Jazz

Anthony Braxton & Miya Masaoka – Duo (DCWM) 2013 (2016)

2017-09-19T16:21:08Z

Anthony Braxton & Miya Masaoka – Duo (DCWM) 2013 (2016)


1-1 	Experience 1 	51:25
2-1 	Experience 2 	34:59
2-2 	Experience 3 	18:58

Anthony Braxton - Sopranino Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Alto Saxophone, Electronics
Miya Masaoka  - Koto [21 string Koto]

Typically for acclaimed reedman, composer and educator Anthony Braxton his encounter with the Japanese koto, played here by Miya Masaoka, is not even the first such duet in his voluminous discography. That was 11 Compositions (Duo) 1995 with Brett Larner (Leo Records, 1997) which interpreted written materials. For all intents and purposes, Duo (DCWM) 2013 is freely improvised, but with the notable addition of Braxton's interactive electronic textures which add an air of mystery through generally unobtrusive washes, shimmers, tinkled chimes and sine wave chords, making the self-styled Diamond Curtain Wall moniker all the more appropriate.

Over the course of 2CDs containing three cuts, Braxton switches between sopranino, soprano and alto saxophones, but whatever the register his attitude remains the same. He runs the entire gamut of expression, from pure-toned whistles, cool school phraseology, his characteristic double time gallop, querulous murmurs, lyrical fragments, and keypad pattering to wheezy vocalizations, like an old man reminiscing about his life.

He never goes for broke, but seems always on the verge of transforming to something else. Masaoka calls on an astonishing range of non chordal, non linear rejoinders. She strums, swipes, picks, bends notes, bows strings, offers detuned twangs, rapidfire arpeggios, blues guitar sonorities and booming rubbed vibrations.

While sometimes the results might seem like two unassociated tracks (three even, when the electronics kick in), that view is discredited by an often shared sense of dynamics, common pauses, and simultaneous changes in attack, as opposed to melodic or rhythmic continuity. In some ways this meeting most resembles Braxton's discs with iconoclastic guitarist Derek Bailey, and it is comparable in that their differing tactics reach rapprochement through attentive listening.

It's not possible to discern any cause and effect in what triggers the electronics. At points you can almost hear Masaoka testing the computer program, essaying rippling glissandi or isolated sallies and then pausing to hear what if any response it draws.

Extended techniques by both participants, especially Masaoka, make for a kaleidoscopic exchange of unalloyed sound with instrumental norms transcended: a conversation in unfathomable languages with unknown syntax. Overall the session conjures a dreamlike, trance inducing state. For a jazz audience the passages that perform best are likely when staccato koto plucks punctuate flowing saxophone, but perhaps that is just down to similarity to standard procedures. As with much of Braxton's work, this is sui generis and both aficionados and those with open ears will find much to savor. ---John Sharpe, allaboutjazz.com

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Anthony Braxton - Eight (+3) Tristano Compositions For Warne Marsh (1990)

2010-05-20T23:24:09Z

Anthony Braxton - Eight (+3) Tristano Compositions For Warne Marsh (1990)


1. Two Not One 
2. 317 East 32nd Street 
3. Dreams 
4. Lennie's Pennies 
5. How Deep Is the Ocean? 
6. Victory Ball 
7. Sax of a Kind 
8. Lennie-Bird 
9. Time on My Hands 
10. Victory Ball [Take 2] 
11. Baby 
12. April

Bass - Cecil McBee 
Composed By - Lennie Tristano 
Drums - Andrew Cyrille 
Piano - Dred Scott 
Saxophone [Alto, Sopranino], Flute - Anthony Braxton 
Saxophone [Baritone] - John Raskin

This set was recorded as an homage to late saxophone great Warne Marsh (who was alive at the time of this recording) as well as to Lennie Tristano and his band of the late '40s and early '50s, which also included alto saxophonist Lee Konitz and guitarist Billy Bauer. Braxton's own band mirrors Tristano's, with Jon Raskin on baritone saxophone, Dred Scott on piano, Cecil McBee on bass, and Andrew Cyrille on drums. The first four tracks are all Tristano's. His songbook -- which incorporated Charlie Parker's sense of harmony and his own sense of lyrical melody and counterpoint -- is executed flawlessly by this band, with a different sense of clarity and emotional intensity that only history can bring to bear. Interestingly, it's on "Lennie's Pennies" that Braxton and Raskin really dig in to the melodic invention that is so subtle in the original from 1952. They look from the downside up in the way they play through the front line and then take out the harmony and turn it inside out. On Irving Berlin's "How Deep Is the Ocean," a favorite of Marsh's, they turn a lilting lyrical line into a force for beauty and complexity. On Marsh's own "Sax of a Kind," Braxton's most emotional playing ever comes to the fore. He doesn't sweat the technique, he's already got that. He's interested in Marsh's feeling that came across when he heard the tune and the feeling Marsh got out of his horn, and, of course, he's grateful for that influence. Braxton sails with no edges, slowly allowing the tune to build from his soprano and inverting the tune's mode just as the line slips into improvisation. It's a ballad without a backbone, just a feeling, spreading over the entire body of the track until all that's left are the mode changes in the solos -- truly beautiful. Braxton has done numerous recordings of standards, and even a double disc (on this same label) of his readings of Charlie Parker. But as fine as most of those recordings are, none of them match the lyrical brilliance and subtle grace of this tribute. ---Thom Jurek, Rovi

