Thank you!!! Anthony is just incredible! I dedcated a composition of mine to him and ha d the chance to give him the cd containing it after a gig here n Italy. He started thank me so much...I was embarrased...he even told me: "I'm going to study your music", I replied there was nothin to study there...he said: "No! I want to learn! I'm a student!". This happened maybe 7or 8 years ago and I can still remember his voice...he's brilliant!!! I simply adore his music!!!
There was a composer visiting an experimental music class at Wesleyan back in the early 90's who was demonstrating a MIDI system that he had developed. Various players in the music department were trying it out. The computer would respond to your musical prompts and a sort of collaborative piece was created in real time. This seemed pretty amazing back then...probably somewhat archaic now. Anyway, Braxton walked in at some point and the composer's face lit up as he asked him to try out the system. Anthony had (I think) a soprano sax and began playing into the computer's mic. He would play a short run, listen to the computer's reaction, stop and consider, then repeat the process. This went on for a little while until Anthony just let loose and played continuously. The computer was now making some very different sounds and the composer had an expression both amazed and bewildered, saying that the system had never behaved this way. It was just another instance of seeing this guy perform at a level that wasn't even visible to anyone else in the room. Separately, there was a bathroom in the basement of that building and someone had written on the inside of one of the toilet stalls, "Braxton is soooo cool." Then, written just beneath that, were these words: "Thank you, sir." Such a playful (and polite!) soul.
Holy shit man, this is great! My introduction into Braxton's work was B-X° / NO-I-47ᴬ. It's pretty far-out, especially with that second side, where they make weird noises with a balloon, and then they build these sonic structures around those sounds, while also making their instruments sound weirdly... balloon-like. That shit blew my mind when I first heard it - and it still does, honestly. But even aside from this specific experimentation, I just loved his playing, so that record immediately sold me on the guy. One thing that stuck out to me about his playing is how "serpentine" it sounds, And I don't mean middle-eastern, it's more angular and ominous than that. I think New York Fall 1974 (which is probably my favorite from him at the moment) highlights that aspect really well, especially the first track of the second side, where it's him soloing over those Moog bleep-borps. I definitely consider Braxton a genius, but I've only explored a mere fraction of his immense body of work so far, and honestly, the thought of diving deeper felt paralyzing a lot of the time, because of how gigantic and diverse that catalog is, so thanks a lot for doing this guide, I'm sure it'll help me a lot in the future. This video was also helpful in another way: I've read some stuff from/about him, so I've known about his mission of exploring the potential overlaps between composition and improvisation, and I've seen some of his scores, but I hadn't heard about the concept of neither "language musics" nor "modular composition". Both are fascinating though, especially the "in the house of" thing. I'm a programmer, so I'm totally familiar with this whole concept of writing separate, interchangeable modules, each one being responsible for only one aspect, and they build up this greater whole together, without being interdependent - I just hadn't considered the use of this technique in music. This shit is really inspiring. Oh, and also: fuck Wynton Marsalis.
This was a very well done guide. I studied with Braxton for a very short time in the early 90's. His concepts forever changed my preconceived notions of compostion and improvisation ultimately allowing me to see writing and performing music, as a creative endeavor, can allow a musician to be as free as a painter with a blank canvas. I studied with Bunky Green directly after that and we discussed Anthony Braxton. They knew each other from Chicago. Green had nothing but respect and spoke very highly of Braxton. Theirs (Braxton and Green) is an view and idea of Jazz is innovative and looks forward, far removed from that of a Marsalis', that is static and looks back. Bebop would not have come into existence if it were not for forward thinkers that strive to create something new.
Wow, amazing. Five years ago I studied language musics but I didn't see what was so special about it. Now, Braxton's work offers solutions to problems I'm facing. I love how you said "a leap off to the side" rather than "a leap forward".
Great introduction! He was my teacher for two years at Mills College. It was so exciting to be in his class. He would come in with about 60 albums and he would say "today we will focus on Staccatto Line Formings" or some other of the language musics... and then he would drop the needle on example after example... passing the just heard vinyl on to one of us students so that we might put it back in its sleeve while he continued on to the next example! He talked waaaay above my head but I learned to appreciate it as his vocabulary began to establish itself among my neurons. There's so much more to learn from this master. Thanks for this really great overall beginner's guide.
Fantastic overview - thank you! Also loved your comment at 37:30, “He’s really influenced by Wagner, obviously…” Ha! I’m not sure if you meant that to be funny but it definitely made me lol! Thanks again for the great work! 👍
Thanks for this video. You highlight Anthony’s music so well. Anthony, George Lewis, Lester Bowie … these musicians are my biggest improvising heroes. My old trombone teacher Ray Anderson played in one of Anthony’s groups in 1979-80. Him and George went to High School together in the south side of Chicago.
Just finding your site, post Chick Corea's passing..... I saw him in starting in '78..and always had a fantasy that "Circle" would get back together for a one off....Guess that will never happen (nor never would have).....Your post here, well thought out.....
