Anthony Braxton: Search and Destroy

''i love this one so much i'll tape it for ye if ye like the sound of the sound of it''

I'll try and find this (i might have seen it). if not then if you could tape it it would be great.

For Alto (Delmark)
Duets 1976 w/Muhal Richard Abrams (Arista)
Company 2 w/Evan Parker & Derek Bailey (Incus)
Donaoeschingen 1976 w/George Lewis (hatART)
For Trio (Arista)
One in Two/Two in One w/Max Roach (Hat Hut)
Moments Precieux w/Derek Bailey (Victo)
Willisau 1991 (hatART)

I also enjoy most of the BYG recordings and the 'Circle" -era band, but i must confess, aside from a few duet recordings, the last 10 years of Braxtonia have left me a bit flat

Braxton is on Alto, most tracks are short (3-4 mins) and its a bunch of marvellous short blasts of intensity.

Braxton and cecil get a lot of respect I think bcz they can maintain intensity for long periods of time without boring you to sleep but here braxton shortens this intensity out and the results are really fucking marvellous.

As good as 'for alto' or 'solo (koln)'.

i can only imagine...

pre-composed modules for varying numbers of players, all breaking into larger/smaller numbers of players, improvised conduction. Comes on like a mess and then really begins tormenting you as you begin to hear the structures sliding around in there... the textures are boggling.

Thanks for the other tips on this thread, I've been meaning to buy more but indeed have been intimidated by the sheer volume.

Anyway, his records are great bounties of imaginative thinking. I've still not heard any of his piano records. I'd be interested in opinions from anyone whose heard him (George's comments up thread were not particularly helpful).

also time zones with richard teitelbaum. explores some of the reallllllllly deep throaty tones (blurts and barks) of braxton while this weirdo goes wild with moog washes.

I've never heard them anywhere else. If he could take current pop songs, bebob them or convert them in some other way, well i think that would be easier for a larger audience to enjoy.

ok current pop music doesn't have that before and after the beat semi-in-determinent 'swing' of old _jazz_ standards (cf: appropriations from pop).
Marches are easy to take the piss out of i suspect, they're more music from the past (and only irrelevently included in the present eg Buck. UK etc.) and they have _no_ swing to start with.

i've tried to listen to people like bing crosby or whoever doing the original song, but that music has a almost-metronomic set 'swing' to me, like old hymns, commercial (Brill ?)
vs.
my parents have enjoyed jazz covers (eg stefan grapelli) but they found bebob was hot and heavy and for them, it was brax who was too 'square looking', in their case by virtue of the orderly-slanted dissonance.

was meant to read

they [my parents] found bepob was too hot and heavy and not for them

A lovely essay in there dedicated to Warne Marsh.

And on the subject of Mr Marsh , the 2 CD Warne Marsh/Sal Mosca Quartet live recordings from 1992 are well worth a listen.

i've read about composed bits designed to sound like improv and vice versa, various spaces for improvisation. I like the idea of not being able to tell composed from improv (particularly, i wish completely improvised stuff was _not_ explained to the degree of being labelled as completely improvised, as it gives the game away sometimes)

i find it easier to make the leap of understanding with braxton's later compositions which come with more colourful and expansive drawings and sometimes even short sci-fi stories. I imagine the drawings collapse some aspects of what i presume the graphic scores contain, whilst including some metaphor or other 'clues'.

(i think i've heard the 'quick succession of equally timed and spaced notes' strategy too often in his music cf: other systems)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=307&item=4066600279&rd=1

$160?? damn.

But yes, Hatxxx are playing into the hands of speculators whilst letting them down periodically, but the consumers are left the more precarious and costly of options.

