ANTHONY BRAXTON | PETER N. WILSON — Duets • Hamburg 1991 (1992) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Recorded in a Hamburg studio, these eight compositions are marked by the "new" distinction in that they were written for duet with a double bass, with the exception of one, "40a," which is hardly new but has never before been recorded; it was not scored specifically for duet. The eight works here are from Braxton's 150 series, and are numbered "152" through "157" with "157" being recorded twice. Aside form the bass role, Braxton himself plays everything from alto to contrabasse clarinet and flute. These compositions are critical in understanding the structure of Braxton's middle to late work. These pieces are all based on the idea that melodic infrastructure comes from both sides of a rhythmic equation, and that the extension of harmony and timbre are given utterance as a result of their entwined, not separate voices. Consequently for a large part of these proceedings, Mr. Wilson uses a bow and does splendid arco work, offering the significant color differentiations Braxton requires for his own lyric statements. When Wilson plays staccato and pizzicato he reflects the ever-shifting rhythmic orientation of Braxton's tonal world (both takes of "157"). For the most part, though, what sets these works apart from much of Braxton's sizeable canon is their knotty melodic structures, which involve various breathing techniques to it all pull off. The long note, cross tone approach displayed on "155" for bass clarinet, as it moves the melodic knot down the register, and as the breathing of the performer scales itself down, is one example, and the circular breathing in "157" is another. There are many other knotty vocabularies in the 150 series, where chromatic minimalism is interspersed with microtonal improvisation and even serial technique. This is a fascinating disc due in large part of Mr. Wilson's truly virtuoso playing of very difficult material, and for the rugged emotionalism Braxton puts into his own performance here.
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <-
Tracklist :
1    Composition 156    8:40
2    Composition 157 (Take 1)    7:05
3    Composition 152    10:45
4    Composition 153    12:25
5    Composition 155    5:55
6    Composition 154    7:20
7    Composition 40A    8:25
8    Composition 157 (Take 2)    8:40
Credits :
Alto Saxophone – Anthony Braxton (tracks: 4, 6)
Contrabass Clarinet – Anthony Braxton (tracks: 1, 5)
Double Bass – Peter Niklas Wilson
Flute – Anthony Braxton (tracks: 3, 7)
Sopranino Saxophone [Eb Soprano Saxophone] – Anthony Braxton (tracks: 2, 8)

ANTHONY BRAXTON | MARILYN CRISPELL – Duets : Vancouver • 1989 "Four Compositions By Anthony Braxton (1990) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

For this duet set with pianist Marilyn Crispell from the 1989 Vancouver Jazz Festival, Anthony Braxton (who plays alto and flute) performs six of his complex originals. The music is a mixture of composition and improvisation (it is often difficult to know which is which). Although it will not win any new converts who are put off by the complexity of Braxton's music, repeated listenings to these dynamic performances will result in listeners gain in better understanding and appreciating these masterful musicians. Scott Yanow
Tracklist :
Duets - Vancouver, 1989 (Four Compositions By Anthony Braxton)    (44:35)
1    Composition No. 136    10:11
2    Composition No. 140 (+ 112 + 30)    11:50
3    Composition No. 62    11:01
4    Composition No. 116    12:25
Credits :
Flute, Saxophone [Sax] – Anthony Braxton
Piano – Marilyn Crispell

ANTHONY BRAXTON - Twelve Compositions : Live At Yoshi's In Oakland, July 1993 (1994) 2CD | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Of all of the avant-garde players of the past 30 years, Anthony Braxton has been perhaps the most diligent at documenting his work. The brilliant multireedist has been very fortunate to have a stable quartet for the past nine years with the frequently astounding pianist Marilyn Crispell, bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Gerry Hemingway doing justice to his very complex originals. This double-CD set features Braxton and his group on two continuous and complete live performances. Not only do the musicians tackle a dozen of Braxton's complicated originals, but during part of four of them, individual members are assigned the task of playing a different composition than the rest of the group. Obviously this is not music to be taken lightly or merely played in the background. However, listeners with the time and interest will find much to enjoy in the very lively explorations from these masterful musicians. Scott Yanow
Tracklist :
1-1    Composition No. 48    13:26
1-2    Composition No. 23M (+108C)    14:35
1-3    Composition No. 32    5:45
1-4    Composition No. 66 (+135)    10:06
1-5    Composition No. 160    10:52
1-6    Composition No. 158    6:15
1-7    Composition No. 140    14:32
2-1    Composition No. 69J (+30+108D)    14:05
2-2    Composition No. 20 + 86    10:11
2-3    Composition No. 171    19:20
2-4    Composition No. 23C    7:47
2-5    Composition No. 105B    9:56
Credits :
Bass – Mark Dresser
Drums – Gerry Hemingway
Piano – Marilyn Crispell
Woodwind [Woodwinds], Producer – Anthony Braxton

