ANTHONY BRAXTON — Composition, Improvisation, Synthesis (review)

ANTHONY BRAXTON — Composition, Improvisation, Synthesis album cover Boxset / Compilation · 2011 · Avant-Garde Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
js
Recently the Tri-Centric Foundation released 26 so called “bootleg” CDs of the work of avant-garde saxophonist and composer Anthony Braxton. Don’t be fooled by the word bootleg because most of these recordings are of very high quality and show Braxton working in a wide variety of mediums from large orchestras to solo works. The album being covered in this review, “Composition, Improvisation, Synthesis”, can be listened to in its entirety here at JMA on our Anthony Braxton page. If this review has been copied and pasted on another site, then you can hear this album at tricentricfoundation.org or on the Anthony Braxton page at jazzmusicarchives.com.

This CD contains a great collection of material that covers a wide variety of styles. The order of the cuts on here seems to be random with no particular attention to year of performance or style of music. Some might complain about this, but actually the constant variety helps keep this sometimes difficult music more interesting. Some of the music on here could become tedious if served up in larger quantities of sameness. Much of Braxton’s music sounds more like avant-garde concert hall music rather than “jazz” as we would usually think of it. There were critics, earlier in his career, who said he was not playing jazz, but listen to the first track on this CD and you can hear Braxton playing furious hard bop, pushing the tune to the limits with crazy wide interval leaps and rapid fire runs that had him sounding like Dolphy taken one step further.

Other interesting tracks on here include the second track where the instruments of the orchestra combine points of color to make a whole sheet of sound somewhat similar to a Jackson Pollock painting, and track five where its just Braxton on soprano and Max Roach on drums for a free jazz work out. Track seven sounds like an outtake from an opera with plain spoken words mixing with operatic vocals in a thick tapestry of sounds. On tracks eight and nine Braxton shows a humorous side with cartoonish music that sounds somewhat similar to “Out to Lunch”, only with musical figures that are even more petulant, childish and obsessive.

A big thanks to the Tri-Centric Foundation for all this great music is in order. “Composition, Improvisation, Synthesis” is much more than just avant-garde jazz, this CD should appeal to fans of avant-garde music in general as well as people who like “outsider” music. Anthony Braxton is one of the great talents of our time whose legacy will probably grow over the coming decades.
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