As the market for these expensively recorded documents swells and contracts with fashion, i suppose Hat's bottom line might be a concern, but being the hobby-expense little-brother of swiss airlines and banks, and seeing as how Hat have themselves speculated on the future value of landmark recordings (eg purchasing the Ayler European recording, bankrolling McPhee and Koglmann) i think it's fair to see them as operating like a typical main city up-market art gallery.
(The issue of limited run music in the age of CDRs/'net polarises elitism vs. labour-of-love projects).

the "Charlie Parker Project" is a great Brax-Hat (esp. as playing someone else's "standards") and "2 (ensemble) compositions" & "7 compositions (trio)" are my favourite Hat-Braxs, both featuring colouful & one-off musical casts/events.

i wonder if more people just choose to sell their Willisau 4tets of all of them, for being more boring ?

fwiw, Hats seem to find their way into (at least) the NZ public lirary system (like DGs), whereas the smaller/indie US jazz labels never appear

His liner notes to the disc "Five Compositions (Quartet) 1986" seem like they might be valuable but I also find his writing style a tad dense. I was wondering if I could run his comments and my interpretations by you to see what you make of it.

I'll give just the first paragraph with my comments/questions in caps. We could maybe look at the following paragraphs afterwards. He writes:

"The conceptual and vibrational reality [I'M GUESSING THIS JUST MEANS
BOTH THE IDEAS BEHIND THE MUSIC AND THE ACTUAL SOUNDS OF THE MUSIC] of my quartet music in the 1980s has evolved into a multi-dynamic platform for extended participation [=PERFORMERS ARE INVOLVED ON SEVERAL LEVELS?] that is quite separate (and different) from earlier quartet models (say, from the 1960s and 1970s time cycle) - and this change is not separate from the new strategies that have clarified my composite music system. Those strategies (in this context) involve the implementation of cross and divergent structural operatives that can be utilized in whole or in part throughout the total system of my
music. What this means is that any given instrumental part from any of the 230 structures of my expanding music system (or group of musics) can now be separated from its original identity imprint territory and integrated into the greater or summation system of my music (as an entity with itw own logic and focus) - in any mixture
or set. [IS HE SAYING THAT ALL THE COMPOSITIONS ARE SORT OF LOOSE AND INTERRELATED IN THE SENSE THAT YOU CAN TAKE AN INSTRUMENTAL PART FROM
ONE PIECE AND INCORPORATE IT INTO ANY OTHER PIECE??? THIS IS AN INTERESTING IDEA IF SO.] Structural material used in this manner becomes a reservoir of available logics (and focuses) that can be employed to suit the needs of the creative instrumentalist or thinker. [DOES THIS JUST MEAN THAT THE NOTATED ELEMENTS SERVE AS GUIDES FOR IMPROV?]

I've picked up Composition Notes E as well as Tri-Axium Writings but I
still have trouble understanding Braxton's scores. Looking at Composition No 110A, for example, none of the symbols appear to be among those listed in his pages-long 'legend' at the start of Notes and there is no explanation provided at all for the graphics (one looks like a silhouette of a cartoon ghost, the other maybe, er, a baby ghost).

"The conceptual and vibrational reality [I'M GUESSING THIS JUST MEANS BOTH THE IDEAS BEHIND THE MUSIC AND THE ACTUAL SOUNDS OF THE MUSIC]

Right, I think so.

has evolved into a multi-dynamic platform for extended participation [=PERFORMERS ARE INVOLVED ON SEVERAL LEVELS?]

Perhaps, and I'm not sure exactly what "multi-dynamic" means, but I interpret the entire paragraph as being related to the structure of his compositions. More on that here:

What this means is that any given instrumental part from any of the 230 structures of my expanding music system (or group of musics) can now be separated from its original identity imprint territory and integrated into the greater or summation system of my music (as an entity with itw own logic and focus) - in any mixture
or set. [IS HE SAYING THAT ALL THE COMPOSITIONS ARE SORT OF LOOSE AND INTERRELATED IN THE SENSE THAT YOU CAN TAKE AN INSTRUMENTAL PART FROM
ONE PIECE AND INCORPORATE IT INTO ANY OTHER PIECE???