Hot damn! An hour long Braxton video?! Thanks in advance! (haven't watched yet). I'm mostly familiar with his late 60s-late 80s output, so I hope you touch on some of his newer music, as I must admit I'm not as well acquainted with his latest work. For anyone interested in Braxton's music, I strongly consider picking up a book my Graham Lock called "Forces in Motion". It follows Braxton's touring band from the 80s on a few short tours. It's a great document of the band, it's music, and the hardships of making ends meet as a touring avant-garde band. In some ways, It's almost a "Get in the van" type book for people playing obscure/fringe music. It's largely built around interviews of Anthony and the band members and includes discussions of the architecture of the music, each band members perspectives on Anthony and their approaches to playing with him, and the highs (mostly creative) and lows (mostly financial) of dedicating one's time and energy to this sort of music. I think people who play punk, metal, or any other underground type of music would relate to it, particularly if they've ever toured. Really a great read! Edit: Just finished watching this. Fantastic job man! There aren't many videos of this nature about Braxton's music and I think both Braxton fans and newcomers should get a lot out of this. I gotta say, I have a love/hate relationship with Stanley Crouch. I respect a lot of his criticisms, but sometimes he's way off. From what I remember about his jabs at Anthony, it seems to come more out of the feelings that he has somehow betrayed and bastardised jazz by incorporating white/european influences. Lock does a good job at documenting Anthony's feelings on the narrow mindedness of some of the critics. Basically, people seem to unfairly write Braxton off as pretentious as his music isn't neatly categorizable. They say he can't swing, he's a wannabe Stockhausen, he plays too "white", etc.. There tends to be a common mistake (at least in the 80s and earlier) to try to view his music exclusively through a jazz lens; a prevalent "Once jazz, always jazz" attitude, if you will. TLDR -> Great job man! Any more "beginners guides" in the works? OFF TOPIC QUESTION: What flag is that in the background? I Googled "don't tread on my ostrich egg" and nothing came up... ;)
This is a really wonderful introduction to Braxton. Excellent analysis and description. I have all the releases you cited, so it was really enjoyable to hear you talk about them. The sheer volume of his output can be daunting, for sure. I found my way "into" Braxton in the 1970s via the Steeplechase standards lps with Tete Montoliu (alongside those great releases on Arista). For my tastes, no one interprets Standards in a more interesting way than Braxton (his growing body of Standards are still my favorite recordings. Not to mention his recent release (Quartet_Standards 2020, with **67** Standards, including a few by Paul Simon!). Anyway, I found the Standards to be a good way to ease into Braxton's music and appreciate his style and tone (which is unmistakable and beautiful). I also listened to the smaller ensembles (like New York, Fall 1974, and his work with Circle, etc) and a lot of his solo records. For me, it's helpful to listen to small group Braxton before digesting the more complex larger works). I've followed him (as best I could) for his entire career. And yes, he's really the most important stylist since Parker and Tristano. It's also impossible to pin down a Braxton style or sound -- because it keeps evolving. I love the recent 12 Comp (ZIM) 2017 release. It's one of my favorites and really like nothing else that precedes it -- although I suspect *you* (as one of his students) would recognize some of the things Braxton is doing. Very cool to dig so deep into Braxton in this video. He's definitely one of the true geniuses of music. Stanley Crouch is very smart, but he (inexplicably) misses the mark half the time when critiquing jazz that isn't traditional. Same for Marsalis. I'll never understand that. Jazz was never meant to stay traditional. They should know better. Anyway... this is a really well-informed and well done video.
Hi, I've just come across your video, which is very illuminating, and your exposition is so clear. You're articulating (better than I could ever do) many things I've been thinking for a long time about the role of jazz/hybrid/creative/universal music and the ever evolving "tradition" that can only afford to remain such for a matter of a few years and then it HAS to move on in order to survive and thrive . A famous italia cook says that tradition is only a successful innovation. So those who don't like pushing the boundaries of art, like Braxton has always done, are like thise who don't like children, which is a mere contradiction. I'm not a musician but I'm very much interested in the "mechanics" of music creation, and artists like Braxton (and Threadgill, and Zappa, and Frith, and.. and ...) are my heroes, those who make want to explore the world(s) of music.
Wow! Thanks so much! I don't study music, so I never get access to your kind of knowledge. I make a lot of music intuitively as I also do visual art. I study other things do them like Vedic Astrology and beatnick and surrealist and international poetry, Buddhism and I am also an avid electronic musician and poet, so this whole notion of modular and modules of certain sound parameters that define a kind of complex of possibilities is very much my own milleu particularly as a Vedic astrologer. I can imagine that practicing Braxton's ideas daily will get one into this zone that is not unrelated to what one becomes acustomed to in learning to be a good and intuitive as well as technical master of Vedic atrological interpretation. I have long loved Braxton's music but your description of Braxton and what he is doing is revelatory for me and I can already breathe in what he is doing and talking about because of my understanding of techniques in Vedic astrology where many re;ationships between many factors create a kind of music made up of these complex universes of interating sub-modular energies/stuff that is a kind of composition or chart for what influences in a person's life will be. This is absolutely mind-blowing and makes me think of electronic music modules as could be created via code and mae for platforms like the mind-blowing and free VCV rack which mus have 400 musician-engineers at last count providing free virtual modular ideas. These ideas almost entirely come from math and engineering. Sure thats basic, but you need ideas, and creating modules that do what Braxton's modules do, wow, that would be incredible. I should see what I can do,
I really appreciate the way you dissect and explain his concepts--it helps make his music more comprehensible to people who may not already be in that world. I started listening to him in the early 70s, so I have a pretty deep familiarity with his work, but your video gave me some new insights. I also appreciate the discussion of his place in the worlds of jazz and classical music. It always bothered me that he wasn't really accepted in either place--don't get me started on the Ken Burns/Wynton Marsalis series and everything it left out or overtly dismissed. When my daughter was looking at colleges (she was a music major, now a music teacher), I urged her to consider Wesleyan simply because Anthony Braxton was there. She wasn't into jazz at all, but I thought exposure to him would open up her mind to whole new worlds of expression. She ended up at Ithaca and missed that opportunity, but I still secretly harbor ambitions of winning her over. Thanks so much for doing this and doing it so well.
Great film. Thanks. Have spend tree evenings of his residency in club Pardon To Tu in Warsaw. It was his new Standard Quartet with Alexander Hawkins, Neil Charles and Stephen Davis. Later they have played 3 evenings in London and 3 in Austria. Great time, just before lockdown. And am fortunate to possess this 13 cd box from 9 gigs. Strongly recommend if it is still accessible
That was fantastic. I did see the 80s band on one of their last concerts in NYC (I think it was Alice Tully Hall) and they were amazing, like, goose bumps amazing. Boy I was obsessed with his stuff, then.
Hi! I'm just going to chime in here and congratulate you on a well-produced hour of entry-level Braxtonia! Being a fan for over 30 years (was fortunate enough to see the Classic Quartet during their 1993 KF run - that was a steamin' show) my engagement with Anthony's work has waxed and waned over the years but as you said, his concept/vision of a personal artistic "corpus" is very inspiring. I'm so jealous that you saw AB's lectures on Sun Ra and Stockhausen! I'd pay substantial bucks to hear recordings of that class! My one criticism of his more recent output is that I wish he would edit his albums. I appreciate that he wants to offer the listener a choice from 12 CDs, but I'd rather just hear a 1 hour CD of his "best" stuff. But I do respect his generosity!
