Anthony Braxton by Edu Hawkins
The lazy cliche about Anthony Braxton is that he’s a joyless intellectual, approaching music like a chess master when he should be kicking out the jams. The composer and saxophonist, who recently turned 76, has been combatting such reductive thinking for much of his career. "As a young guy, everyone looked at me as a guy who has no soul," Braxton tells me over Zoom. "He’s just a computer machine. And he is not black. He only likes Edgar Varèse. And of course I love Edgar Varèse but that doesn’t mean I’m not aware of the composite spectra."
There’s no doubting the seriousness with which Braxton approaches his art – this is a major composer, who with his Tri-Axium writings, has developed a musico-philosophical system of cosmic complexity – but the sense of adventure and fun he brings to these enterprises is undeniable. Braxton describes himself as "a professional student of music" and his enthusiasm for new ideas and possibilities is inspiring. Never one to follow prescribed notions about music, Braxton has embraced everything from John Coltrane to Arnold Schoenberg, Charlie Parker to Karlheinz Stockhausen, Diana Ross to Wolf Eyes.
To jazz conservatives, Braxton was considered too close to European classical modernism. Yet his trans-idiomatic approach is a clear influence on a new generation of innovative composer-improvisers like Tyshawn Sorey, Ingrid Laubrock and Mary Halvorson.
Braxton’ second release, 1969’s For Alto is a landmark of avant-garde jazz, pioneering the concept of the solo saxophone album and introducing the Language Music system which provides the basis of all his music. In the 1970s, his celebrated run of albums for Arista encompassed knotty post-bop, saxophone quartets, John Philip Sousa inspired marches, electronic explorations with Richard Teitlebaum, and a wildly ambitious project for four orchestras. Meanwhile, he made connections with the European avant-garde, recording with guitarist Derek Bailey and the Italian free improvisation group Musica Elettronica Viva.
With his great quartet of the 1980s – pianist Marilyn Crispell, bassist Mark Dresser and percussionist Gerry Hemingway – Braxton developed a collage approach in which compositions could be layered and deconstructed. In recent years, Braxton has worked on several new compositional series, including Ghost Trance Music and Diamond Curtain Wall. The former is inspired by Native American Ghost Dances and written to provide "a gateway to ritual space", while the latter utilises Supercollider software. He has also embarked on a series of operas under the Trillium banner. Braxton’s work and legacy is maintained by the Tri-Centric Foundation, a non-profit founded in 1994.
This month sees the release of two monumental box sets. Quartet (Standards) 2020 documents his European tour of January last year, where he joined British musicians Alexander Hawkins, Neil Charles and Stephen Davis on a freewheeling escapade through the Great American Songbook. 12 Comp Zim (2017) maps the evolution of his Zim Music over two years. Zim Music combines traditional and graphic notation, proposing different ways in which the musicians can participate in a given piece. The compositional language is derived from language number 11, gradient logic. This pertains to aspects of music that continually change. It’s complex, even difficult, music, yet there’s a wonderful sense of openness, as the musicians respond to different situations. The recordings from London’s Cafe Oto are a case in point: long tones give way to jagged clusters, while echoes of jazz ballads and hot New Orleans trumpet float through the intricate structures.
A conversation with Braxton is a mind-expanding and joyful experience. He explodes with glee when I mention that I’d recently interviewed a former student of his, the composer and bagpiper Matthew Welch. For him, Welch represents a new generation taking the music forward. "I look at Matthew, like, wow, this is a good sign. Because we have so many young people who are ready to take the lead and begin to push things in a forward direction. For myself, I am trying to finish up my work, there is much to do. This is an incredible time to be alive, and to be in America, and in Western civilisation, to see the complexities that we find ourselves dealing with. All of these matters, in my opinion, are part of the fresh challenges that we’re moving towards. And as a fundamental, creativity, imagination and exploration will guide the possibilities that we’ll be looking at. But this is a very serious time space, in my opinion, especially for the challenge of creativity, and what that challenge is going to mean, as we move through this vibrational disruption. And so this for me is one of the big questions."
One example of these new possibilities is a recent livestream performance of Braxton’s work, where Tri-Centric Foundation president James Fei directed ensembles in New York and Reykjavik simultaneously. "One half of the concert involved a performance of one of my compositions. In fact, a group of my compositions put together in a unique way in accordance with the aesthetic of mechanics for my music system. And so I was very happy about that," Braxton says. "I listened to the concert on Zoom and found myself thinking, yes, this is another possibility that we have. And this will only expand. For the work that I’ve been trying to do, I have been from the beginning, interested in a composite aesthetic, that would work to bring our people together, bring our citizens together, but also to set up propositions for the next generation."