Yes, and I can answer that one with some confidence. Braxton now views each of his compositions (he uses the word "structures" above) as not just pieces in themselves with clear beginnings and ends - though they can still be played that way - but as interrelated components of an entire system of music. This way, his pieces no longer have clear beginnings and ends, and can be employed in various ways by the performer. This is why one sometimes sees song titles like "Composition 304 (+91, 151, 164)" - elements of all those compositions would be used in a piece based around Composition 304, and the overall structure of the piece would be determined (probably in real time) by the performers. Because of Braxton's idea of using all his music as one system, performers can shape the music and craft very long forms, if they want - I think this is probably what Braxton means by "multi-dynamic platform for extended participation."

This concept is related to some of Braxton's grander, more ambitious ideas. In the next couple years, Innova will release a DVD or multi-CD set in which about 50 musicians played in a huge, cavernous ice rink for eight hours. There were, I'm guessing, parts or wholes of a hundred or so individual Braxton pieces present, and the musicians were organized into groups and subgroups that would form and dissolve and play different compositions while moving around the space. In addition to overhead mics, the performance was captured with mics carried around the space by "friendly experiencers" who would stop and listen to a small group for a while, or maybe play something with them. So the experience of listening to the recording should be something like walking through the space, focusing on one thing or another even though there are a dozen or more different pieces being played at once - kind of like walking through a museum.

I don't think Braxton has ever said this explicitly to me, but I think his idea of using his entire body of works as a single system is connected to deeper ideas about removing his music from traditional boundaries of time and space (that reads like I'm smoking up, but whatever) while still preserving the integrity of the music - this way, boundaries are less fixed. Braxton often talks about playing music for entire days in huge outdoor spaces, and he has already experimented some with using the internet to do interactive trans-continental projects.

Structural material used in this manner becomes a reservoir of available logics (and focuses) that can be employed to suit the needs of the creative instrumentalist or thinker. [DOES THIS JUST MEAN THAT THE NOTATED ELEMENTS SERVE AS GUIDES FOR IMPROV?]

Improvised elements are usually involved, but I wouldn't describe the compositions as secondary to improv or anything like that.

I don't think I've seen the score for 110A, but whenever I saw things in Braxton's scores I didn't understand I asked him. Sometimes I got clear answers, but often I got intentionally oblique ones. I think Braxton likes to leave a lot of things in his scores open to interpretation. He has a new series of compositions called "Falling River Musics" whose scores look much like the titles of many of his earlier pieces - they're extremely vague and the "legends" are as unhelpful as the one you describe. There are lots of symbols on them but no explanation of what they mean, and the symbols are often not obviously related to what actually appears on the scores! Braxton likes this, I think - the music is almost completely unfixed but the scores place the performer in a state of concentration that creates a different dynamic than you'd get in free improv.

George:

Charlie, i'm curious,
how did actually having things explained change/ stimulate your perception of the music ?

Well, you know how some people think Braxton is a genius and others think he's completely crazy? It intensified both those feelings for me! (I mean that in the nicest way possible.) He's a really complex person, and his motivations are often multi-layered and obscure. I know I'm not supposed to say things like this on ILM, but I think there's a lot of depth to his music, both conceptually and in his playing, that the books about him only hint at. (Even though I think the Graham Lock and Radano books are really pretty good.) Whatever, I'm sounding like his lap-dog now, but I've never met anyone like him, that's for sure.

Sometimes the prose and picturebook stuff seems more fun than the music, which has boiled down to a few set systems to my ears over the years. Oh, he's a great post-trane multi-instrumentalist, but his bands do let him down (eg Crispell, who follows orders or plays in a set only-so-far-out unengagingly academic and constant tonal area).

To me he's like Cage. If they paid me to do that, i'd be sneaking as much humour in as i could too. Trouble is, Cage represents a possibility that's just too far (for me), while Brax just seems too much a control freak (again, i'm not talking about his teaching). The pictures of hime, he always seems to be either chuckling or just looking way too serious (cool).

he still makes me laugh

This is a book by a very enthusiastic convert who was on the spot (played on Eugene). Heffley chases up many references from the notes, brings in the other two books and plenty of other sources. The various mythological clues are treated consistently. Most usefully perhaps for you Sundar, he provides plain-speak/ parallel universe walkthroughs for many of Braxton's different instrumental configurations or categories.