The liner notes to “Eugene (1989)” with the Northwest Creative Orchestra were written by Mike Heffley, the trombonist, who organized the project. Heffley is a Pacific NW musician & music journalist. He got “local ppl involved (arts administrators, musicians and art patrons)” particularly Dr Dean Dobroski Dean of Univ of OR’s Schl of Music, which is in Eugene. From what Heffley wrote, & the music itself, I think the musicians are, like Heffley, jazz artists (likely incl teachers from U OR) who play in clubs & bars in small mkts like Eugene, Portland, Seattle, & other towns in the Pacific NW. Btw, the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings put Eugene (1989) in their Core Collection, meaning the recordings everyone shld build their collection around. Ppl like to piss on Wynton Marsalis, but what ppl often don’t know or mention about him is that when he came up in the 80s there were only two kinds of jazz that critics & record producers found acceptable: free jazz, and fusion. Art Blakey & his Jazz Messengers have no recorded output in the 70s from the studio. At the very least every jazz date had to have an elec guitar and/or elec keys, & mostly simple (by jazz standards) rock n roll drum rhythms. I even have a mainstream 70s date from Lockjaw Davis & Sweets Edison that features a drummer playing rock rhythms that don’t swing & thus ruin the date. Miles Davis vilified Blakey, & any other jazz musicians who eschewed fusion & stuck w bop (just as in the 50s he’d vilified swing musicians who didn’t incorporate bop in their playing), & he only begrudgingly acknowledged free jazz, creating his own version, free bop, to stay relevant as avant-garde music took over the music landscape of the 60s. One thing both Marsalis & Davis had in common is that they had very strong views on what constituted jazz. The biggest difference is that critics loved Davis, so anyone he hated they hated, bc he was a big money maker & in their opinion kept jazz relevant after bebop was replaced by rock n roll & other pop music on the dance floor. Critics hated Marsalis bc he spoke directly to listeners, & proved both Davis & the critics wrong, that post bop still had modern relevance & can sell. If you listen to any contemporary post bop jazz, you can thank Marsalis, w/o him, post bop wldve died, & all we’d have is free jazz, given fusion didn’t really survive after Davis died.
This isn't accurate at all. Blakey recorded a number of superb studio albums throughout the seventies, including Buhaina, In My Prime Vol 1 and 2, Backgammon (awesome record), and Gypsy Folk Tales (one of his very finest, if you ask me). Hell, he even let Cables and Walton play electric piano on a few dates. The legendary Joanne Brackeen got her first big break as a member of The Messengers and recorded with them in '70. From what I remember that was a studio date. Beyond Blakey, a lot, and I mean A LOT, of bebop, hard bop, and post bop was being recorded for labels like Muse, Steeplechase, Inner City, Storyville, Arista/Freedom, Choice, Concord, Progressive, Chiaroscuro, Discovery, Xanadu, Catalyst, Pablo, and plenty of others. It didn't vanish at all. Sonny Stitt, Milt Jackson, Dexter Gordon, Buck Hill, Zoot Sims, Charles McPherson, Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmy Heath, Lee Konitz, Oscar Peterson, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Roland Hanna, Woody Shaw, Joe Pass, George Coleman, Duke Jordan, Jim Hall, Sam Noto, Cecil Payne, Jimmy Raney, Clifford Jordan, Jimmy Knepper, Lew Tabackin, Sam Jones, Red Rodney, and Al Cohn put out some of their finest albums during this time, to say nothing of their younger contemporaries like Ted Dunbar, Hilton Ruiz, Hal Galper, Rufus Reid, Bob Berg, Ricky Ford, Hadley Caliman, Tom Harrell, Ronnie Cuber, and John McNeil. Much of it was and still is thought of highly by critics and aficionados. This notion that only fusion and free jazz were critically or economically accepted during the seventies is laughable, especially in the case of fusion, whose tenure as a critical darling was famously short-lived, analogous to the treatment experienced by the comparably flashy and sometimes overlapping genre of prog rock. It did not take long for critics to sour on fusion, the poppier, smoother variety, in particular, though its popularity persists. The jazz-based experimentalists of the 70's didn't have it easy either. A lot of their music was aggressively misunderstood and stigmatized by establishment players and critics. Their champions within the world of jazz were few and far between. Often they were impoverished, relying on government grants and sporadically acquired record contracts just to stay afloat. Braxton himself spent much of the decade financially imperiled. From what I understand, many of his Arista dates had to be recorded in secretive bursts, because the nature of the music was sure to upset the higher-ups and get him tossed off the label. To say this music was "acceptable" to anyone outside a minority of listeners is a complete distortion. Compare Braxton's situation to the titanic push Columbia Records gave Wynton Marsalis's career, and this underdog narrative (Wynton up against the big bad Miles-obsessed media machine) crumbles. First of all, Davis was far from a critical darling in the eighties, when he was often accused of selling out by jazz heads. Second of all, the criticism Marsalis has received is nothing next to the amount of praise that came his way for the majority of his career. Most artists would kill for the kind of ad money, access to musicians, media coverage, prize recognition, and financial security Marsalis got to enjoy throughout the eighties and nineties. The critical objection to Wynton, where it did arise, because he wasn't nearly as scorned by mainstream critics as your comment makes him out to have been, mostly concerns his dogmatically purist and backwards-looking aesthetic, that he is a glorified conservationist with few ideas of his own. That was Davis's objection. It was also David Murray, Keith Jarrett, and Bob Brookmeyer's. It had nothing to do with who made money for whom.
Thank's, very educational video. However we have to be a bit more precise with indeterminacy versus improvisation. John Cage's chance operations are not considered indeterminacy. Cage used indeterminacy in the 'song books' and also in the 'variations' series (where the performer is instructed how to write out their own score). Indeterminacy always involves choices on the part of the performer (which is not the case with chance operation). In contrast to improvisation, the composers sets the parameters within which the choice is to be made. I think it was Christian Wolff who came up with the term. With some pieces, where the instructions are very ambiguous, the indeterminate notation necessarily leads to improvisation. It is true though, that Cage was suspicious of improvisation, which is kind of inconsequent, since on the other hand he embraced anarchy: the best government is no government at all (a quote from Thoreau he used in the songbooks) - consequently it should have been: the best composition is no composition at all :)
Thanks so much for this Born in 1945 ! It's amazing the experimental shocking radicals are now the old Masters ! So glad to learn more here . Cecil Taylor and Byard Wadado Smith were my first taste of really cool stuff . Good to hear about Feldman and the even lesser known Earle Brown . Had forgotten about ACM ! "For Alto" never heard before ! Eric Dolphy need to get to know !1969 24 year old Amazing recording -didn't know this . I must hear Coleman Hawkin's Solo Album must look for this this !
