Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945 in Chicago) is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist and philosopher. Inspired by John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen as much as John Coltrane and Charlie Parker, Anthony Braxton has crafted an immense body of highly complex work. Though Braxton is hardly known to the casual listener he is certainly one of the most prolific American musicians/composers to date, having released well over 100 albums since the 1960s. In 1994 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. Braxton plays a multitude of instruments including the flute; the sopranino, soprano, C-Melody, F alto, E-flat alto, baritone, bass, and contrabass saxophones; and the E-flat, B-flat, and contrabass clarinets.
Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945 in Chicago) is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist and philosopher. Inspired by John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen as much as John Coltrane and Charlie Parker, Anthony Braxton has crafted an immense body of highly complex work. Though Braxton is hardly known to the casual listener he is certainly one of the most prolific American musicians/composers to date, having released well over 100 albums since the 1960s. In 1994 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. Braxton plays a multitude of instruments including the flute; the sopranino, soprano, C-Melody, F alto, E-flat alto, baritone, bass, and contrabass saxophones; and the E-flat, B-flat, and contrabass clarinets.
Duets 1987
Remastered from the original analog tapes of the duet between Anthony Braxton and Gino Robair from sessions recorded on August 6th and October 9th 1987 at Cal State University, Hayward, California. This release includes all of the music from the original, limited-edition LP as well as extra tracks from the same sessions.
Duo (DCWM) 2013
What becomes quickly apparent when the music ends is that the parts of the brain wired for multi-tasking and instant contextualization have been swamped by Masaoka and Braxton’s palette, their bold strokes and the vaulting arcs they form.
Town Hall 1972
Tip! *2024 stock* If Anthony Braxton were to be judged on the basis of his oeuvre alone, he would stand completely apart from any modern composer, bar none. He has an enormous body of work, written for every conceivable permutation and combination of ensemble, from two to over a hundred and also for practically all the modern instruments known to musicians. As a reeds and winds player, he has a staggering technique, but not only this: he dives deep into the soul to extract the most subtle emotio…
Circle - Paris Concert
Circle was a band on fire with creativity. Chick Corea and Dave Holland had just left Miles Davis’s band, keen to explore all parameters of new music in an improvised context. Anthony Braxton, equally inspired by Stockhausen and Coltrane, brought in new directions from the AACM. Barry Altschul’s resumé included extensive work with Paul Bley. Together they were, for a while, matchless. Corea called the Paris Concert (recorded 1971) the realization of a dream. Melody Maker: “Paris Concert is evide…
Solo Bern 1984, First Visit
"In its entirety, the concert is lively and penetrating evidence of Braxton’s remarkable facility, powers of invention, and commitment to his principles at this point in time, with special emphasis on saxophone techniques energizing variables of tone color, texture, and timbre to affect separate phrases, extended lines, and sectional contrasts." – Art Lange
Producer’s note: "I experienced over many years Anthony Braxton different performances. His solo performance 1984 in Bern belongs into the …
Sax Qt (Lorraine) 2022
4CD + 40 pages booklet with photos and an essay in english and Italian by Mario Gamba
Conference of the Birds
*2023 stock* It had been preceded by ECM duo albums with Barre Phillips and with Derek Bailey as well as the cooperative band Circle’s great Paris Concert, but Conference of the Birds, recorded in 1972, was Dave Holland’s first album as a full-fledged leader. An album of driving, progressive jazz it is also of historical significance as the only occasion when Sam Rivers and Anthony Braxton, two of the music’s most strikingly original saxophonists, recorded together. Inside Dave’s compositions th…
Duet
“Composition 429” is the first piece using a new writing method that Braxton calls “Lorraine.” The composer’s notes to the piece describe Lorraine as “a music system that governs the ‘sonic winds’ of breath.” Saxophonist and longtime collaborator James Fei contributes an essay detailing the Lorraine system, which uses a combination of traditional notation and color-coded symbols of the composer’s design to indicate “specific sound types or performance techniques,” drawing from Braxton’s long his…
Echo Echo Mirror House
*2022 stock* Live recording of Anthony Braxton's Echo Echo Mirror House Music, where all the musicians use iPods in addition to their instruments, which took place during 2011 Tri-Centric Festival at Roulette.