Given the volume of Braxton compositions out there it's a drop in the ocean, but the various categorical and individual composition assessments are pretty well organised, brief yet fair for a 400 page book.
Braxton always provides comparisons, opinions and parallels in the jazz tradition, so a fair amount of the book attempts to place him in the continuum, which may not be news.

However for a book that's both introduction and deep-end plunge it's undoubtedly sincere and a labour of love, possibly even a devotional work. Of course the enigmatic mystery mumbo-jumbo that is Braxton qua words still seems to escape, the answers typically raising more questions, but that's Braxton's edge intact i suppose.

i don't know if it's easy find these days, but graham lock's book forces in motion is a very readable account of that quartet's UK tour in 1985 (lock travelled with them) and also an introduction to braxton's work as a whole, which i think generally squishes the "brainy yet bloodless" perception -- a lot of it is pretty funny as i recall (often at lock's expense).

https://store.doverpublications.com/0486824098.html

^^^apparently an updated edition from a couple of years back

Just found the Lock book for $9 with free shipping, so that's on its way here now.

That Important set looks great, but I may wait a bit before pulling the trigger on a box set.

I see that the Coventry disc (whose reputation precedes it, iirc) was released in full and also in a single-disc version (which of course is less expensive). I may grab the abridged version for now.

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions!

The Lock book is fucking fantastic (reissued last year). It absolutely cracked Braxton's music open for me, just because learning about him as a human being - his weird sense of humor and personality quirks - allowed me to think about what I was hearing in a completely different way.

Braxton's 1980s quartet with Marilyn Crispell, Gerry Hemingway and Mark Dresser

^^^I love this group so much but have had mixed feeling any time I've tried to venture further into Braxton's catalog. Willisau (Quartet) 1991 is probably my favorite but generally just really enjoy everything they did.

^^^ thread revive prompted me to put Willisau on tonight

always preferred the small group stuff before but duos are really working for me atm - recently released one with harpist jacqueline kerrod is great, as are the ones with miya masaoka, fred frith, derek bailey (who I don’t always love), max roach, richard teitelbaum, doubtless plenty more I haven’t heard yet

I feel like his larger scale long form compositions deserve more attention than they get, but they can be intimidating. what I’ve heard from the iridium set is great

it’s pretty shitty the treatment (or lack thereof) he’s received from classical gatekeepers- ditto for bill dixon, cecil taylor, ornette & others - for which i can think of reasons. some of the orchestral stuff I’ve heard could have been better performed/conducted/recorded. he has a right to be bitter about boulez and fucking zappa

the standards are enjoyable enough but don’t blow my mind like some of his other stuff does. maybe they’re not supposed to. idc about “not swinging” or “getting the changes wrong” as some jazz nerds complain but his playing is much more exciting elsewhere imo

Listening to the new Thumbscrew record and got the idea of cross-referencing his discography for multiple interpretations of the same composition...I'm guessing the below is the best resource for that? sadly outdated...

https://www.restructures.net/BraxDisco/BraxDisco.htm

ah.. thanks for the new Thumbscrew album alert, this sounds ace.

Listening to the two duo albums Braxton recorded with Wadada Leo Smith live at Tonic in 2002/2003, Organic Resonance and Saturn, Conjunct the Grand Canyon in a Sweet Embrace.

Dang unperson, didn’t know you were going to drop unreleased stuff from the ‘85 quartet tour!!!!!

https://anthonybraxton-bam.bandcamp.com/album/quartet-england-1985

Yep. Just sent the press release out this morning.

Here's the full press release:

BURNING AMBULANCE MUSIC ANNOUNCES PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED ANTHONY BRAXTON LIVE SET, QUARTET (ENGLAND) 1985, OUT JUNE 4

“THIS MUSIC IS REALLY SOMETHING! The music is equal to the best of the quartet — maybe it’s even better than that.” — Anthony Braxton, November 2024

The Anthony Braxton Quartet’s legendary fall 1985 tour of England will be revisited on June 4, the composer’s 80th birthday, with the release of the digital box set Quartet (England) 1985.