Wow Charlie, it's great to hear you talking about the endlessly fascinating Maestro Braxton! It's really cool to hear (and see) the excerpts that you have chosen out of Braxton's absolutely massive repertoire - it does tell a lot about your own musical genetic material - I particularly hear that with the excerpt at 11:30. It brings me back to NYC circa 2000, hearing you with Sam Hillmer and associates (I remember one piece with some sung parts: "It's OK, we're at play, cuz anything else, would be, totally..." but I can't remember the last lyric).
Excellent.Really enjoyed your video.I have a few of his albums on vinyl which I bought in the 80's.To me his musical concept is hard to grasp.I know he's on to something I just don't know what that is.I think I will buy the books you have recommended.
Secular works is my favorite album ever. It would be awesome if you made a video about the structure of those songs :) havent watched this video yet but I hope it gives me some insight into the composition on that album .
I think the diamond icon literally means no-clef. The OP discusses how this can generate a melodic line, played by multiple instruments, which comprises multi pitches.
I once knew a guy who was considered a "musical genius." Strangest thing was that he could barely read and write. I guess "musical geniuses" have brains that are wired differently. I wonder if anyone has ever studied this phenomenon.
It's trans-idiomatic cause he doesn't want to be boxed in and if it causes him to come up with the interesting stuff he does come up with then great, people are limited, people tryijng 2 fit in all the time, to what? Why?
Our minds r the greatest jails, it's the modern age is what people call it, they say modern new, but Braxtons stuff from 90's whatever is so recent still, it's not that long ago, if we came from somewhere so can do new, interesting things, it's interesting what you talk about but god damn't I hate your boring robot personality. ,: 0
I just discovered anthony braxton while hanging out on youtube. I then did some research on him. In my opinion, he is certainly the biggest crook in the history of jazz. It's totally amazing that he could have such a career in the music world and have such academic positions. I mean, what is going on with the listeners, the media and the jazz community that they want us to believe that this guy is a genius? Everything about him is a problem: his instrumental technique is close to zero, his music itself is modern when it sounds like a beginner's band, his gibberish discourse about his music means absolutely nothing, but also his interviews in which he comes across as a pretentious old bigot. Please, retire and let the real artists play.
I’ve seen this same cut and paste comment of yours posted on several of Mr. Braxton’s videos. Sooooooo, you watched a few videos about him and that makes you an authority on his life and music enough to call him a fraud? If you don’t like his music, that’s one thing. But to call someone a crook/fraud after they’ve devoted 50+ years to touring around the world, played with some of the greatest improvisational musicians of all time, recorded hundreds of records and mentored countless musicians to find their own greatness is all somewhat akin to saying the holocaust never happened. Chick Corea, Dave Holland, Kenny Wheeler, Barry Altschul, Muhal Richard Abrams, Sam Rivers, Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, Lester Bowie, William Parker, Derek Bailey, Joelle Leandre, Marilyn Crispell, Gerry Hemingway, Mark Dresser, Mary Halvorson, Tomas Fujiwara, et al are just some of the musicians who have played with Mr. Braxton and who all have an extremely high assessment of him. I’m much more trusting of their judgement than of your’s, pup that you are. He’s also widely hailed by critics and fans alike as being one of the most important innovators in jazz over the past century. But maybe these people are merely frauds and are part of a cultural conspiracy and that you are the true expert on all things, having watched a few videos on RUclips. Who have you played and recorded with and what albums have you put out? Have you successfully fused modern classical music with the improvisational tradition of jazz? Have the things you’ve done in your life touched and inspired thousands if not millions of people? I will go lightly on you here, unknowing pup that you are, to say that what you wrote is absolute gibberish, based on little substance and that you are the true fraud here.
Braxton is a psuedo-intellectual composer of arcane and rather ugly noise, and can't play any of his instruments on a level beyond that of a not-so-talented amateur. He's the king of jive.
Amazing how he bamboozled 2 of the best musical universities to hire him. Where do you teach? I can't tell because you're not even proud enough to use your real name when you criticize others, that says a lot.
Thank you!!! Anthony is just incredible! I dedcated a composition of mine to him and ha d the chance to give him the cd containing it after a gig here n Italy. He started thank me so much...I was embarrased...he even told me: "I'm going to study your music", I replied there was nothin to study there...he said: "No! I want to learn! I'm a student!". This happened maybe 7or 8 years ago and I can still remember his voice...he's brilliant!!! I simply adore his music!!!
Questa è decisamente una storia memorabile :)
Lester Bowie comes out of the AACM too. The whole Art Ensemble of Chicago comes out of the AACM.
There was a composer visiting an experimental music class at Wesleyan back in the early 90's who was demonstrating a MIDI system that he had developed. Various players in the music department were trying it out. The computer would respond to your musical prompts and a sort of collaborative piece was created in real time. This seemed pretty amazing back then...probably somewhat archaic now. Anyway, Braxton walked in at some point and the composer's face lit up as he asked him to try out the system. Anthony had (I think) a soprano sax and began playing into the computer's mic. He would play a short run, listen to the computer's reaction, stop and consider, then repeat the process. This went on for a little while until Anthony just let loose and played continuously. The computer was now making some very different sounds and the composer had an expression both amazed and bewildered, saying that the system had never behaved this way. It was just another instance of seeing this guy perform at a level that wasn't even visible to anyone else in the room.
Separately, there was a bathroom in the basement of that building and someone had written on the inside of one of the toilet stalls, "Braxton is soooo cool." Then, written just beneath that, were these words: "Thank you, sir." Such a playful (and polite!) soul.
Holy shit man, this is great!
My introduction into Braxton's work was B-X° / NO-I-47ᴬ. It's pretty far-out, especially with that second side, where they make weird noises with a balloon, and then they build these sonic structures around those sounds, while also making their instruments sound weirdly... balloon-like. That shit blew my mind when I first heard it - and it still does, honestly. But even aside from this specific experimentation, I just loved his playing, so that record immediately sold me on the guy. One thing that stuck out to me about his playing is how "serpentine" it sounds, And I don't mean middle-eastern, it's more angular and ominous than that. I think New York Fall 1974 (which is probably my favorite from him at the moment) highlights that aspect really well, especially the first track of the second side, where it's him soloing over those Moog bleep-borps.
