Anthony Braxton Music

ah Braxton... too clever for his own damn good. but luckily this is the only instance where this becomes painfully aparent. that I know of.

While I'm a fan of much of Anthony Braxton's music and greatly admire his cross-pollination of pieces, nowhere does his reputation as a bit of a jive turkey precede him than this particular work. Overobsessed with maps, trails, and the fastest way to get from point A to point B, the over-reliance of recitation of map reference points tends to wear this particular work down for the listener. Imagine a CD filled with incidental, seemingly random (at first listen) percussion (tuned and unpitched) with a gaggle of students reciting that you could choose between the trail starting at point 86C, following up to 184M, into Sector 164-32GR -- repeatedly, to the point of mind-numbingness -- and you'll have a very good idea of what this particular piece is about. This one obviously works much better as a multimedia event, and would serve better as a film on DVD. If you've never heard of Braxton before don't start here -- pick a Creative Orchestra or Circle album first. This will be your least-listened-to CD unless you're obsessed with map references.

This is one of Braxton's recent "Ghost Trance" discs. It's a duet between him & the singer Lauren Newton, best known for her work with the Vienna Art Orchestra. Braxton plays a repetitive, minimally varied melody over & over, while Newton sings the letters of the alphabet. Every so often, there's a strange sound--apparently (according to the liner notes) from the spinning of a gameshow wheel on which titles of Braxton compositions are written; this prompts a brief diversion of the flow of music into another musical structure (rather in the manner of Braxton's collage quartet musics of the 1980s). However, mainly this is about the bemusing, sometimes hypnotic, sometimes boring minimalism of the main composition. It's a pity this isn't especially well-recorded--it's a passable (live) recording, but gets rather distant in spots.

Altogether quite puzzling. Worth a listen, but unlikely to spend a lot of time on your stereo. Newcomers to Braxton should certainly investigate the quartets with Crispell, Dresser & Hemingway first.

Polytimbral,polyrhythmic,multi-syncopated music reaching across the ages allowing for limitless mental and perceptual/emotional gratifications commensurate with the listener's attendance. Or,put more simply,the more you give,the more you get.
This was my first exposure to Braxton's ghost trance music,though I've been a fan of his since 1973,(when I was an on-and -off student of drummer/percussionist Barry Altschul).I have since gotten many more GTM cd's.If you give it time and attention,this music can help you alter your perceptions and provide alternative life solutions.
I don't want to disservice Mr.Braxton by analysing or describing his sound logic- it would be limiting ,it is my perception,not his.But this is exciting stuff,the performance feels impassioned and the ensemble is top-notch.Mr.Braxton is in fine form,lovers of his playing will find plenty to enjoy.(remembering of course that he is not soloing over jazz standards-duh.)
The tentet is 2 cd's long,and dedicated to Max Roach.277 to harry partch,287 to joe frazier(both quintets),the trio to shostakovitch,quartet to betsy jolas,and the guitar/sax duet to don van vliet(captain beefheart).I find that these dedications have no small significance.This is rich,challenging music and,for me, one of the most gratifying cd's of the last twenty years.Thank you,Mr.Braxton!!

Besides being a great bargain for the price, Six Compositions (GTM) 2001 presents profound examples of Anthony Braxton's challenging and intriguing Ghost Trance Music. This music definitely has the power, spirituality, and complexity to change the way that a listener views conventions in contemporary creative music. The music is occasionally thick in texture, but that is nothing new to creative music. These are musicians who dare to think new thoughts, to push the boundaries of concepts and expand the ramifications of the music. Anyone interested in progressive, creative music should listen to these discs. They are marvelous. Anyone interested in the relationship between theory and culture should listen to these discs. The set delivers on a very consistent basis.

I disagree with some critics who claim that Six Compositions (GTM) 2001 is not the ideal place to experience Mr. Braxton's music for the first time. Why not? The GTM, including this set, is as much a product of Mr. Braxton's thoughtfulness and creative powers as any development in which he has ever participated (and yes, I love the Arista stuff too). It is as good as a place to learn his music as any,and I would also include Trillium R and Comps. 173 and 174 in the discussion as well. Again, why not? Even though the GTM has been well documented over the years, the musical investigations that comprise the GTM, while arguably sharing similar "DNA," are of themselves unique and compelling. There is probably a GTM for everyone; people just need to find what suits them best at the moment.

The great benefit of Six Compositions (GTM) 2001 is that the combinations of large and small ensembles will serve as a great introduction to and lead to an appreciation of the wonderful possibilities that are the Ghost Trance Music.

Also, the liner notes are perfectly readable and offer a great introduction to the music. Mr. Braxton likes to use compound nouns. It is really no problem once you just get used to his style.