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Anthony Braxton - Quartet, Quintet (NYC) 2011

2014-06-23T15:40:32Z

Anthony Braxton - Quartet, Quintet (NYC) 2011


1. Pine Top Aerial Music + Composition No. 23C + 220

Anthony Braxton - saxs, bass clarinet
Matt Bauder - clarinet
Taylor Ho Bynum - cornet
Ensamble - Pine Top Aerial Music Quartet
Anne Rhodes – voice

2. Composition No. 366e + 367a + 367f + 366d +367b

Anthony Braxton - saxs, bass clarinet
Sara Schoenbeck - bassoon
Ensemble – Falling River Music Quintet
Shelley Burgon - harp
Ingrid Laubrock - tenor sax
Renee Baker - violin, viola.

Genius is a rare commodity in any art form, but at the end of the 20th century it seemed all but non-existent in jazz, a music that had ceased looking ahead and begun swallowing its tail. If it seemed like the music had run out of ideas, it might be because Anthony Braxton covered just about every conceivable area of creativity during the course of his extraordinary career. The multi-reedist/composer might very well be jazz's last bona fide genius. Braxton began with jazz's essential rhythmic and textural elements, combining them with all manner of experimental compositional techniques, from graphic and non-specific notation to serialism and multimedia. Even at the peak of his renown in the mid- to late '70s, Braxton was a controversial figure amongst musicians and critics. His self-invented (yet heavily theoretical) approach to playing and composing jazz seemed to have as much in common with late 20th century classical music as it did jazz, and therefore alienated those who considered jazz at a full remove from European idioms. Although Braxton exhibited a genuine -- if highly idiosyncratic -- ability to play older forms (influenced especially by saxophonists Warne Marsh, John Coltrane, Paul Desmond, and Eric Dolphy), he was never really accepted by the jazz establishment, due to his manifest infatuation with the practices of such non-jazz artists as John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Many of the mainstream's most popular musicians (Wynton Marsalis among them) insisted that Braxton's music was not jazz at all. Whatever one calls it, however, 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. Braxton was able to fuse jazz's visceral components with contemporary classical music's formal and harmonic methods in an utterly unselfconscious -- and therefore convincing -- way. The best of his work is on a level with any art music of the late 20th century, jazz or classical.

Braxton began playing music as a teenager in Chicago, developing an early interest in both jazz and classical musics. He attended the Chicago School of Music from 1959-1963, then Roosevelt University, where he studied philosophy and composition. During this time, he became acquainted with many of his future collaborators, including saxophonists Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell. Braxton entered the service and played saxophone in an Army band; for a time he was stationed in Korea. Upon his discharge in 1966, he returned to Chicago where he joined the nascent Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). The next year, he formed an influential free jazz trio, the Creative Construction Company, with violinist Leroy Jenkins and trumpeter Leo Smith. In 1968, he recorded For Alto, the first-ever recording for solo saxophone. Braxton lived in Paris for a short while beginning in 1969, where he played with a rhythm section comprised of bassist Dave Holland, pianist Chick Corea, and drummer Barry Altschul. Called Circle, the group stayed together for about a year before disbanding (Holland and Altschul would continue to play in Braxton-led groups for the next several years). Braxton moved to New York in 1970. The '70s saw his star rise (in a manner of speaking); he recorded a number of ambitious albums for the major label Arista and performing in various contexts. Braxton maintained a quartet with Altschul, Holland, and a brass player (either trumpeter Kenny Wheeler or trombonist George Lewis) for most of the '70s. During the decade, he also performed with the Italian free improvisation group Musica Elettronica Viva, and guitarist Derek Bailey, as well as his colleagues in AACM. The '80s saw Braxton lose his major-label deal, yet he continued to record and issue albums on independent labels at a dizzying pace. He recorded a memorable series of duets with bop pioneer Max Roach, and made records of standards with pianists Tete Montoliu and Hank Jones. Braxton's steadiest vehicle in the '80s and '90s -- and what is often considered his best group -- was his quartet with pianist Marilyn Crispell, bassist Mark Dresser, and drummer Gerry Hemingway. In 1985, he began teaching at Mills College in California; he subsequently joined the music faculty at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where he taught through the '90s. During that decade, he received a large grant from the MacArthur Foundation that allowed him to finance some large-scale projects he'd long envisioned, including an opera. At the beginning of the 21st century, Braxton was still a vital presence on the creative music scene. --- Chris Kelsey,Rovi

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Anthony Braxton - The Montreux / Berlin Concerts (1977)

2011-07-25T18:51:01Z

Anthony Braxton - The Montreux / Berlin Concerts (1977)


1. Opus 40M
2. Opus 23J
3. Opus 40
4. Opus 6F
5. Opus 40K
6. Opus 6C
7. Opus 63

Anthony Braxton - Saxophone [Sopranino, Alto, Contrabass], Flute, Clarinet
Kenny Wheeler – trumpet
George Lewis – trombone
Dave Holland – bass
Barry Altschul - Drums, Percussion, Gong

In 1970, the Chick Corea trio with Dave Holland and Barry Altschul became the co-operative quartet Circle with the addition of Anthony Braxton. This unique and often brilliant quartet was so co-operative that it was inevitably doomed by the strong individualism and creativity of its members. Just before its demise in 1971, Braxton recorded a double album for Freedom Records that featured duets with Chick and a quartet of Dave, Barry and Kenny Wheeler.

