Anthony Braxton Music

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.