Anthony Braxton is a musician who's every thought on music is important to hear. So this 4 disc set of compositions is an important release. This ensemble is one that Braxton has worked with for a while, based around current and former students from his courses at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. And I represents a genre of music that Braxton has created, called Ghost Trance Music, which has been underrecorded. The six pieces range in ensemble from a guitar and reed duo, to the longest piece on the album for tentet of 5 reeds, 3 brass, guitar bass and percussion. The variety of sonic resources should make for an interesting album, and it does, with some drawbacks.

The biggest problem with the album is in the genre of Ghost Trance Music itself. The notated sections of these pieces tend to a sameness of texture, which can make listening a bit numbing, if you don't devote alot of attention to the works. If you do, though, there are many sections of brilliant, but cerebral improvisation, some wonderful horn effects that harken back to the early jazz greats like Bubber Miley and Tricky Sam Nanton, and an overall ritual feeling, which is undoubtedly the effect that Braxton wished to create. But this is not an album that is an easy listen straight through. I find that I can only take, at most, two discs at a sitting.

The longest piece on thealbum, the tentet, is also the most impenetrably for me. The Ghost Trance Music notational patterns can seem relentless in this work. Briefly stated, the Ghost Trance Music tends to block chord ensembles which march forward in steady pulses, and then change abruptly to faster and slower pulses...all with the same block chord texture. This is not Braxton's multi-line music...at least there's not much of it. As a result, the texture can wear a bit. However, the improvised sections have much to recommend them, and are at times, quite lovely.

The other pieces on the album fare better, in my opinion. They are shorter, and there is more focus on contrasts of texture. Standouts include Composition 287 for quintet, which has some marvelous piano work by the percussionist, Gino Robair; Composition 276 for trio, with marvelous electric guitar work by John Shiurba, and Composition 289 for saxophone quartet. All of this is worth hearning, and repays repeated listening. I've gotten more out the fifth time I've listened to the works than I did out of the first!

Don't expect much help from the album's liner notes by Braxton. Mr. Braxton is a very smart man...much smarter than I am I think! But his notes are so full of jargon that he has created himself, as to be almost unreadable, at least in the original form. To approach Braxton's musical ideas more fully, I find I have to go to interpretors, like Graham Lock. Without that help, I'm completely lost, though it is obvious to me that there is deep compositional, intellectual and spiritual thought behind the music.

That being said, this is not the album I'd start with if I were new to Braxton. A better choice for the novice might be Three Compositions of New Jazz, from early in his career, or Two Compositions (Jarvenpaa) with the Ensemble Braxtonia from 1988. The later particularly is one of my favorite of all Braxton sets. The work is amazingly varied and the playing is intense.

This album is one of the best Braxton albums I've heard in a long time. I must admit that I have not been terribly enthralled by Braxton's new Ghost Trance Music genre, in which he has been working almost exclusively since 1995. But this recording has turned me around. I think I get it now.

Ghost Trance Music is a genre of music developed by Braxton which is inspired by the sort of endless run-on melodies that can be found in many world cultures. The basic conception is that the ensemble plays a very long melody in running eighth notes, broken only by occasional bursts of faster figures. The ensemble plays in a sort of Braxtonian unison - the melody is notated in such a way that, when played by different transposing instruments, differing notes result, though the effect is one of thickened unison rather than true harmony. (Sort of resembles the heterophony of music in various cultures such as the Andes or Indonesia.) As this melody treads onward, each instrumentalist is given space to improvise over the melody, especially during looped sections where the melody repeats in ostinato fashion. Braxton also allows the instruments to insert phrases and entire sections of music from other earlier Braxton compositions...in effect making Ghost Trance Music the unifier of his nearly forty year career. These interjections of composed and improvised music help to keep the pieces full of variety, while the running eighth notes have an almost shamanistic effect on the listener.

Composition 247 is one of the few that specifies the instrumental ensemble. It is scored for two wind players and Highland Bagpipe. The addition of the bagpipe is probably what made this piece click for me. The bagpipe is tuned in just intonation, while the other instruments are more typically western. As a result, the Braxtonian unison shimmers with overtones and sounds very close to music from shaman cultures, making the connection to earth based traditions that I had a hard time hearing in other music of the genre. The work is an instrumental tour de force, require an astounding amount of circular breathing from all three players. The improvisational skills evidenced by all three players helps make the work build, rather than remain static. And it's overall effect is hypnotizing. I find that when the piece is over, my ears have been buzzed into another place, one that's hard to come back from.