Portrait by Peter Gannushkin
I suggest to Braxton that this concert could be a step towards realising one of his most ambitious concepts – a multi-orchestra piece to performed across planets, even galaxies.
"Yes, yes! And I was so proud of James Fei who was the conductor of this. We really have some incredible people who are moving into positions of influence. Ingrid Laubrock, for example, Tomeka Reid, men and women from different parts of the planet. It feels very exciting, if we can somehow survive through the present complexities. This is a far out time period: double concerts coming from two different cities, new technology, transposition from real time experiences into multiple time experiences, the evolution of syntax, and how this next generation of composers will have a new spectrum of devices to work with. I’m very excited for them. I’m also very excited for what I’m learning about the new possibilities.
"Carl Testa, the great virtuoso bass player and composer, he is a part of this, working with Supercollider. When I think about Supercollider, I find myself thinking about Texas and Switzerland with their colliders as an example of the new extensional possibilities that we have right now. For instance, I’ve always admired the great work of Walt Disney, and the idea of the theme park. And so I’ve tried to, in my work, develop a music system, to develop a theme park system where theory can jump off the blackboard into real life. And finally, with my system on the third plane, I’ve been trying to evolve my work in a way that would allow for transposition into the dream state, transposition into narrative logics, transposition as part of the new medieval time space that we’re moving towards."
Braxton is on a roll, connecting thought systems across time and space. "I have realigned myself with ancient models that talk of a three dimensional model that is trans-idiomatic, that takes into account spirituality, not spirituality in the sense of organised religion, but spirituality as the word that says each person has an opportunity to learn about themselves, what the Egyptians called self-realisation, and from there to build a model. That would be more like the medieval period, which was the period where suddenly everything got very creative, where the meta-reality of the music would be consummated in a different kind of way. I think we are moving towards something that could be very interesting for humanity. If we are able to get through this existential period, back to a three dimensional period, then suddenly everything could be possible, because we have the people who can do it. And the ideas are now being put in place where people like Matthew Welch will start to build new formal categories, and it will go forward."
The metaphor of the theme park helps illuminate Braxton’s multi-dimensional conceptions. It perhaps makes most sense when applied to Sonic Genome, a six hour piece in which the music spreads cell-like through a space. I attended the Sonic Genome at Berlin Jazz Festival in 2019 and it was one of the most profoundly beautiful artistic experiences of my life. The evening began with Braxton conducting an orchestra in the atrium of the Gropius Bau, a grand Bizmarck era building and contemporary art space. The orchestra gradually broke off into sub-groups led by trusted collaborators such as James Fei, Kyoko Kitamura, Ingrid Laubrock, Alexander Hawkins and Jessica Pavone. As the evening progresses, these groups recombine in various ways, with the audience members, or "friendly experiencers", navigating the sound and space as they see fit. Braxton’s creation of an environment, and the way in which he devolves musical decisions from composer to performer to friendly experiencer, is genuinely radical.
Braxton reacts with delight when I tell him about my Sonic Genome experience. "I’m very glad that you were there to experience it, because it’s difficult to get the large projects performed. There, I was lucky to have people looking out for me, and I could not have been happier, because everyone took care of business. These are great artists who I have known and worked with for years now. And they were able to come and go right to the point of the matter, to demonstrate our three dimensional music that contained 12 different degrees of modelling. And it would be a living kind of music, that in the case of the Sonic Genome was a kind of preamble to having a real theme park, environmental experience, where the friendly experiencer can move to different degrees of our target reality or situations in a way that would be more encompassing, even, than the Sonic Genome."
"I would like to hope before leaving the planet, that it might be possible to get the operas documented," he reflects. "But it’s important to always consider scale. This is what I talk to my students about. The logic of scale affects the syntax on one level, if it’s solo, or if it’s chamber, that’s another level. And then very large projects can take the same logic and redistribute it in sensitive ways on that level. And so scale would be a factor that concerns me. I mean, how much more time do I have? No one knows, of course, how long they’re going to be on the planet. But I’ve built my work in a very deliberate kind of way. And I’d like to put the stones, quote unquote, in place before leaving the planet, so that the system can be understood. It’s not simply a haphazard model that cannot be demonstrated, or mechanics that cannot be talked about and transferred to composers or people who are interested.
