So honored to be starting a new topic. I don't really think the question of whether Braxton "is jazz" is a very interesting one, but since he's been chased by that question all his life, I thought it might be a conversation starter.

Are there any Braxton fans here? I buy his albums used wherever and whenever I can, and am having trouble choosing a 'favorite period'. Everything he does is so fundamental and disarming. Most intriguing for me is the latest stuff that I'm familiar with, "Ghost Trance Music" -- I have no idea at all what to make of it, and that's a compliment in my book! It can go on forever, as far as I'm concerned. It goes straight into my Braxton listening receptor sites (a little closer to my limbic system than most of the listening receptor sites in my brain), and I am always subjected to a rude awakening when it's over.

My friend once had a dream in which he showed his latest score to Braxton, and Braxton flipped through the pages of the score and remarked "You don't have to justify every note." He shared this dream with Braxton, who then said, "That sounds like pretty good advice."

I don't normally look at the jazz section here but this caught my eye. I'm not qualified to judge whether it's really jazz or not but I've got a couple of Braxton albums - The Anthony Braxton Quintet (London) 2004 and Anthony Braxton's Charlie Parker Project (a two-CD set). I prefer the latter and I particularly like his use of the contra-bass clarinet.

Maybe surprisingly, the Radio 3 Jazz on 3 team agree that it is jazz, this is a message from the BBC board talking about the forthcoming concert at the RFH.

Message 18 - posted by Joby_from_Jazzon3 (U2669940) , 5 Days Ago


Jazz on 3 will indeed be recording Cecil Taylor with Anthony Braxton, William Parker and Tony Oxley.

Broadcast date is tbc at the moment but it will be this Summer.

Will keep you posted.

Well cats, whether Braxy is or ain't jazz is of little importance really, >.|¬\` I mean the geezer's done a shitload of phenomenal & often quite peculiar er... stuff.
Best to disassociate from that 'J-word' tag anyway, innit.
Ghost Trance, yass.. as I unnerstand it, he started this in 1996-ish & has recently knocked it on the hEAD
see product: http://www.firehouse12.com/firehouse12_records_release.asp?id=25389 ..although who the hell can keep up with his output, eh what?
there's a bit of thie DVD up on that youtube thing which, if you can be bothered, you could probably find by googleing or whatever.

There's a good audio interview HERE: http://tfjhp.blogspot.com/search/label/anthony%20braxton
God knows what'll happen with this quartet with Cecil Taylor  ~ I feel some kinda BASIC TREPIDATION, ahem
.. I MEAN, William Parker can make things sound awfully jazzy if he goes onto automatic pilot.
no matter >>
Aw hell I can't be bothered to write any more today
I AM KING KENNYTONE

is it jazz? does it matter?

I have a ticket. Pilgrimage at great expense from Bristol. I hope old Cecil can still hammer the ivories in his accustomed style.

I'll be there, ss, and also on my own I think. Not sure how you'll spot me though. I'm not sure where I'm sitting yet, and what I'll be wearing rather depends on the weather ... Would be happy to meet for a drink, though I may not stay around for long afterwards (cos it's a school night innit, and more to the point I'm likely to be in the middle of a deadline stress).

Fraid I didn't see your post until this morning, SS. Trying to remember now if I saw anyone in a blue Interstate t-shirt. I was in the front stalls over to the right, wearing a dark red T-shirt, blue 'Italia' jacket and khaki trousers. Maybe we saw each other unwittingly!

Just to vaguely sort of address the thread title, I thought that Braxton was definitely playing jazz but Cecil wasn't, at least not in his solo workout with Tony Oxley. Whenever I hear CT play solo it makes me think of Debussy. I'm sure he must spend a significant amount of time in private playing through that, and possibly Schumann as well. There is the odd recognisably jazz-derived turn of phrase in his playing but much more that seems to come from a highly personal reimagining of the harmonic and textural possibilities suggested by the classical piano repertoire (mid-19th century onwards).

In the quartet I was impressed by Taylor and Braxton's responsiveness to one another. Braxton was playing jazzy sounds a fair amount of the time, although from some of the other noises he produced (esp on the low instruments he seems fond of) I get the impression he's capable of giving a performance which isn't really 'jazz' at all - I don't know his other work too well. I suppose Cecil was less obviously 'not-jazz' in this quartet part of the evening but he mainly focused on exchanging short phrases with Braxton, especially that falling fifth up in the high register, and those crazy runs of chords up and down the keyboard which I don't think anyone should really want to characterise except to say that it's Cecil being Cecil.

I don't know if KK overcame his trepidation and went along but I thought William Parker was fine actually. He was sort of jazzy I suppose in the quartet but he was doing it all so fiercely and yet still being drowned out by the noise that it came across more as 'anything to make yourself heard' than tied into any kind of stylistic pigeonhole (can you be tied into a pigeonhole? I guess not). Parker's solo number seemed like a model of balance and restrained instrumental virtuosity (God I sound like a music critic don't I).

What did you think of the support (can't remember their name now)? Compared to what came after it was nothing much to write home about, though I quite enjoyed what Leif whatsisname was getting up to with that balloon and his laptop.

Mind if I add a paragraph, Tantris?

At the end Taylor did just the trace of a little rain dance before running off stage behind the other three, leaving a large proportion of the audience giving a standing ovation to a resolutely empty stage. Taylor, apparently - and much to his credit - doesn't 'do' applause. In fact, it's hard to imagine him doing anything much other than playing the piano. Everything else is preparation for that moment: choosing the clothes, writing the script (for Oxley's entry on stage), sitting - one imagines - back-stage contemplating his materials, knowing how he must attack them, getting ready to pounce. And then he pounces.