Anthony Braxton
Biography
Anthony Braxton was born on June 5, 1945, in Chicago, Illinois. Braxton began playing clarinet in high school, studied music for one semester at Wilson Junior College, then joined the US Army, where he played clarinet and alto saxophone. In 1966 he joined Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (the AACM), a newly formed musicians' co-operative whose leading members included Muhal Richard Abrams and Roscoe Mitchell. Braxton formed his own group (later called the Creative Construction Company) with Leroy Jenkins and Leo Smith, Leo and their first release, Three Compositions Of New Jazz, was recorded in 1968.
Their music typified the Chicagoans' new experimentalism, with its emphasis on sound, space, texture. Braxton also followed the AACM trend towards multi-instrumentalism, becoming an accomplished master on most members of the saxophone, clarinet and flute families. However, alto sax had become his main instrument and in late 1968 he recorded his epochal double album, For Alto, the first ever full-length recording of solo saxophone music. In 1969 the Creative Construction Company moved to Paris, only to disband within a year. Braxton returned to the USA, lodged with Ornette Coleman and for several months earned a living as a professional chess player. In 1970 he joined Chick Corea, Dave Holland, Dave and Barry Altschul to form the group Circle. When Circle disbanded Braxton returned to Paris, where he began to play with various European improvisers, leading to later appearances with Alex Von Schlippenbach's Globe Unity Orchestra and at Derek Bailey's Company festivals.
In 1974 producer Michael Cuscuna offered him a contract with Arista Records and he returned to the USA, recording and performing with a regular quartet that comprised Holland, Altschul and Kenny Wheeler (the latter replaced briefly by George Lewis). For the next six years, the Arista contract meant Braxton's music had a relatively high profile.
Already regarded as eccentric because he titled his compositions with enigmatic diagrams, Braxton quickly became a controversial figure in jazz circles as releases such as For Trio (1978), For Four Orchestras (1978) and For Two Pianos (1982), inspired in part by the work of Schoenberg, Stockhausen and John Cage, revealed his growing interest in contemporary composition. However, Braxton never denied his love for jazz, constantly citing Coltrane, Paul Desmond, and Warne Marsh, Warne as major influences on his saxophone playing; in 1974 he had anticipated the 80s' obsession with traditional jazz repertoire by recording the two In The Tradition sessions (later followed by others, including outstanding tribute records to Thelonious Monk and Lennie Tristano. Also in the 70s he recorded two sets of improvised duos with the great bebop drummer Max Roach, a superb live quartet concert in Dortmund (not released until 1991) and a collection of avant garde big band pieces, the prize-winning Creative Orchestra Music 1976, which many people still regard as one of his finest releases.
In the 80s Braxton's music showed a growing concern with mysticism, theatre and collage-structures. He developed a series of "ritual and ceremonial" works, which incorporated elements of astrology, numerology, costume and dance, and which culminated an ongoing project - a series of 12 operas, entitled Trillium. (The visual basis of much of this music is perhaps attributable to his chromesthetic vision; that is, like the composer Scriabin, he sees sounds as colours and shapes.) His quartet music, often the chief focus of his jazz-related experimentalism, has also became increasingly complex. On Four Compositions (Quartet) 1983 he introduced the concept of "pulse track structures" as an alternative to chord changes and modal music. A little later he began playing "multiple logics music", in which members of the quartet (with the regular line-up of Marilyn Crispell, Mark Dresser and Gerry Hemingway might be playing two, three or four compositions simultaneously ( Quartet (London) 1985, Quartet (Birmingham) 1985, Quartet (Willisau) 1991 ).
Although he started teaching at Wesleyan College, Connecticut, Braxton remained formidably prolific in the 80s. He has written nearly 400 compositions, made over 70 records as leader and appeared on at least 50 others. In 1985 he published his three-volume, philosophical Tri-axium Writings and in 1988 the first five volumes of his Composition Notes. His latest recordings include further sets of solo, duo, trio, quartet and large ensemble works, plus collaborations with the ROVA Saxophone Quartet and the London Jazz Composers Orchestra.
In the mid-90s he created further controversy by recording prolifically on the piano, with stellar sidemen including Marty Ehrlich (reeds) and drummer Pheeroan AkLaff. Recent concerts showed that his music is now reaching new levels of intensity, abstraction and gracefulness while continuing to explore fresh concepts of form. Though still regarded with suspicion by some hardline traditionalists (and black nationalists), Braxton's importance as an innovator is increasingly evident in the jazz world, his influence proclaimed by newer players such as Tim Berne and John Zorn. Braxton has said, "The challenge of creativity is to move towards the highest thought that you can think of." And, in pursuit of that goal he has played at the extremes of register and tempo, and forged a unique musical synthesis of new and old, Africa and Europe, structure and freedom.
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