"On every level, I’ve tried to define the three components of what I would come to call a Tri-Centric Thought Unit Construct that would demonstrate a philosophic system, a music system and a symbolic system of transposition. And so that information is documented although time is going by, and I’m fighting to catch up and complete things as best I can because I want this information to be out there. It represents, for me, a fresh approach for modelling, a fresh approach for foundational elements, and a fresh approach for re-imagining propositions. In other words, we are talking of a new DNA that is concerned with sonic geometry on the plane of density."
Anthony Braxton at work by Edu Hawkins
He goes on to discuss how the narrative logics, as represented in the Trillium opera works, demonstrate a set of balances so that the friendly experiencer can experience the music in the same way they might read a koan and apply it to their own situation. "I’m talking about Zen Buddhism," Braxton explains. "This approach has a real meaning for me, because it meant that every friendly experiencer can ask a question, or thought spectrum, and have a short story given to them. In the same way that when I go have Chinese food – which is my favourite – they always give you a fortune cookie. And I’ve always been very serious about that. I will take it home and I will open it when I’m looking for help and receive it that way.
"What I’ve tried to do with the philosophical system is to create a schematic, a paradigm based on the variables or propositions that I would recognise when I was writing the Tri-Axium Writings and create a stream of thoughts. And the friendly experiencer who wants to understand the system on the plane of poetics or intellectual so-called target focuses, has a schematic to look at that would give the logic of the string but not tell that person what to do. Because I’m not in a position where I could tell anybody what to do. I’m trying to learn about myself."
"[One of] the unique features of the Tri-Axium writings," he continues, "is learning from Christianity and the other religions and then learning from world culture, [which] would help me to have a more dimensional idea of transferal. The Trillium operas are demonstrating the same components, because each act is written from a logic stream from the Tri-Axium writings, so the Trillium operas are kind of like a walking, logical, unlogical, three dimensional realisation of that schematic. I feel that this has been a breakthrough for me, because I’m not looking for the answer.
"The model that I’m working with, is a system of becoming, not a system of arrival. And so with that poetic I see a direct connection to the creative tradition of the American musics starting from the early period. But even going back, I have nothing but a total connection to Western art music, to American music, and to world music. I taught at Wesleyan University for 29 years. Wesleyan has a World Music department. And as such I was able to study world music and to hear it for 29 years. And so the the model that I’m trying to build is a model that says, you have an origin identity, in this context being, ‘Oh, I’ll write a piece for four flutes’. You have a secondary identity, being, ‘Oh, I’ll take this material that was written for four flutes, and use it for 100 tubas.’ That is to say, it can be deconstructed and put to work in any way that serves the friendly experiencer. And finally, the genetic version, take two measures from ‘Composition 100’ embedded in ‘Composition 87’. Build a composition from different compositions. It’s kind of like Burger King," he chuckles, "Have it your way!"
If Sonic Genome or the Trillium operas represent the larger scale of Braxton’s system logic, then Zim is more of a chamber music. Braxton’s scores feature a combination notated material, graphic symbols and instructions – parameters in which the musicians can improvise, fold in elements of different compositions, or respond to Braxton’s conduction. Watching the Zim Ensemble at Cafe Oto in 2018, I was fascinated by how this complex, yet hugely generous and playful music might work. I tell Braxton about one particularly memorable sequence where he directed trumpeter Taylor Ho Bynum by forming a triangle with his hands, and then turning it 90 degrees. What was going on there?
"You can lock something in. And you can lock or unlock it. And then you can go back to whatever it was. You are referring to signals from the language music, foundational materials. Number one, continuous state. Number two, polarity state. Number three, ornamentation. Number four, a schematic. Number five, intervallic. Number six, sound mass logic. Number seven, short sounds, It goes all the way up to 12. That material can be in real time expression. We’re playing, now we move into intervallics. We can define intervallics in a more precise way, depending upon whether the musician wants to go into the real inner reality of how the mechanics are put together.
"But it’s kind of like cooking, you’re going to make a pizza. And then you’re going to put in these ingredients. And if the person who wants to buy a pizza wants to have cucumbers or whatever, you can put that in, you can design the materials. And you can design the foundational materials. All of that, in my system, starts with the symbol of the circle, mutable logics. Rectangles, stable logics. Triangle, transpositional logics. I’ve tried to build it like that in sets of three, which is why I call it Tri-Axium."
Another highlight was when the musicians took a page of the score and scrunched them into their instruments. Are moments like this scored?
"There is a movement system that’s connected to the Tri-Centric model. And the movement system has different movements for standing, for laying down, for being on a chair, or playing under the piano and this kind of thing. What you’re describing are actions or activities that can be intertwined within a movement system. You’re also describing the music instrument itself, suddenly being used as an object separate from the initial idea of the instrument. I was very fortunate to work with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music, and the AACM was a was and is still an organisation looking for creative music in different directions moving forward.