Leo's sound is great, as usual. And the liner notes are clear. They went a long way toward helping me appreciate this genre in Braxton's output. I still think that I would recommend other Braxton albums first for the novice. Ghost Trance Music can still be daunting for people, and it would be a shame for novices to decide that Braxton wasn't for them, just because of one genre. But anyone who is interested in this fascinating composer should tackle this CD. It's a great introduction to his late style. And anything that this composer does is important.

This is the second part of a concert that took place at the Tonic in New York City on April 5th, 2003. The first part of the concert has already been released under the title Organic Resonance.
Wadada Leo Smith and Anthony Braxton have known each other at least since the late 60s. Probably their most fruitful work together was done as part of the Creative Construction Company, a group that came together in Paris about that time and included Leroy Jenkins, Muhal Richard Abrams and Steve McCall at various times.
Since then they have gone their seperate ways but both of them have developed at huge body of work based on their own individual sense of composition.
This concert comprises three compositions: Braxton's Composition No. 316, Smith's Saturn, Conjunct the Grand Canyon in a Sweet Embrace and Goshawk which is credited to both men and is probably a complete improv.
Smith's style utilizes a lot of space and Braxton adapts to that by doing the same. There are plenty of moments where one of them is performing solo and even when they are playing together they are allowing plenty of room for the other to play. In this sense, this is a very different concert, say, from Braxton's 1993 London duet with Evan Parker.
This CD demands your attention. Otherwise, particularly on Braxtons's piece (which is almost 29 minutes long), the music will seem episodic, indeed, even disjointed. This is a mistake. These two guys are working thru (mostly)composed pieces, listening to each other improv on those pieces, but the way they work together is very loose,lyrical and free. The album info quoted above says that this is an example of how duet music can develop in the future. Maybe so, but it sets the bar pretty high.
If you are a fan of Braxton and Smith, this is definitely a CD for you. If you are a fan of free music and you don't know these guys, drop and give me two hundred push ups and then listen to these CDs. The only reason that I did not give this CD five stars is that the first CD strikes me as a little better. Buy them both so you can make up your own mind.
And finally, for my fellow Braxtonians, if you haven't heard Braxton's standards quartet that he is leading now with Kevin O'Neil on guitar, Andy Eulau on bass, and Kevin Norton of drums, are you in for a surprise! This is Braxton playing as straight as I have heard him but playing straight with assorted twists and angular turns. And O'Neil is a great foil for this side of the musical genius that is Braxton. There is a double CD available on Norton's Barking Hoops label. Perfect for those who have resisted Braxton for years (And you know who you are, Jan P. Dennis). Check it out.

This is an interesting album, even if it's not fully engaging. Braxton is increasingly revealing himself to be a musician of power who breaks all stylistic barriers. His influence on the avant-garde jazz movement is tremendous. And yet, though he has been writing notated music of power and passion for over 30 years, he has yet to recieve the acclaim due him in avant-garde classical circles. This is a shame, because, even in music that doesn't quite work, Braxton is a powerhouse to be reckoned with.

Composition No. 96 is an uneven work. Like so many of Braxton's pieces, it is named primarily by a symbolic graphic that is connected to the work's mystical meaning, but referred to by number. People looking for Braxton to blow in this album will be disappointed. He appears as conductor, but never plays his saxes at all on the work. Instead, the piece is written for a 37 piece orchestra of winds, brass and a smallish stringed section. The result sounds like a cross between a classical chamber orchestra and a big band, with wind sonorities dominating. The piece is also to be accompnied by 4 slide projectors on which photographs of important esoteric symbols are shown, along with photographs from nature in which these symbolic forms can be found.

The music is divided into four notationed sections, separated by three "fermata" improvised sections. The notated sections set up continuous stands of music against each other, much as Ligeti's Melodien or San Francisco Polyphony. Some of these melodic strands are harmonized in block chords, resembling an outer space "Supersax" group. The improvised sections are moments of stasis and are perhaps the most striking thing about the piece. They enter out of nowhere. The musicians hold out a long chord, improvising mostly with the tone color and dynamics of the chord. The fermatas last as long as two minutes, and yet they are endlessly fascinating. The stasis is needed after the density of the main sections.

For all of it's inventiveness, this work ends up lacking a drive. It sounds more conceptual than organic. The melodic" lines have very little relationship to each other. This non-motivic approach to melody has been tried by others as well, most notably Ligeti. But the approach is varied in Ligeti's work by changes in tempo and texture. Absent that, Braxton's piece can begin to wear by the third or fourth section. I find myself wishing for the end long before it finally comes.

So, though I love many of Braxton's notated pieces, and believe that he has a key to the future uniting of improvised and composed music in all styles, I find Composition 96 to be a disappointment. I'm glad I've heard it, but wish that I hadn't actually bought it. There are other CDs of Braxton's that I would rather own.