In Echo Echo Mirror House musical system, all the musicians wield iPods in addition to their instruments, while navigating scores that combine cartography and evocative graphic notation, creating a musical tapestry combining live performance and sampled sounds from Braxton’s extensive reco…
Sextet (Victoriaville) 2005
'Simply put, this is a stunning piece of work, performed in front of a stunned audience that was won over from the first few notes. After a spell of a few years, Anthony Braxton was back in Victoriaville in 2005 to present a new line-up. This sextet of young musicians (except for tuba player Jay Rozen, who is more experienced) is impressive to say the least. Taylor Ho Bynum makes a flashy trumpeter, quickly rising to the status of Toshinori Kondo. Violinist Jessica Pavone waltzes her way through…
Black Vomit
'It was the unexpected event of the 2005 FIMAV festival: avant jazz legend Anthony Braxton joining noisy bad boys Wolf Eyes on-stage. But it did not come completely out of left field. A few months earlier at another festival, the 60-year-old saxophonist had attended a performance by the Michigan noise trio and was transformed, buying a copy of everything the band had to sell that night. The man had been hit in the face by noise music. At the 22nd FIMAV, Braxton was scheduled to play a duo concer…
Duo (Victoriaville) 2005
Anthony Braxton and Fred Frith each have about as close a relationship to the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville as just about any non-Canadians. The first release on Victo, the label run by the producers of the annual Canadian festival, was a guitar duo with Frith and Rene Lussier; the second was a duet between Braxton and Derek Bailey. Until this year, each had released three discs on the label. But 2005 was the Year of Braxton and the label has released three new Brax…
Solo (Victoriaville) 2017
On the 30th anniversary of the Victo Festival Anthony Braxton took to the stage for a magnificent solo performance on the alto sax, performing 8 spontaneous compositions and an 8+ minute version of "Body and Soul", seamlessly crossing lyrical and complex approaches to the horn using his unique intervallic, trimbral and diagrammatic language, a stunning and embraceable accomplishment.
Birth And Rebirth (LP + CD)
"The music in this album is a result of our belief in a continuum that links the present with the past. Our spontaneous improvisations are true to those well defined principles basic to African American culture. Thank you for listening." - Max Roach / Anthony Braxton. This recording was the first to document their collaboration. All of the tracks are improvisations and it appears that the younger Braxton was the one taking the lead. If he keeps himself a bit restrained, steering clear of the ext…
Be! Jazz / FMP reissues
* small repress available*This special bundle collects the latest Be! Jazz / FMP vinyl represses, namely the following three LP:
Globe Unity Orchestra and Guests "Pearl" (1977)Brötzmann / Oliver / Kellers feat. Manfred Schoof "In a State of Undress" (1989)I.C.P. Tentet "In Berlin" (1979)Globe Unity Orchestra and Guests "Pearl" (1977)
**Edition of 200 copies.** For fans of European free jazz, Globe Unity Orchestra needs little introduction. The project is nothing short of legendary, carving a pat…
Two Lines
1995 release. Two legendary composer/performers, David Rosenboom and Anthony Braxton, join forces on Two Lines to unite composition with improvisation, "new music" with "new jazz". Starting from David Rosenboom's notated score for Two Lines and his musical computer program, these musicians have achieved, to paraphrase Rosenboom, created a composition that is immediately heard. Duets with interactive HMSL software. Includes Rosenboom's Two Lines, plus compositions in collaboration with Braxton: L…
Duo (Bologna) 2018
Anthony Braxton, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and a true giant of creative music, in 50 years of career had never played in a duo with a harp; and that's exactly what happened at the AngelicA Festival in 2018. Expressing himself through a wide range of mediums, from solos to large orchestras to multimedia projects, and drawing inspiration from a wide range of influences, from John Coltrane to Karlheinz Stockhausen, Anthony Braxton has created a unique music system which celebrates the concep…
Pearls
**Edition of 200 copies.** For fans of European free jazz, Globe Unity Orchestra needs little introduction. The project is nothing short of legendary, carving a path over the last half century. Formed as with a commission received by Alexander von Schlippenbach in 1966 - debuting at the Berliner Philharmonie late in that year - it joined three of the most powerful forces in German freely improvised music as a single unit - Gunter Hampel's quartet, Manfred Schoof's quintet, and Peter Brötzmann's …
Duets
**2019 stock** "This December 1976 recording features two of the most prominent AACM musicians, Roscoe Mitchell and Anthony Braxton. Mitchell’s compositions run the gamut, beginning with the darkly gorgeous opener that features Braxton’s contrabass clarinet nestling evocatively beneath the composer’s earthy flute… Mitchell’s other pieces investigate the sparer, more abstract realm, as the duo’s wide variety of reeds populate the sonic environment with scattered moans, squeaks and pops. Overall, …
Four Pieces
**Original 1982 vinyl edition of the album. Few copies available** Four Pieces (recorder in November 1981) documents a long lost studio collaboration between pianist Giorgio Gaslini and Anthony Braxton. Alto and Soprano Saxophone and Piano, beautifully together in a set of free improvisations – really letting us hear the imagination that drives the duo. Two real masters of free music - the two exchanging lines that race beyond personality on an extended version of Braxton’s “Composition 191” an…