I definitely consider Braxton a genius, but I've only explored a mere fraction of his immense body of work so far, and honestly, the thought of diving deeper felt paralyzing a lot of the time, because of how gigantic and diverse that catalog is, so thanks a lot for doing this guide, I'm sure it'll help me a lot in the future.
This video was also helpful in another way: I've read some stuff from/about him, so I've known about his mission of exploring the potential overlaps between composition and improvisation, and I've seen some of his scores, but I hadn't heard about the concept of neither "language musics" nor "modular composition". Both are fascinating though, especially the "in the house of" thing. I'm a programmer, so I'm totally familiar with this whole concept of writing separate, interchangeable modules, each one being responsible for only one aspect, and they build up this greater whole together, without being interdependent - I just hadn't considered the use of this technique in music. This shit is really inspiring.
Oh, and also: fuck Wynton Marsalis.
I bet you and Braxton would get along really well :) Thanks for tuning in so deeply!
Wow, just discovered your channel. Anthony Braxton, Yes ! Love his work. Looks like I have some videos to view. Great channel.
Welcome to the Last Things realm! So glad you're here
I have long appreciated Anthony Braxton without always understanding what he was trying to do, so this is interesting.
This was a very well done guide. I studied with Braxton for a very short time in the early 90's. His concepts forever changed my preconceived notions of compostion and improvisation ultimately allowing me to see writing and performing music, as a creative endeavor, can allow a musician to be as free as a painter with a blank canvas. I studied with Bunky Green directly after that and we discussed Anthony Braxton. They knew each other from Chicago. Green had nothing but respect and spoke very highly of Braxton. Theirs (Braxton and Green) is an view and idea of Jazz is innovative and looks forward, far removed from that of a Marsalis', that is static and looks back. Bebop would not have come into existence if it were not for forward thinkers that strive to create something new.
Fall 1974 and Dortmond 1976 are both masterpieces!
Indeed
Very nice, chill and informative video on one of the greatest improv icons ever, thank you!
Wow, amazing. Five years ago I studied language musics but I didn't see what was so special about it. Now, Braxton's work offers solutions to problems I'm facing. I love how you said "a leap off to the side" rather than "a leap forward".
That was brilliant.. Thank you!
You should do a guide to John Zorn
there arent many overviews of braxton on the internet and let alone youtube so thanks for making this! it helped me understand his work more! :)
Great introduction! He was my teacher for two years at Mills College. It was so exciting to be in his class. He would come in with about 60 albums and he would say "today we will focus on Staccatto Line Formings" or some other of the language musics... and then he would drop the needle on example after example... passing the just heard vinyl on to one of us students so that we might put it back in its sleeve while he continued on to the next example! He talked waaaay above my head but I learned to appreciate it as his vocabulary began to establish itself among my neurons. There's so much more to learn from this master. Thanks for this really great overall beginner's guide.
Very glad to hear you got so much out of it, even after already having studied with the man :)
So happy someone is making quality long form content about such odd music
Thanks very much for this. I love the dozen or so 70s and 80s albums I have by him, but I've never looked into him very deeply. Very good overview!
Never really knew where to begin with Braxton. This was super informative and entertaining
That's awesome to hear. Braxton is so cult
Fantastic overview - thank you! Also loved your comment at 37:30, “He’s really influenced by Wagner, obviously…” Ha! I’m not sure if you meant that to be funny but it definitely made me lol! Thanks again for the great work! 👍
Thanks for this video. You highlight Anthony’s music so well. Anthony, George Lewis, Lester Bowie … these musicians are my biggest improvising heroes. My old trombone teacher Ray Anderson played in one of Anthony’s groups in 1979-80. Him and George went to High School together in the south side of Chicago.
A very interesting and helpful tutorial, thanks.
He's my fav artist, especially with his albums on Hat Hut such invaluable piece of arts indeed.
Just finding your site, post Chick Corea's passing..... I saw him in starting in '78..and always had a fantasy that "Circle" would get back together for a one off....Guess that will never happen (nor never would have).....Your post here, well thought out.....
Hot damn! An hour long Braxton video?! Thanks in advance! (haven't watched yet). I'm mostly familiar with his late 60s-late 80s output, so I hope you touch on some of his newer music, as I must admit I'm not as well acquainted with his latest work.
For anyone interested in Braxton's music, I strongly consider picking up a book my Graham Lock called "Forces in Motion". It follows Braxton's touring band from the 80s on a few short tours. It's a great document of the band, it's music, and the hardships of making ends meet as a touring avant-garde band. In some ways, It's almost a "Get in the van" type book for people playing obscure/fringe music. It's largely built around interviews of Anthony and the band members and includes discussions of the architecture of the music, each band members perspectives on Anthony and their approaches to playing with him, and the highs (mostly creative) and lows (mostly financial) of dedicating one's time and energy to this sort of music. I think people who play punk, metal, or any other underground type of music would relate to it, particularly if they've ever toured. Really a great read!
Edit: Just finished watching this. Fantastic job man! There aren't many videos of this nature about Braxton's music and I think both Braxton fans and newcomers should get a lot out of this.
I gotta say, I have a love/hate relationship with Stanley Crouch. I respect a lot of his criticisms, but sometimes he's way off. From what I remember about his jabs at Anthony, it seems to come more out of the feelings that he has somehow betrayed and bastardised jazz by incorporating white/european influences. Lock does a good job at documenting Anthony's feelings on the narrow mindedness of some of the critics. Basically, people seem to unfairly write Braxton off as pretentious as his music isn't neatly categorizable. They say he can't swing, he's a wannabe Stockhausen, he plays too "white", etc.. There tends to be a common mistake (at least in the 80s and earlier) to try to view his music exclusively through a jazz lens; a prevalent "Once jazz, always jazz" attitude, if you will.
TLDR -> Great job man! Any more "beginners guides" in the works?
OFF TOPIC QUESTION: What flag is that in the background? I Googled "don't tread on my ostrich egg" and nothing came up... ;)
I purchased the Graham Locke book but have not yet started it.
