Anthony Braxton King of the Triaxium

[cassandra uprising]

Anyone who uses symbols when he conducts, the man's an effing genius.

http://www.wesleyan.edu/music/braxton/abbio.html

[progmom]

1. agreed

:thumbsup:

[cassandra uprising]

2. Well all right Progmom

I saw him perform this week with his student large ensemble and it was incredible. I made me want to choreograph something -some kind of random movement piece. That man is from another planet.

[regularguy]

3. Kick for Braxton,

Even though much of his stuff goes way over my head...

[cassandra uprising]

7. you rule

the man is a bona-fide genius don't worry if you don't get it. i don't get it either but hey, it's a visceral thang.

:) thanks for kicking

[Squeech]

4. Once upon a time

my sister played on one of his albums.

It was the big box set of quadraphonic LPs for four orchestras in the four corners of the room, titled with some big glyph that looked like a giant mutant pincushion as designed by Marcel Duchamp.

In order to get enough orchestra musicians with the flexibility to try and interpret his score, he came to Oberlin, where my sister was enrolled as a violist. She ended up as the first chair viola in the third orchestra.

She said they had a whopping two days of rehearsal, and even in spite of that lavish allocation of rehearsal time, there was about half an hour of music that never got attempted or recorded. Much of the music was quite difficult too, with odd rhythmic groupings that had to be executed at the proper time with poorly understood cues. And apparently there was a good deal of herbal refreshment available at the session, so she said she didn't think there was a single measure that was performed accurately.

Nevertheless, Braxton professed to be happy with the recording. (I bet his real feeling was, "They'll certainly never let me do anything like this again if I don't say nice things about it!")

Some time much more recently, an acquaintance of mine interviewed Braxton and mentioned that my folks had the record (because of my sister's appearance) but had only listened through it once. His response was, "That's more than *my* parents have done!"

[RandomKoolzip]

5. I love Braxton.

Hey Cassandra, have you read "As Serious As your Life," by Valerie Wilmer? It's an overview of the post Coltrane free jazz scene of the late 60's-70's. Lots of great profiles of Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Cecil Taylor....a wonderful book.

[cassandra uprising]

8. hi there

No i have not read that book. Thanks for the suggestion. I was hoping you would show up in this thread.

:hi:

Have you read Blutopia? I can't remember who wrote it. I think it would be right up you're ally. I never finished it before I had to give it back, but it's a fabulous dissertation about the music of Braxton and Sun Ra and how they've traversed their careers without falling into that vast pit of African-American musicians who 'gotta swing' in order to be accepted by the mainstream.

[RandomKoolzip]

10. That's not David Toop, is it?

Toop's written some stuff that sounds similar in tone and intent.

[cassandra uprising]

12. nope, but I found a link to the book

http://www.jazzscript.co.uk/books/blutopialock.htm

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

6. That was the most amazing show I've ever seen

He had 3 people conducting the ensemble of 26 with charts and shit!

[cassandra uprising]

9. a very fine way to celebrate

you're acceptance into grad school.

:loveya:

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

11. Agreed