ANTHONY BRAXTON | GINO ROBAIR - Duets 1987 (1998) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Anthony Braxton's collaboration with composer/percussionist Gino Robair, Duets (1987), features pieces written by both musicians, separately and collaboratively. Braxton's and Robair's intricate, layered approaches to playing complement each other on this collection of innovative avant-jazz works, such as "Improvisation and Prelude" and "Ballad for the Children." Heather Phares
Tracklist :
1     Improvisation and Prelude 6:06
Anthony Braxton / Gino Robair    
2     Composition No. 86 12:05
Anthony Braxton    
3     Frictious Singularity 8:22
Anthony Braxton / Gino Robair    
4     Composition 40d (+96, +108b) 8:25
Anthony Braxton
5     Ballad for the Children (In Three Parts) 5:03
Anthony Braxton / Gino Robair
6     Composition No. 136 (+96) 7:02
Anthony Braxton
7     Decline of Reason 4:10
Gino Robair     
8     Counting Song 4:31
Gino Robair
Credits :
Percussion, Mastered By – Gino Robair
Saxophone [Saxophones] – Anthony Braxton

ANTHONY BRAXTON - Piano Quartet, Yoshi's 1994 (1996) 4CD SET | FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Piano Quartet, Yoshi's 1994 is a four-CD collection focusing on the live dates Anthony Braxton's short-lived piano quartet played at Yoshi's Nitespot in Oakland, CA, in 1994. They mark the debut of Anthony Braxton as a pianist in a live jazz quartet setting, and were savaged fairly thoroughly by jazz critics when first issued. It's true that hindsight is 20/20, but in the case of Braxton's pianism in this band, those critiques were motivated, it seems, not by the actual merits (or lack thereof) of Braxton's ability to play the instrument, but by the same insensitivity, meanness of spirit, and complete lack of understanding that has followed him his entire career. This four-CD box covers four sets in the life of a band that included Marty Ehrlich on saxophones and clarinet, Joe Fonda on bass, and drummer Arthur L. Fuller. The material all comes from the jazz canon, many of the tunes standards, many others uncommon choices. The most important aspect of the way the music works between these musicians, and how it comes off on these recordings is how closely they follow the dictum Braxton uses in his own, and in performing his own material. Disc one opens with John Coltrane's "Exotica," a modal workout based around a four-chord figure. Ehrlich states the theme, Braxton follows with some outrageous vamping in the lower register, and the rhythm section sets the flow, fills space, and plays tags and flourishes wherever needed. The reading is fairly straight, with Ehrlich soloing primarily on the changes and keeping his harmonic nuances within the color range. Braxton begins what is to be on this set a norm; he challenges dynamics and drama and textures his solo with those moments, and with angular and scalar figures that point in the direction of the entire band rather than at himself as a soloist. This is where the early criticism came in. Braxton doesn't play piano like a soloist, though he most certainly is one here; he plays like the head of the rhythm section. But it is on Dizzy Gillespie's "Woody 'N You" and its proceeding tune, Mal Waldron's classic "Soul Eyes," that the quartet's M.O. really gets stated. From the open tonal figures in the Gillespie tune, Braxton establishes that this will be, as in his own work, a primary compositional palette to let others flow from. "Soul Eyes" comes directly out of "Woody 'N You" in the same way Braxton's major compositions beget minor ones in the same metric, procedural, or improvisational space (sometimes all three). On subsequent tunes in this set -- "Stablemates" and "Marionette" -- as well as in the other three sets on discs two through four, this is the case. Usually the first tune in a set will stand on its own as a way for the band to ground itself. These, like Dave Brubeck's "The Duke" and Miles Davis' "Nardis," are deceptive, however, and the key is in Braxton's solos. As Ehrlich weaves through one melodic statement after another, moving against the harmony of the actual tune in places, Braxton is already quoting what is to come either in his comping or in his soloing. Using wide percussive chords and shapely triads of contrapuntal harmonics, on set two he begins a setup where J.J. Johnson's "Lament" will become