"Also, what you have described with putting music in the saxophone – the great work of John Cage. I’ve noticed that no one talks about John Cage anymore. But in fact, the great work of John Cage, the great work of Alvin Lucier, the great work of Pauline Oliveros, part of our responsibilities, in my opinion, is to help the younger people learn about who’s doing what, and what in particular has come from what. As far as I’m concerned the great work of Johann Sebastian Bach is still relevant, and still revolutionary. When I go back, I’m trying to study the early Egyptian musics. Great masters like Oum Kalthoum. We should never forget, or at least I should never forget, that music is as much a mystical discipline as a sonic discipline, or iconic discipline. And so this is why I feel like everything is possible as we continue to move forward."
Portrait by Peter Gannushkin
I ask Braxton about arranging for the Zim Ensemble, with its unusual combination of saxophone, trumpet, violin, cello, harp, tuba and accordion.
"I wanted with the early Zim Musics to create a special ensemble as far as timbre, using two harps, two brass, two saxophones, this kind of thing," he explains. "Later, of course, the Zim Music flies on its own and the friendly experiencer will determine whether they will have an origin experience with the material, or whether it will be incorporated into another system, or incorporated into another house. And by the word house, I’m saying the house encompasses the different parameters. For instance, continuous space, long sound, modal music like Gregorian chant, and then into Ghost Trance musics. I’m saying that this feature exists in all 12 houses. And so yes, I wanted as an origin vehicle to have a nice ensemble that is fresh compared to some of the other ensembles. And it would give me as a composer different things to work with."
Before each Zim performance, Braxton and the ensemble looked at a "flight plan". "There’s something like seven components in the notation going from traditional notation that is unplayable, all the way into drawings and colour used as a component," Braxton explains.
"And so at the flight plan talk, the music is put into an order. Then after that, we make a chart of cues so that everyone knows where we’re at. We will go through a series of of cues which are kind of like the canals the ship goes through. All of that is settled at the flight plan meeting. And then from there, we just look at cues, as we move through it together. Later, when the Zim Music is integrated into the composite musics, we can switch from that Zim composition into, say, Falling River Music. And suddenly a new set of possibilities related to the number three, as opposed to the number 11. I mean, I’m trying to explain this as a way of saying it’s different things that can be put together to create a logic and that logic could govern how a given performance will evolve, essentially, until all of those rules are smashed, because of the actual real time space."
"That is one of the features of American music that we are not always appreciative of," he continues. "That is to say we have built models that you can sing ‘Misty’ as a bossa nova. You can sing ‘Misty’ as a fast paced composition. You can sing ‘Misty’ as cha cha cha. That did not exist before the American story. And the American story would start to look at flex logics, even in the early period, in a way that was different. In fact, the music that we call jazz, is, in my opinion, the personification of one area of the great American musics in its use of harmony, in its use of pulse time, metric time, and flex logic times. And so I’m very proud of our great country, but I don’t mean to sell America. I just mean to say there’s a lot of criticism right now about America, and my point is only there are many things about America that are great. In fact, if we didn’t have something to criticise, that wouldn’t be healthy, because everything can be criticised. But America has demonstrated precision, evolution and dynamic spirituality even. I would say that."
Braxton’s love of American music is reflected in his standards projects, the latest of which is documented on the new boxset from Firehouse 12. I ask him if he sees these as a way of grounding himself in the tradition between his adventures into the unknown.
"The music I’ve been working on for almost 60 years is an affirmation of the tradition, not a rejection of the tradition," he replies. "Also, I have tried every decade to document something from the tradition because one, I really love the tradition. I love the compositions, I love harmonic logics. And plus, it gets me away from my own work, so I can be a part of the greater community of America. I guess what I’m saying is, I see myself as a professional student of music. This way, I can keep learning. And I can also, once a decade or sometimes two times a decade, jump out of my music and play some of the music that I like by composers like Andrew Hill, or Thelonious Monk, or my man, Dave Brubeck. I grew up with that music. So getting out of my music and going to play some of that music is also very good for the discography. Because I didn’t want to have a discography playing the same thing for 50 years, I wanted to keep it interesting. And then it’s fun because I’m learning from it while doing it at the same time."