This is a really wonderful introduction to Braxton. Excellent analysis and description. I have all the releases you cited, so it was really enjoyable to hear you talk about them. The sheer volume of his output can be daunting, for sure. I found my way "into" Braxton in the 1970s via the Steeplechase standards lps with Tete Montoliu (alongside those great releases on Arista). For my tastes, no one interprets Standards in a more interesting way than Braxton (his growing body of Standards are still my favorite recordings. Not to mention his recent release (Quartet_Standards 2020, with **67** Standards, including a few by Paul Simon!).
Anyway, I found the Standards to be a good way to ease into Braxton's music and appreciate his style and tone (which is unmistakable and beautiful). I also listened to the smaller ensembles (like New York, Fall 1974, and his work with Circle, etc) and a lot of his solo records. For me, it's helpful to listen to small group Braxton before digesting the more complex larger works). I've followed him (as best I could) for his entire career. And yes, he's really the most important stylist since Parker and Tristano. It's also impossible to pin down a Braxton style or sound -- because it keeps evolving. I love the recent 12 Comp (ZIM) 2017 release. It's one of my favorites and really like nothing else that precedes it -- although I suspect *you* (as one of his students) would recognize some of the things Braxton is doing. Very cool to dig so deep into Braxton in this video. He's definitely one of the true geniuses of music. Stanley Crouch is very smart, but he (inexplicably) misses the mark half the time when critiquing jazz that isn't traditional. Same for Marsalis. I'll never understand that. Jazz was never meant to stay traditional. They should know better.
Anyway... this is a really well-informed and well done video.
Grateful for this content, thank you 🙏
Thank you for this work. Shame those presentations don't have many views. Please keep it on.
Very good. Thanks.
Hi, I've just come across your video, which is very illuminating, and your exposition is so clear. You're articulating (better than I could ever do) many things I've been thinking for a long time about the role of jazz/hybrid/creative/universal music and the ever evolving "tradition" that can only afford to remain such for a matter of a few years and then it HAS to move on in order to survive and thrive . A famous italia cook says that tradition is only a successful innovation. So those who don't like pushing the boundaries of art, like Braxton has always done, are like thise who don't like children, which is a mere contradiction. I'm not a musician but I'm very much interested in the "mechanics" of music creation, and artists like Braxton (and Threadgill, and Zappa, and Frith, and.. and ...) are my heroes, those who make want to explore the world(s) of music.
Wynton is a . . . well, words cannot describe!
thank you
Wow! Thanks so much! I don't study music, so I never get access to your kind of knowledge. I make a lot of music intuitively as I also do visual art. I study other things do them like Vedic Astrology and beatnick and surrealist and international poetry, Buddhism and I am also an avid electronic musician and poet, so this whole notion of modular and modules of certain sound parameters that define a kind of complex of possibilities is very much my own milleu particularly as a Vedic astrologer. I can imagine that practicing Braxton's ideas daily will get one into this zone that is not unrelated to what one becomes acustomed to in learning to be a good and intuitive as well as technical master of Vedic atrological interpretation. I have long loved Braxton's music but your description of Braxton and what he is doing is revelatory for me and I can already breathe in what he is doing and talking about because of my understanding of techniques in Vedic astrology where many re;ationships between many factors create a kind of music made up of these complex universes of interating sub-modular energies/stuff that is a kind of composition or chart for what influences in a person's life will be. This is absolutely mind-blowing and makes me think of electronic music modules as could be created via code and mae for platforms like the mind-blowing and free VCV rack which mus have 400 musician-engineers at last count providing free virtual modular ideas. These ideas almost entirely come from math and engineering. Sure thats basic, but you need ideas, and creating modules that do what Braxton's modules do, wow, that would be incredible. I should see what I can do,
I really appreciate the way you dissect and explain his concepts--it helps make his music more comprehensible to people who may not already be in that world. I started listening to him in the early 70s, so I have a pretty deep familiarity with his work, but your video gave me some new insights. I also appreciate the discussion of his place in the worlds of jazz and classical music. It always bothered me that he wasn't really accepted in either place--don't get me started on the Ken Burns/Wynton Marsalis series and everything it left out or overtly dismissed. When my daughter was looking at colleges (she was a music major, now a music teacher), I urged her to consider Wesleyan simply because Anthony Braxton was there. She wasn't into jazz at all, but I thought exposure to him would open up her mind to whole new worlds of expression. She ended up at Ithaca and missed that opportunity, but I still secretly harbor ambitions of winning her over. Thanks so much for doing this and doing it so well.
Great film. Thanks. Have spend tree evenings of his residency in club Pardon To Tu in Warsaw. It was his new Standard Quartet with Alexander Hawkins, Neil Charles and Stephen Davis. Later they have played 3 evenings in London and 3 in Austria. Great time, just before lockdown. And am fortunate to possess this 13 cd box from 9 gigs. Strongly recommend if it is still accessible
I was really hoping you would discuss Corea's CIRCLE.
Yes Circle we're brilliant
Food for thought! Thank you
That was fantastic. I did see the 80s band on one of their last concerts in NYC (I think it was Alice Tully Hall) and they were amazing, like, goose bumps amazing. Boy I was obsessed with his stuff, then.
I'm jealous you got to see that group wow!
Hi! I'm just going to chime in here and congratulate you on a well-produced hour of entry-level Braxtonia! Being a fan for over 30 years (was fortunate enough to see the Classic Quartet during their 1993 KF run - that was a steamin' show) my engagement with Anthony's work has waxed and waned over the years but as you said, his concept/vision of a personal artistic "corpus" is very inspiring. I'm so jealous that you saw AB's lectures on Sun Ra and Stockhausen! I'd pay substantial bucks to hear recordings of that class! My one criticism of his more recent output is that I wish he would edit his albums. I appreciate that he wants to offer the listener a choice from 12 CDs, but I'd rather just hear a 1 hour CD of his "best" stuff. But I do respect his generosity!
The liner notes to “Eugene (1989)” with the Northwest Creative Orchestra were written by Mike Heffley, the trombonist, who organized the project. Heffley is a Pacific NW musician & music journalist. He got “local ppl involved (arts administrators, musicians and art patrons)” particularly Dr Dean Dobroski Dean of Univ of OR’s Schl of Music, which is in Eugene. From what Heffley wrote, & the music itself, I think the musicians are, like Heffley, jazz artists (likely incl teachers from U OR) who play in clubs & bars in small mkts like Eugene, Portland, Seattle, & other towns in the Pacific NW. Btw, the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings put Eugene (1989) in their Core Collection, meaning the recordings everyone shld build their collection around.