The quartet, which comprised Braxton on reeds, Marilyn Crispell on piano, Mark Dresser on double bass, and Gerry Hemingway on percussion, was one of Braxton’s most active bands in the mid to late ’80s, but they did not record a studio album until 1991. While the 1985 tour has previously been documented in Graham Lock’s book Forces In Motion: Anthony Braxton and the Meta-Reality of Creative Music and concerts in London, Birmingham and Coventry are available from Leo Records, Burning Ambulance Music is proud to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the tour with this set of previously unreleased recordings.

Quartet (England) 1985 — the equivalent of a nine-CD box — will present for the first time ever four concerts, held in Sheffield, Leicester, Bristol and Southampton on November 19, 20, 21 and 22. The original mono cassette recordings, captured by Lock as references for his book, have been painstakingly restored by engineer (and Sun Ra discographer) Chris Trent. In the liner notes, Lock writes that the recordings “have been restored close to their original pulsating life, full of the fire and tenderness and magic that I remember from 1985.”

Each concert, consisting of two sets running between 36 and 47 minutes each, will be available separately as Quartet (Sheffield) 1985, Quartet (Leicester) 1985, Quartet (Bristol) 1985, and Quartet (Southampton) 1985. The complete Quartet (England) 1985 package will include all four shows, plus bonus recordings of the quartet playing John Coltrane’s “After the Rain,” Miles Davis’s “Four,” and the standards “All the Things You Are” and “On Green Dolphin Street” at soundchecks.

Quartet (England) 1985 and the individual concert recordings will also include a digital booklet with new liner notes by Lock and photos — including many previously unpublished images — by Nick White, and cover art by Burning Ambulance Music co-founder I.A. Freeman.

Quartet (England) 1985 and the individual concerts will be released on June 4, 2025 exclusively on Bandcamp at http://anthonybraxton-bam.bandcamp.com.

Oh, and here's the cover art:

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2069448137_10.jpg

Marilyn Crispell is one of this year’s NEA Jazz Masters

Coincidentally, where I work, someone's just ordered Braxton's Composition Notes (5 volumes) and someone else, Tri-Axium Writings (3 volumes).

Free performance of Composition No. 19 (For 100 Tubas) Saturday afternoon as part of Bang on a Can's Longplay Festival. Fort Green Park:

https://cmcintyre.com/events/longplay-fest-braxton-comp-19-fort-greene-park

Coincidentally, where I work, someone's just ordered Braxton's Composition Notes (5 volumes) and someone else, Tri-Axium Writings (3 volumes).

Yeah, I just saw that in an email from the Tri-Centric Foundation:

Tri-Axium Writings Release by Frog Peak Music

The long-awaited re-release of Braxton's Tri-Axium Writings is finally here! Frog Peak Music has made print-on-demand copies of the new editions of the Tri-Axium Writings available for $30 per volume. Ebooks are available on Amazon Kindle with additional options coming soon. Special boxed set editions are forthcoming so please stay tuned on how to acquire a box set if you're interested in that.

These are from the 1980s I think?

... I'm in a library not a shop.

... 80s or whenever they were first published.

The Tri-Axium Writings were originally self-released in the 80s, but there's been a years-long effort to reissue them. So maybe whoever ordered them for your library ordered this new edition.

The University of Virginia radio station had a copy of the 1980s print Tri-Axiom writings in its library.

jesus, 40th anniversary of this tour

(i inteviewed braxton for a small piece in nme at the time, and also reviewed graham's book)

The Tri-Axium Writings were originally self-released in the 80s, but there's been a years-long effort to reissue them. So maybe whoever ordered them for your library ordered this new edition.

No, we've got copies, it's a reference library.

Gala tribute coming up at Roulette on Thursday, May 8:

https://roulette.org/gala/

I’m in town for the Long Play festival so of course I’m going to see the 100 tubas. I will count them out loud (very loudly) and will be quite cross if there is even one less.