Circle crumbled, leaving behind a legacy of recorded works on CBS in Japan, ECM in Germany and Blue Note in the United States. Ironically, it was the Braxton quartet with Kenny, Dave and Barry that lasted intermittently until 1976.

The quartet started priming itself for recording with a number of major appearances at major festivals such as Newport-New York and Willisau, Switzerland. But it was at the first Dortmund Jazz Festival in Germany on October 31, 1976 that this group hit a magic peak. We spent the rest of that evening exhilarated by the performance and depressed by the absence of a recording facility.

But four days later, during the second day of the Berliner Jazztage (Berlin Jazz Days), the group once again hit its stride. The second piece on side two of this album [Comp. 6C] remains, for me, one of the pinnacles of collective jazz playing. Ironically, this amazing composition was written by Anthony in 1967 and only recently resurrected. Also included by this unit is a new version of Anthony's "72o—Kelvin" [Comp. 6F].

The Montreux performance includes the first documented version of "84o —Kelvin" [Comp. 40(O)] as well as a free flowing drone-based piece [Comp. 40N] and a tempo piece [Comp. 23J] that includes one of Braxton's most exciting alto solos to date.

Ironically, the fourth tune of each performance was eliminated from possible release by technical difficulties, and that missing piece in both concerts was the stop time composition that first appeared on "Five Compositions [sic], 1975" (Arista).

Side four features a chamber orchestra piece [Comp. 63] that had been recently composed by Braxton. Unlike the several orchestra pieces that have been performed in the United States and Europe over the past couple of years, this piece allowed for two soloists in an improvisational role. Of course, those two soloists are Anthony and George.

After a first rehearsal during which Braxton earned the confidence and respect of this extraordinary classical ensemble, things went very well. And the performance on the fourth night of the Berlin Festival was received by the skeptical Berlin audience with a five or six minute ovation.

This album began during an incredible hot spell in Montreux, Switzerland during the summer of 1975 and culminated in a mix room in Woodstock, New York in February of 1977 during a severe cold spell. During the nineteen months that bridged these climatic extremes, there were many frustrations, many changes, many possibilities, many satisfying moments and many miles travelled. Throughout, we were never sure of what we had or of what we were working toward.

In retrospect, the end result is one of which we are proud. It is a live documentation of a quartet that reached extraordinary heights during its six year life and of a quartet that has attained equal brilliance in its first year of existence. And through the auspices of the Berlin Jazz Days, the album closes with a rare example of Braxton's written music at this point in time. We can only hope that the experience translates to vinyl and to the listener. ---Michael Cuscuna, pl.scribd.com

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Anthony Braxton Quartet – Dortmund (1976)

2009-10-15T18:25:00Z

Anthony Braxton Quartet – Dortmund (1976)


1.	Composition 40F – Composition 23J
2.	Composition 40 (O)
3.	Composition 6C
4.	Composition 40B

Anthony Braxton - Clarinet, Clarinet (Contrabass), Contrabass Saxophone, E Flat Clarinet,
  Sax (Alto), Sax (Bass), Sax (Sopranino), Sax (Soprano)
George Lewis – Trombone
Dave Holland – Bass
Barry Altschul - Drums, Percussion

Braxton has produced many excellent recordings through the years, but only a small number stand out from the pack the way this one does. This version of his pianoless quartet is captured live in an inspired, energized performance at the first Dortmund Jazz Festival in Germany. Trombonist George Lewis had only recently joined the group, replacing the more introspective trumpeter Kenny Wheeler. Braxton's compositions are uniformly brilliant, incorporating marching band themes, lightening-fast hard bop-influenced runs, and strings of non-syncopated eighth notes, all of which contribute to a sense of wonder and excitement. Also, Braxton is in marvelous form on his varied horns, springing forth an arsenal of seemingly endless ideas. His lengthy solo on "Composition 40 F" is among his best on disc, garnering a well-deserved enthusiastic reaction from the audience. By bringing Lewis into the group, Braxton helped to nurture one of the most astonishing and technically virtuosic trombonists in all of jazz. The young Lewis is hardly intimidated by the celebrity quality of the group, and from the outset, he engages in mouth-watering displays that match the saxophonist note for note. Whether playing open or muted, Lewis was one of the most effective interpreters of Braxton's complex compositions. There are fine contributions, too, from drummer Barry Altschul and especially bassist Dave Holland, but the intricate compositions themselves and the incredible soloing of the horns are what mark this one for the big leagues. Graham Lock's knowledgeable, erudite liners are a big plus in helping to understand this difficult but highly rewarding music. ---Steve Loewy, Rovi

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