Ppl like to piss on Wynton Marsalis, but what ppl often don’t know or mention about him is that when he came up in the 80s there were only two kinds of jazz that critics & record producers found acceptable: free jazz, and fusion. Art Blakey & his Jazz Messengers have no recorded output in the 70s from the studio. At the very least every jazz date had to have an elec guitar and/or elec keys, & mostly simple (by jazz standards) rock n roll drum rhythms. I even have a mainstream 70s date from Lockjaw Davis & Sweets Edison that features a drummer playing rock rhythms that don’t swing & thus ruin the date. Miles Davis vilified Blakey, & any other jazz musicians who eschewed fusion & stuck w bop (just as in the 50s he’d vilified swing musicians who didn’t incorporate bop in their playing), & he only begrudgingly acknowledged free jazz, creating his own version, free bop, to stay relevant as avant-garde music took over the music landscape of the 60s.
One thing both Marsalis & Davis had in common is that they had very strong views on what constituted jazz. The biggest difference is that critics loved Davis, so anyone he hated they hated, bc he was a big money maker & in their opinion kept jazz relevant after bebop was replaced by rock n roll & other pop music on the dance floor. Critics hated Marsalis bc he spoke directly to listeners, & proved both Davis & the critics wrong, that post bop still had modern relevance & can sell. If you listen to any contemporary post bop jazz, you can thank Marsalis, w/o him, post bop wldve died, & all we’d have is free jazz, given fusion didn’t really survive after Davis died.
This isn't accurate at all. Blakey recorded a number of superb studio albums throughout the seventies, including Buhaina, In My Prime Vol 1 and 2, Backgammon (awesome record), and Gypsy Folk Tales (one of his very finest, if you ask me). Hell, he even let Cables and Walton play electric piano on a few dates. The legendary Joanne Brackeen got her first big break as a member of The Messengers and recorded with them in '70. From what I remember that was a studio date. Beyond Blakey, a lot, and I mean A LOT, of bebop, hard bop, and post bop was being recorded for labels like Muse, Steeplechase, Inner City, Storyville, Arista/Freedom, Choice, Concord, Progressive, Chiaroscuro, Discovery, Xanadu, Catalyst, Pablo, and plenty of others. It didn't vanish at all. Sonny Stitt, Milt Jackson, Dexter Gordon, Buck Hill, Zoot Sims, Charles McPherson, Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmy Heath, Lee Konitz, Oscar Peterson, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Roland Hanna, Woody Shaw, Joe Pass, George Coleman, Duke Jordan, Jim Hall, Sam Noto, Cecil Payne, Jimmy Raney, Clifford Jordan, Jimmy Knepper, Lew Tabackin, Sam Jones, Red Rodney, and Al Cohn put out some of their finest albums during this time, to say nothing of their younger contemporaries like Ted Dunbar, Hilton Ruiz, Hal Galper, Rufus Reid, Bob Berg, Ricky Ford, Hadley Caliman, Tom Harrell, Ronnie Cuber, and John McNeil. Much of it was and still is thought of highly by critics and aficionados.
This notion that only fusion and free jazz were critically or economically accepted during the seventies is laughable, especially in the case of fusion, whose tenure as a critical darling was famously short-lived, analogous to the treatment experienced by the comparably flashy and sometimes overlapping genre of prog rock. It did not take long for critics to sour on fusion, the poppier, smoother variety, in particular, though its popularity persists. The jazz-based experimentalists of the 70's didn't have it easy either. A lot of their music was aggressively misunderstood and stigmatized by establishment players and critics. Their champions within the world of jazz were few and far between. Often they were impoverished, relying on government grants and sporadically acquired record contracts just to stay afloat. Braxton himself spent much of the decade financially imperiled. From what I understand, many of his Arista dates had to be recorded in secretive bursts, because the nature of the music was sure to upset the higher-ups and get him tossed off the label. To say this music was "acceptable" to anyone outside a minority of listeners is a complete distortion.
Compare Braxton's situation to the titanic push Columbia Records gave Wynton Marsalis's career, and this underdog narrative (Wynton up against the big bad Miles-obsessed media machine) crumbles. First of all, Davis was far from a critical darling in the eighties, when he was often accused of selling out by jazz heads. Second of all, the criticism Marsalis has received is nothing next to the amount of praise that came his way for the majority of his career. Most artists would kill for the kind of ad money, access to musicians, media coverage, prize recognition, and financial security Marsalis got to enjoy throughout the eighties and nineties. The critical objection to Wynton, where it did arise, because he wasn't nearly as scorned by mainstream critics as your comment makes him out to have been, mostly concerns his dogmatically purist and backwards-looking aesthetic, that he is a glorified conservationist with few ideas of his own. That was Davis's objection. It was also David Murray, Keith Jarrett, and Bob Brookmeyer's. It had nothing to do with who made money for whom.
Thank you.
Thank's, very educational video. However we have to be a bit more precise with indeterminacy versus improvisation. John Cage's chance operations are not considered indeterminacy. Cage used indeterminacy in the 'song books' and also in the 'variations' series (where the performer is instructed how to write out their own score). Indeterminacy always involves choices on the part of the performer (which is not the case with chance operation). In contrast to improvisation, the composers sets the parameters within which the choice is to be made. I think it was Christian Wolff who came up with the term. With some pieces, where the instructions are very ambiguous, the indeterminate notation necessarily leads to improvisation. It is true though, that Cage was suspicious of improvisation, which is kind of inconsequent, since on the other hand he embraced anarchy: the best government is no government at all (a quote from Thoreau he used in the songbooks) - consequently it should have been: the best composition is no composition at all :)
Thanks so much for this Born in 1945 ! It's amazing the experimental shocking radicals are now the old Masters ! So glad to learn more here . Cecil Taylor and Byard Wadado Smith were my first taste of really cool stuff . Good to hear about Feldman and the even lesser known Earle Brown . Had forgotten about ACM ! "For Alto" never heard before ! Eric Dolphy need to get to know !1969 24 year old Amazing recording -didn't know this . I must hear Coleman Hawkin's Solo Album must look for this this !
His Lennie T. records are amazing....
oh yeah, incredible
Instantly recognisable!
