I keep trying to like Braxton...kind of in the same way that I keep trying to like spinach on my pizza.I sometimes order it but always end up taking most of it off.
I am a fan. His early work/sideman stuff I am more a fan of than his current multi-media opera tri-centric wankfests.
Levels and Degrees of light (richard muhal abrhams) is reported to be mindblowing by Awall, I haven't heard it though...maybe he can pop up and enlighten. It is braxton's first recorded appearance.
I'm down w/globe unity orchestra. Down with his takes on monk compositions, forget the title of the record though. Down with Circle a lot, but it's pretty obtuse. Braxton can be very european in his sensibilities sometimes. Down with For Alto, don't really listen to it often though.
Afternoon of a georgia faun (marion brown) has some great moments on it. braxton and bennie maupin are the horns and flutes. I recall someone posting a picture of AB wailing on a contra-bassoon and putting "poo poo pants jazz." terrible description, but it got a chuckle out of me.
Definatly CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS (david holland) if worth picking up. Sam Rivers pretty much murders braxton on every track though.
Creative orchestra music from 1978 i believe is great if you like schizophrenic tunes played by two orchestras. (think coleman's Free Jazz but with webern stockhausen and cage in the octagon)
He's definatly an important man in modern music/improvisation but I think he has yet to really make a solid album all the way through. And as time passes he just gets more and more deep into his own theories/compositional methods (hell the guy wrote a massive three volume treatise on his comp. methods)
oh yeah, his first album as a leader Three Compositions of "new jazz" is pretty essential.
brax straight ice grillin on the cover.
well there's my two cents, but keep in mind I'm a free improvisation/general music nerd, so these recomendations probably won't hold up whatsoever.
I remember I was working at Leopole's rekkids in the early 90's, used to hit Rasputin's and Amoeba on my lunch break. Was pretty heavy into soul, funk, jazz but sorta herbish on hip hop, knew the NWA/Eazy E/Rakim shit that I grew up on but not much else at the time (sleeping hard on brand nubian, etc). Anyways, this was around the time when Toni Braxton was getting big, and all these hip hop and RnB heads would be coming in asking for Toni Braxton, Toni Braxton, and I was like, wow, since when did the sound of out jazz with calculus equations become the sound of the streets?! It all became clear soon enough, but for a minute I thought I was in Bizarro-world ala the Superfriends. Homeboy bumpin' some straight out noise on the block.
Anyways I have a schlitz-load of Anothony Braxton but haven't dusted them off inna minute. Kinda agree with the previous caller, he goes back and forth a bit for me, and if I had the time to really pear down my collection (I'm working on it), I'd probably part with a few. I remember liking Alto Saxophone Improvisations 1979, it has him doing a few standards like 'Red Top', where he goes in and out of the melody with some fucked up squawks.
Got to seem him back in the day at Yoshi's Keystone Corner in Oaktown. It was enjoyable. His shit is definitely OUT tho, so not for folks aren't really down with free jazz.
Like my father. 'You know why they call it free jazz son? Cos nobody would pay for it!' Can't front on him tho, he turned me onto Lee Morgan, Mose Allison, Billie Holiday with Eddie Heywood on piano, etc...
Comments
Levels and Degrees of light (richard muhal abrhams) is reported to be mindblowing by Awall, I haven't heard it though...maybe he can pop up and enlighten. It is braxton's first recorded appearance.
I'm down w/globe unity orchestra. Down with his takes on monk compositions, forget the title of the record though. Down with Circle a lot, but it's pretty obtuse. Braxton can be very european in his sensibilities sometimes. Down with For Alto, don't really listen to it often though.
Afternoon of a georgia faun (marion brown) has some great moments on it. braxton and bennie maupin are the horns and flutes. I recall someone posting a picture of AB wailing on a contra-bassoon and putting "poo poo pants jazz." terrible description, but it got a chuckle out of me.
Definatly CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS (david holland) if worth picking up. Sam Rivers pretty much murders braxton on every track though.
Creative orchestra music from 1978 i believe is great if you like schizophrenic tunes played by two orchestras. (think coleman's Free Jazz but with webern stockhausen and cage in the octagon)
He's definatly an important man in modern music/improvisation but I think he has yet to really make a solid album all the way through. And as time passes he just gets more and more deep into his own theories/compositional methods (hell the guy wrote a massive three volume treatise on his comp. methods)
oh yeah, his first album as a leader Three Compositions of "new jazz" is pretty essential.
brax straight ice grillin on the cover.
well there's my two cents, but keep in mind I'm a free improvisation/general music nerd, so these recomendations probably won't hold up whatsoever.
-GNZ
Anyways I have a schlitz-load of Anothony Braxton but haven't dusted them off inna minute. Kinda agree with the previous caller, he goes back and forth a bit for me, and if I had the time to really pear down my collection (I'm working on it), I'd probably part with a few. I remember liking Alto Saxophone Improvisations 1979, it has him doing a few standards like 'Red Top', where he goes in and out of the melody with some fucked up squawks.
Got to seem him back in the day at Yoshi's Keystone Corner in Oaktown. It was enjoyable. His shit is definitely OUT tho, so not for folks aren't really down with free jazz.
Like my father. 'You know why they call it free jazz son? Cos nobody would pay for it!' Can't front on him tho, he turned me onto Lee Morgan, Mose Allison, Billie Holiday with Eddie Heywood on piano, etc...
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