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1976 Anthony Braxton Jazz Avant Garde Musician - 3-Page Vintage Article
Original, Vintage Magazine ArticlePage Size: Approx. 8\" x 11\" (21 cm x 28 cm)Condition: GoodIf a single criticism has been leveled at therecent jazz avant garde that’s more justifiedthan the usual manic attacks, it is that themost strenuous followers of Coltrane have de-veloped such a monochromatic approach tothe music (in terms of tone, timbre, harmon-ics). The problem has never been lack of con-viction, but rather lack of variation. As musi-cian-theorist Stanley Crouch noted recently,most players don’t have, say, Cecil Taylor’sability to sustain constant interest during ex-tended performance.At this point in his career, the best way toepitomize the achievements and contributionsof Anthony Braxton in the avant garde area isby underlining the exceptional variety withwhich he makes music. It is a widely apparentquality, extending from the instruments he hasuncovered and returned to use, to his record-ing contexts, which include solo sax piecesand improvisations and a notated piece forfive tubas, as well as his recent album of or-chestra music. In fact Creative Orchestra Mu-sic, 1976 makes the point in itself, rangingfrom complex contrapuntal swing to AACM-styled improvisations that use space as muchas sound, and some of the best march musicever recorded.Braxton’s recorded accomplishments ingeneral constitute a sort of archetype for theadventures of many contemporary creativemusicians, many notions now taken for grant-ed in the musical world till ground broken, inpart, by him: his initiation, for instance, of thesolo saxophone album (as opposed to a solotrack or an unaccompanied performance, asin the respective cases of Coleman Hawkinsand Sonny Rollins), or his expansion of therole of composer/multi-instrumentalist, andhis creative exploration and assessment in hisown terms of the entire jazz tradition.A recent article claimed that Keith Jarrettinfluenced Braxton with the idea of the soloalbum, but in fact Braxton’s first solo sax al-bum For Alto (Delmark) came out in 1967,considerably before Keith’s Facing You(1972).Somewhere around 1966 or ’67, Braxtonbegan to alter his approach to playing “verti-cal chord-change music”—despite an aofferinglove for bebop—and began to approach otheravenues, both improvisational and notational.“By 1967, I’d started to investigate the area ofsolo (improvised) music. I kept that separatefrom my own compositions, which would bedivided into notated pieces for orchestra(using both traditional notation and my ownnotation, as well as other systems), chambermusic, and solo piano music.”One recent project that reached back toBraxton’s involvement with bebop was the re-cording of an album (in two volumes) of jazzclassics and standard tunes, called In TheTradition. On the session, Braxton played,among other things, Ornithology and Goodbye,Pork Pie Hat on the contrabass clarinet. Thedate was an accident, as it happened, withAnthony filling in for an ailing Dexter Gor-don at a Steeplechase recording date—although Braxton had had the idea before-hand.SELECTED BRAXTONDISCOGRAPHYfeaturedTHREE COMPOSITIONS—Delmark DS-415FOR ALTO—Delmark DS-420/421THIS TIME —BYG 529 347 (French)ANTHONY BRAXTON—BYG 529 315 (French)THE COMPLETE BRAXTON—Freedom 40112/113(British)DONNA LEE—America 30 AM 61 22 (French)TOWN HALL 1972—Trio PA 3008/009 (Japanese)SAXOPHONE IMPROVISATIONS SERIES F—America 30 AM 011 /012 (French)TRIO AND DUET—Sackville 3007 (Canadian)IN THE TRADITION—Steeplechase SCS-1015(Danish)FOUR COMPOSITIONS (1973)—Nippon ColumbiaNCP 8504-N (Japanese)NEW YORK, FALL 1974—Arista AL 4032FIVE PIECES 1975—Arista AL 4064CREATIVE ORCHESTRA MUSIC 1976—Arista AL4080with Derek BaileyDUO 1 and DUO 2—Emanem 3313 and 3314with Gunter HampelTHE 8TH OF JULY 1969—Birth B-001FAMILIE—Birth B-008with Marion BrownAFTERNOON OF A GEORGIA FAUN—ECM 1004with Jacques CoursilBLACK SUITE—America 30 AM 6111 (French)with CirclePARIS-CONCERT—ECM 1018/19CIRCLING IN—Blue Note BN-LA472-H2with Joseph JarmanTOGETHER ALONE—Delmark DS-428with othersCREATIVE CONSTRUCTION COMPANY—MuseMR-5071ARCHIE SHEPP AND PHILLY JOE JONES—America 30 AM 6102 (French)with Dave HollandCONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS—ECM 1027“For one thing, I needed the money, andfor another I really love playing that kind ofmusic. I would have had a ball playing withDexter for that matter, because I really lovehis music. Maybe one of the reasons I seem tohave so many enemies is that people have adifficult time trying to put me in a category.If we look at the music from Charlie Parker toAlbert Ayler, there’s still so much to do; so Ididn’t want to devote my life to working inone type of situation. I’m interested in compo-sition, and I’m interested in improvisation,and then I’m just interested. But this seems toserve as a barrier between my actual musicand the way people are able to hear it.\"It just seems to me that this is a periodwhere so many things can happen in the musicif there is an audience to support it and if we£ can get away from the limited connotations ofz words, insofar as saying. ‘This guy is a jazzz musician and jazz functions like this and it hasto be a certain way.’z “I was reading an article the other day and£ some guy says, \'Well, Braxton just can’tswing.’ Man, you spend ten years trying tofigure out how not to swing, but to swing. Ev-ery improviser I’ve ever dug is distinguishedby the language he uses in his music; andwhatever one thinks of my activity, it shouldbe kind of hazily clear that, at very least, I’vedeveloped my own language. Everybodyseems to have an exact idea of what ‘swing’ is,what it really means, but in fact 1 think thatword is another distortion. My opinion of‘swing’ is that whenever something is actuallyhappening in accordance with the vibrationalflow that produces it, then it meets the criteriafor swing. If something is really utilized, andvibrating from that, then it swings. I don’tknow of hardly anything that doesn\'t swing.\"It’s just like my interest in march music.I’ve been involved with march music since1966, but the big band record represents thefirst work coming from that part of my music.And I imagine a lot of people will say, ‘Well,what’s this?’“Incidentally, one of the main problems inthis time zone is that there’s no creative musicorchestra to work with regularly so that youcan have a chance to hear your music. I thinkthat the orchestral implications of creativemusic have yet to be dealt with—with the ex-ception of Sun Ra, and still that\'s comingfrom another time zone. There haven\'t beenvery many chances for people to experiencewhat the initiations that were used in Chicago,for instance, would mean on an orchestrallevel.”The Association for the Advancement ofCreative Musicians, from which Braxtonemerged to become a major figure, has beenwritten about considerably in the press, al-though the actual nature of their musical con-tributions is often skirted or ignored. But theAACM’s exploration of spatial problems, oftimbres, of unusual or unexamined vertical...14922-AL-760812-75