I also love the Parker boxset, featuring players such as Han Bennink and Misha Mengelberg...Super!
Wow Charlie, it's great to hear you talking about the endlessly fascinating Maestro Braxton! It's really cool to hear (and see) the excerpts that you have chosen out of Braxton's absolutely massive repertoire - it does tell a lot about your own musical genetic material - I particularly hear that with the excerpt at 11:30. It brings me back to NYC circa 2000, hearing you with Sam Hillmer and associates (I remember one piece with some sung parts: "It's OK, we're at play, cuz anything else, would be, totally..." but I can't remember the last lyric).
Great video! Please remember Steve Lacy when discussing solo saxophone however!
Thanks for this bro. Subbed
NICE!!
Very special stuff, thank you! This is definitely inspiring for my new solo music project UV 🙏🏻
Am not going 2 go 2 an opera that has ghosts n it ,: 0
I’m going to study with him in particular lessons in Darmstadt. I’m shitting my pants, I’m just so excited
Excellent.Really enjoyed your video.I have a few of his albums on vinyl which I bought in the 80's.To me his musical concept is hard to grasp.I know he's on to something I just don't know what that is.I think I will buy the books you have recommended.
Thanks!
I have purchased Forces In Motion book :-)
Very interesting, thank you for this!
This rules
Really great 👌🏻
This is great!!!
and here i was thinking the bad plus are cool
Secular works is my favorite album ever. It would be awesome if you made a video about the structure of those songs :) havent watched this video yet but I hope it gives me some insight into the composition on that album .
I'm so glad to hear the SW effect is lasting :) This video won't reveal anything about that record though, just Braxton's own work
Jeez that quartet at around 32:45, (london) 1985, wtf? ,: 0
It's like rolling up and down a hill, jumping 2 here n there, so unprecdented ,: 0
Is mindblowing ,: 0
Ghost trance, n now am going 2 get nightmares from this, no ghosts in this? ,: 0
I want to read his tri axium writings and his composition notes but I can’t even find anything when I google it
Leroy Jenkins!!!!! 😉
I'd like to know the meaning of the sign (or clef) to the left of the scores.(is for all instruments? ) Thank you
I think the diamond icon literally means no-clef. The OP discusses how this can generate a melodic line, played by multiple instruments, which comprises multi pitches.
@@monsterjazzlicks thanks
As for not being "black enough", to me he always looked a lot like Franz Schubert!
Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
Stanley Crouch/Marsalis can all go get stuffed.
Morton Subotnick
es braxten ,: 0
Well be more bearable than wynton marsalis talking about jAzZ, is not that, there is no is, so many kinds of music.
I once knew a guy who was considered a "musical genius." Strangest thing was that he could barely read and write. I guess "musical geniuses" have brains that are wired differently. I wonder if anyone has ever studied this phenomenon.
It's trans-idiomatic cause he doesn't want to be boxed in and if it causes him to come up with the interesting stuff he does come up with then great, people are limited, people tryijng 2 fit in all the time, to what? Why?
Our minds r the greatest jails, it's the modern age is what people call it, they say modern new, but Braxtons stuff from 90's whatever is so recent still, it's not that long ago, if we came from somewhere so can do new, interesting things, it's interesting what you talk about but god damn't I hate your boring robot personality. ,: 0
It's about possibility, you can't see what's possible from a boxed in don't go there mind, it's about not being limited.
Thanks n no thanks for this fuckin piece of fuckin shit video [:] (
You r fuckin traitor of humanity, you fuckin piss off from youtube you fuckin shithead you r fuckin full of it just look at u [:] (
Old dudes in a city with too much time on their hands
I just discovered anthony braxton while hanging out on youtube. I then did some research on him. In my opinion, he is certainly the biggest crook in the history of jazz. It's totally amazing that he could have such a career in the music world and have such academic positions. I mean, what is going on with the listeners, the media and the jazz community that they want us to believe that this guy is a genius? Everything about him is a problem: his instrumental technique is close to zero, his music itself is modern when it sounds like a beginner's band, his gibberish discourse about his music means absolutely nothing, but also his interviews in which he comes across as a pretentious old bigot. Please, retire and let the real artists play.
I’ve seen this same cut and paste comment of yours posted on several of Mr. Braxton’s videos. Sooooooo, you watched a few videos about him and that makes you an authority on his life and music enough to call him a fraud? If you don’t like his music, that’s one thing. But to call someone a crook/fraud after they’ve devoted 50+ years to touring around the world, played with some of the greatest improvisational musicians of all time, recorded hundreds of records and mentored countless musicians to find their own greatness is all somewhat akin to saying the holocaust never happened. Chick Corea, Dave Holland, Kenny Wheeler, Barry Altschul, Muhal Richard Abrams, Sam Rivers, Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, Lester Bowie, William Parker, Derek Bailey, Joelle Leandre, Marilyn Crispell, Gerry Hemingway, Mark Dresser, Mary Halvorson, Tomas Fujiwara, et al are just some of the musicians who have played with Mr. Braxton and who all have an extremely high assessment of him. I’m much more trusting of their judgement than of your’s, pup that you are. He’s also widely hailed by critics and fans alike as being one of the most important innovators in jazz over the past century. But maybe these people are merely frauds and are part of a cultural conspiracy and that you are the true expert on all things, having watched a few videos on RUclips. Who have you played and recorded with and what albums have you put out? Have you successfully fused modern classical music with the improvisational tradition of jazz? Have the things you’ve done in your life touched and inspired thousands if not millions of people? I will go lightly on you here, unknowing pup that you are, to say that what you wrote is absolute gibberish, based on little substance and that you are the true fraud here.
@@johnboyd9854 blablabla
@@rinahalloof ol' boy really stunned you into silence. Embarrassing!
Braxton is a psuedo-intellectual composer of arcane and rather ugly noise, and can't play any of his instruments on a level beyond that of a not-so-talented amateur. He's the king of jive.
There is no one who actually knows about the saxophone who can say that Braxton isn't a colossal virtuoso
Amazing how he bamboozled 2 of the best musical universities to hire him. Where do you teach? I can't tell because you're not even proud enough to use your real name when you criticize others, that says a lot.
Tyshawn Sorey appears to have joined Braxton in the multi-genre field?
Nice vid, but I think that Braxton's massive discography contains few bona fide classics. You mention some of 'em here.
'Eugene' DID feature students.