the primary composition from which Thelonious Monk's "Pannonica," "Star Eyes," "I Remember You," and "Along Came Betty" by Benny Golson all wind their way out of. It's remarkable, really, that each of these tunes can be contained in a tonal universe by the one root. It's one thing to hear Braxton do this with his own music, but to feel this pin from the classic canon is quite another. In this way each tune is heard not only as every other, but jazz in general is heard as an interloping music, capable of such linguistic force and echo that nothing in it remains fixed or finite. And then there is the playing itself. Certainly, Anthony Braxton is not the most gifted pianist in jazz, but it hardly matter because he can play like a serious jazz musician, and more importantly he can play as a composer who can hear the fluctuations of tone and timbre in the most minute segments of a tune's melody or harmony. In his soloing he tends to move off the cuff, chopping off a section or a fragment stated in the changes and moving it into its own direction, shaping it as an alternate structural framework on which the tune can either turn or be heard. This is what great improvisers do, and Braxton on a piano is every bit as deft at this as he is on a saxophone. His solos in "Lush Life," "Line for Lyons," "Body and Soul," and Johnny Mercer's "Early Autumn" create entirely new spaces for these classic tunes to inhabit. Whether it is by dynamic shading (where Braxton can hardly be heard and then shifts into a pounding frenzy of diminished ninths and augmented tenths) or chromaticism, where he takes Ehrlich's gorgeous counterpoint lines and weaves color balance, shade, and depth into them via trills and lower register rubato, the effect couldn't be more chilling. No matter which font of tonal inspiration this set reveals, this band never got to realize its full potential because of the various commitments and restless natures of its two principals. Nonetheless, this collection is more than a document; it is a development not only in Braxton's ever evolving and often confounding esthetic, but in the development of jazz itself as an interconnected, meta-textual music whose roots and branches are more deeply embedded into one another than we previously believed. The piano quartet has made a first step in dragging the roots out to be more closely examined in a driving, singing, swinging way.
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <-
Tracklist 1 :
1     Exotica 13:16
John Coltrane
2     Woody 'N You 8:14
Dizzy Gillespie
3     Soul Eyes 15:54
Mal Waldron
4     Bluesette 12:45
Jean-Baptiste Thielemans        
5     Stablemates 9:57
Benny Golson
6     Marionette 11:32
Billy Bauer
7     Cherokee 5:03
Ray Noble
Tracklist 2 :
1     The Duke 9:22
Dave Brubeck
2     Nica's Dream 13:18
Horace Silver    
3     Lament 10:50
J.J. Johnson
4     Pannonica 10:41
Thelonious Monk
5     Star Eyes 8:47
Gene DePaul / Don Raye
6     I Remember You 12:37
Johnny Mercer / Victor Schertzinger
7     Along Came Betty 9:40
Benny Golson
Tracklist 3 :
1     Line for Lyons 14:12
Gerry Mulligan    
2     Joy Spring 10:09
Clifford Brown
3     Lush Life 16:22
Billy Strayhorn
4     Jinrikisha 13:38
Joe Henderson
5     What's New? 15:14
Johnny Burke / Bob Haggart
6     Minority 9:03
Gigi Gryce
Tracklist 4 :
1     Nardis 13:49
Miles Davis
2     Booker's Waltz 8:58
Eric Dolphy
3     Body and Soul 7:45
Frank Eyton / Johnny Green / Edward Heyman / Robert Sour    
4     Just Friends 13:36
John Klenner / Sam M. Lewis
5     Afternoon in Paris 11:22
John Lewis
6     I Can't Get Started 15:01
Vernon Duke / Ira Gershwin
7     Early Autumn 8:29
Ralph Burns / Woody Herman / Johnny Mercer
Credits :
Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Clarinet – Marty Ehrlich
Bass – Joe Fonda
Percussion – Arthur Fuller
Piano – Anthony Braxton

JOE ROSENBERG'S AFFINITY ft. DEWEY REDMAN - A Tribute To Ornette Coleman (1996) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Tracklist :
1    Blues Connotation    11:34
2    Peace    12:47
3    Face Of The Bass    7:50
4    The Sphinx    14:37
5    Beauty Is A Rare Thing    11:32
6    Little Symphony    14:02
Credits :
Composed By – Ornette Coleman
Double Bass – Michael Silverman
Drums – Bobby Lurie
Producer [Produced By], Soprano Saxophone [Soprano Sax] – Joe Rosenberg
Tenor Saxophone [Tenor Sax] – Dewey Redman