fields of avant-garde jazz and free improvisation.-Biography:...
(trumpet) and Leroy Jenkins (violin).
In the late 1970s, he recorded two large ensemble recordings, "Creative Orchestra Music 1976," inspired by American jazz and marching band traditions, and "For Four Orchestras." Both of these records were released on Arista.
Braxton's regular group in the 1980s and early 1990s was a quartet with Marilyn Crispell
Marilyn Crispell
Marilyn Crispell is an American jazz pianist and composer.-Biography:Crispell studied classical piano and composition at the New England Conservatory of Music. She has been a resident of Woodstock, NY since 1977 when she came to study and teach at Karl Berger's Creative Music Studio...
(piano), Mark Dresser
Mark Dresser
Mark Dresser is an American double bass player and composer.-Biography:He has performed and recorded with many of the luminaries of "new" jazz composition and improvisation. For ten years he performed with the Anthony Braxton Quartet, as well as diverse groups led by Ray Anderson, Tim Berne,...
(double bass) and Gerry Hemingway
Gerry Hemingway
Gerry Hemingway is an American jazz composer and percussionist.He has performed with Ernst Reijseger, Anthony Davis, Earl Howard, Leo Smith, George Lewis, Anthony Braxton, Ray Anderson, Mark Helias, Reggie Workman, Michael Moore, Oliver Lake, Marilyn Crispell, Christy Doran, John Wolf Brennan, Don...
(drums), "his finest and longest standing band".
In 1994, he was granted a MacArthur Fellowship. From 1995 to 2006, Braxton's output as a composer concentrated almost exclusively on what he calls Ghost Trance Music, which introduces a steady pulse to his music and also allows the simultaneous performance of any piece by the performers. Many of the earliest Ghost Trance recordings were released on his own Braxton House label (now defunct). His final Ghost Trance compositions were performed with a "12+1tet" at New York's Iridium club in 2006; the complete four-night residency was recorded and released in 2007 by the Firehouse 12 label.
In addition, during the 1990s and early 2000s, Braxton created a prodigiously large body of jazz standard
Jazz standard
Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...
recordings, often featuring him as a pianist rather than saxophonist. He had frequently performed such material in the 1970s and 1980s, but only recorded it occasionally. Now he began to release multidisc sets of such material, climaxing in two quadruple-CD sets for Leo Records recorded on tour in 2003.
More recently he has created new series of compositions, such as the Falling River Musics that are documented on 2+2 Compositions (482 Music, 2005). In 2005, Braxton was a guest performer with the noise
Noise music
Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
group Wolf Eyes
Wolf Eyes
Wolf Eyes is a post-industrial/noise band from Detroit, Michigan, United States.-History:Wolf Eyes began as a solo project of former Nautical Almanac member Nate Young, with Aaron Dilloway joining in 1998, and John Olson in 2000...
at the FIMAV Festival. A recording of the concert, Black Vomit, is described by critic François Couture as sympathetic and effective collaboration: "something really clicked between these artists, and it was all in good fun."
One of his children, Tyondai Braxton
Tyondai Braxton
Tyondai Braxton is an American composer and performer, largely known as the former guitarist/singer of Battles, and as a prominently featured artist on record label Warp Records...
, is also a professional musician. He was a guitarist, keyboardist and vocalist with American math rock
Math rock
Math rock is a rhythmically complex guitar-based style of experimental rock that emerged in the 1980s and that was very influenced by progressive rock like King Crimson, Frank Zappa, Henry Cow - and 20th century composers such as Steve Reich and John Cage...
band Battles
Battles (band)
Battles is an American experimental rock group, founded in 2002 in New York City, comprising guitarists Ian Williams and Dave Konopka , and drummer John Stanier .-Biography:...
.
Beyond his musical career, Braxton is an avid chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
player; for a time in the early 1970s he was a professional chess hustler
Hustling
Hustling is the deceptive act of disguising one's skill in a sport or game with the intent of luring someone of probably lesser skill into gambling with the hustler, as a form of confidence trick...
, playing in New York in Washington Square Park.
Music
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and improvisation
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
oriented, and he has released many albums of jazz standard
Jazz standard
Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...
s. In addition to these, Braxton has released an increasing number of works for large-scale orchestras, including two opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
cycles.