I need to get back to some of his xxxxpost frolics w Wadada, which I came across during a Bandcamp binge, as mentioned on Rolling Jazz 2021:

from Organic Resonance:

1.Tawaf (Cycles 1-7) 11:48

https://wadadaleosmith.bandcamp.com/album/organic-resonance

Now you might think 11:48 that feels more like 4 would be enough, not pushing your luck--but personally, I find that the variety (incl. some lyricism and dog-keening) certainly benefits from added time, and vice-versa, of course---goes into second plane of my attention sometimes, but pulls itself back into the foreground, often enough:

from Saturn, Conjunct the Grand Canyon in a Sweet Embrace:

1. Composition No. 316 28:4

Wadada Leo Smith - trumpet, flugelhorn

Anthony Braxton - saxophones

https://wadadaleosmith.bandcamp.com/album/saturn-conjunct-the-grand-canyon-in-a-sweet-embrace

― dow, Tuesday, May 11, 2021 2:41 PM (nine months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Almost as long as that last one, but tensile and interactive with no claustrophobia---think the strings are my faves here, but he's always responsive, and I'm always ready for those drums to jump in and out---really good live sound too:

Taif: Prayer in the Garden of Hijaz 27:57

Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith - Trumpet

Anthony Brown - Percussion

Del Sol String Quartet

https://othermindsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/om-live-taif-prayer-in-the-garden-of-hijaz

― dow, Tuesday, May 11, 2021

And here he is with Eugene Chadbourne, heard in 2020:

So this is very, um, cellular, but micros v. gradually reveal a vein of continuity, as B's bass instruments become seamless shades of his other reeds' full tones, no squeals---I snoozed out briefly, but woke up & got more and more tuned in past the 20-minute mark of first track (had been tuned into some segments before)---now about 3/4 way through second track, which flows from first:

released June 4, 2020

Anthony Braxton: sopranino, soprano, alto, baritone, bass, and contrabass saxophones, contrabass clarinet

Eugene Chadbourne: Gibson Marauder electric, Gibson acoustic, bajo sexto, Deering 5-string banjo, Deering fretless 5-string banjo, Regal 5-string banjo, prepared guitar 1.Improv One 57:38 2.Improv Two 54:13 3.Improv Three 56:14 4. Improv Four 57:07 5. Improv Five 57:42 6.Improv Six 59:48 7.Improv Seven 54:05 8.Improv Eight 59:26 https://newbraxtonhouse.bandcamp.com/album/duo-improv-2017

Chadbourne's good too, esp, high picks and pecks x bass instruments (fave is that "tuba" sound, now to sopranino, banjo not that far from "You Really Got Me" riff before arpeggio). One for the true headz, but/and if you think you might like it, you probably will, at least some of the time--- Basser still.--and now, along w hungry bass beasts, prepared guitar, I take it, is what's going from "snaredrum" figures to strumming, picking..― bass gettin' lonely, some subterranean blues suggested, crisp kinda-Spanish strings say, "That's the breaks, bass." I'll shut up now.

I’ve little time for Chadbourne but his collab with Braxton was surprisingly good.

Braxton turns 80 today, and the Quartet (England) 1985 digital box set I mentioned upthread is officially out:

https://anthonybraxton-bam.bandcamp.com/album/quartet-england-1985

I'm listening to the Southampton set right now in glorious punk-rock mono. Such amazing music.

The latest of his Trillium opera box sets is out https://pmpmusic5.bandcamp.com/album/trillium-x

Apparently includes a DVD of the performance, his operas need to be seen to be believed.

A pleasant surprise - Braxton is actually here at Roulette to join Mary Halvorson and George Lewis in a discussion on his work.

(Event is free and they have extra space too)

After the talk, there were two sets: two of Halvorson's compositions, then after an intermission, two of Braxton's. The last Braxton number in particular was amazing to witness. Whole 2+ hour event is here - in hindsight I wish I stayed behind to talk to Braxton, but it was getting late and it was a long hike back home:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7noTGqETaeA

Also I didn't realize Braxton had three bouts with COVID, apparently the reason why he hasn't performed recently, but he said his strength is coming back so hopefully we'll see him onstage soon enough.

´thx 4that -v much appreciated!

Nice. Will check it out, and glad to hear he is better.