Braxton's music combines an ecstatic, primal vigor with highly theoretical and mystically
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
influenced systems. He is the author of multiple volumes explaining his theories and pieces, such as the philosophical three-volume Triaxium Writings and the five-volume Composition Notes, both published by Frog Peak Music
Frog Peak Music
Frog Peak Music is a composer's collective that produces and distributes experimental works, and functions as a home for its artists. It was co-founded in 1984 by Jody Diamond and Larry Polansky....
. While his compositions and improvisations can be characterized as avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
, many of his pieces have a swing feel and rhythmic angularity that are overtly indebted to Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
and the bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
tradition.
Though much of his music can be safely classified as jazz, Braxton has worked in a wide variety of other genres and has sometimes had a prickly relationship with the jazz mainstream. Critic Chris Kelsey
Chris Kelsey
Chris Kelsey is an American jazz musician, composer, and journalist who was born in Bangor, Maine. Kelsey is one of the few prominent jazz musicians to focus exclusively on the soprano saxophone....
writes:
Musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system that represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written symbols.-History:...
indicating to the performer how a piece is played. Sometimes the letters are identifiable as the initials of Braxton's friends and musical colleagues.
Braxton has pointedly refused to explain their significance, claiming that he himself is still discovering their meaning. Braxton eventually settled on a system of opus-numbers to make referring to these pieces simpler, and earlier pieces have had opus-numbers retrospectively added to them.
By the mid-to-late 1980s, Braxton's titles had become increasingly complex. They began to incorporate drawings and illustrations, such as in the title of his four act opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
cycle, Trillium R. Others began to include life-like images of inanimate objects, namely train cars. The latter was most notably seen after the advent of his Ghost Trance Music system.
In the twenty-first century, he still actively performs with ensembles of varying sizes, and has to date written well over 350 compositions. He has just recently finished the last batch of Ghost Trance Music compositions, and has now shown his interest in three other music systems: The Diamond Curtain Wall Trio, in which Braxton implements the aid of the computer audio programming language SuperCollider
Supercollider
A Supercollider is a high energy particle accelerator. The term may refer to:* Superconducting Super Collider, planned 80 km project in Texas, canceled in 1993...
; Falling River Musics; and, most recently, Echo Echo Mirror House music, which is meant to hone in many different types of performance arts in addition to music. In addition to their own instruments, musicians playing Echo Echo Mirror House compositions incorporate amplified mp3 players loaded with Braxton's discography to create a unique sound-space.
External links
- Anthony Braxton and the Tri-Centric Foundation: official website
- Frog Peak: Anthony Braxton
- Comprehensive Discography
- Interview-excerpt on restructuralism, stylism & traditionalism
- 'The Third Millennial Interview' by Mike Heffley, 2001 (100+ pages)
- Research papers by Anthony Braxton
- Lovely Music: Anthony Braxton
- : Composite Interview, WKCR, 1993-1995
- http://www.intaktrec.ch/interbraxton-a.htm Interview for Duo Palindrome (2002) w/ Andrew Cyrille
- Breakfast Conversation in Concert: Anthony Braxton interviewed by Roland Young, Glen Howell, and Sandy Silver, before his concert at the Palace of the Legion of Honor, 10 October 1971.
- Braxton interview concerning the application of his musical language (1985)
- Epitonic.com: Anthony Braxton featuring tracks from 19 Solo Compositions, 1988
- Art of the States: Anthony Braxton Composition No. 186 (1996) and Composition 304 (+ 91, 151, 164) (2002)
- Video of Braxton playing a Contrabass Saxophone at Iridium Jazz ClubIridium Jazz ClubThe Iridium Jazz Club is a jazz club located on Broadway in New York City. The club hosts weekly performances by John Colianni, and also featured weekly performances by Les Paul for nearly fifteen years.- History :...
- Most of Braxton's recordings for Leo Records are available from emusic. This is no longer the case, but Leo Records has made almost all of Braxton's Leo sessions available as downloads from their own site.
- Anthony Braxton interview at allaboutjazz.com
- Introducing Anthony Braxton by Robert Levin (1970)