In addition to the songbook standards and jazz classics, Braxton performs a number of Paul Simon tunes, including a Latin jazz ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ and a genuinely moving ‘Old Friends’. As a young man in the 1960s, Braxton grew up with Simon and Garfunkel, but this is the first time he’s performed their songs. "I have always loved their music and there’s so many other people who if there were time, I would try to explore their music too," he says, vibrating with excitement. "I still have hope of doing a large project of the great music of Duke Ellington, the great music of Charlie Mingus. And then we’ll do a Dave Brubeck record. I would like to do large 12 CD boxset on Scott Joplin’s music, or the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. I’m a Fanny Mendelssohn kind of guy!"
The latest Standards project came about when Braxton asked pianist Alexander Hawkins to put a band together. He chose two regular collaborators, bassist Neil Charles and drummer Stephen Davis.
"I had been told by friends of mine about the great Alex Hawkins. And it was an incredible opportunity to play with Alex, Neil and Stephen. These guys are super virtuoso musicians. They’re totally dedicated. They have their own voices. Alex has such a wonderful feeling and understanding of harmony. He is very profound in his music. I feel very blessed and fortunate to have had an experience of playing with these guys for nine days, three in Poland, three days in London and three in Austria."
These shows, where the band played for up to three hours a night, are documented on a 13 CD boxset. Braxton had originally envisioned an 18 CD set, but it wasn’t to be. "There were interpretations where yours truly, the saxophonist, made something like seven giant mistakes. This old dog is crumbling, crumbling!" he laughs. "So I have to throw away interpretations which did not pass the test. But in the end, a 13 record box set of standards is not bad. I’m very happy with this music and it will last me for at least ten years until we go for the next project. The repertoire is endless."
Anthony Braxton by Edu Hawkins
I ask Braxton about his process with the Standards Quartet. Did he come to them with a book of arrangements, or would he just call a tune and go for it? Was there much rehearsal?
"We had something like two days near Oxford, actually. We almost did 100 compositions a day. But I actually had come with a lot of music. And it was half of what I could bring, because I ran out of room in my bags. I actually had 300 compositions. I’m a complete nutcase when I do these kind of projects. But I travelled with 150 and then made a list each day and I put them in order. And we went and played them. I mean these guys, they don’t need to rehearse too much. They are just at that level. In fact, the old dog was struggling, trying to keep up with them! So there wasn’t that much rehearsal. In fact, the real action, of course, took place in the live performance. But it was just a pleasure to work with musicians who are so evolved technically, conceptually. It was an experience that I won’t forget, and that I am grateful for."
While Braxton’s approach is anything but conservative, he tends to play a tune relatively straight on the first pass. He and the band go on to interrogate the tune from multiple angles, but it’s done with great love and respect for the source material.
"Well, for me, I enjoy playing it straight," he responds, "but not too straight. And I enjoy the unknown, as long as it’s known. Once the music starts, you go with that. It was beautiful to be with guys who understood that. We start with a fixed proposition, we start with a set of tools. And we know how it works in the traditional set. But once we start to play it, suddenly different kinds of things will emerge. And everyone is looking for that surprise. In both of the ensembles, the Zim ensemble and the Standards Quartet, I have been fortunate to meet musicians who are sensitive, who are individual soloists with their own sound and their own way of doing things. And there is a real degree of respect for one another. So there wasn’t much for me to tell the Quartet outside of basic thoughts in terms of the order of the set.
"If one piece is a fast tempo, maybe bring in a waltz for the next piece to keep it fresh, and to not just have a pyrotechnical display, but rather to try different things out and enjoy it together. But once they started, we collectively would navigate through it. For me as the leader, part of my responsibility was to make sure that we had good balance. I want everyone to be heard, because everyone in the group deserved to be heard. And so I position solo spots, and different parts of a given set. And sometimes even that would change. But the idea was, I wanted just to have fun. And at the same time, I wanted a balanced music that had vibrational cohesion. And at the same time, be open for that target spot, surprise moment, and see what happens from there."
"I’m a lucky guy," Braxton continues, "Because my music has attracted people like yourself, to listen to. I understood, when I was a young guy, 16 to 17, there was no money in what I wanted to pursue. But in fact, there was another kind of money that I didn’t realise until much later, and that is the money coming from meeting people like yourself, or people from other ways of life, from different countries. And you discover how close you are, even though you grew up in a very different environment. I’ve run into so many people who have become part of my family, because it’s the same vibration. You have your biological family, you have your neighbourhood area space family, and then you have your vibrational family. That happens in the music as well. When you’re playing with people in your zone. There’s a lot of not talking that needs to be done. Because you don’t have to talk about it."
I tell Braxton that I love the idea of a vibrational family, and the way it’s led him to make perhaps unexpected connections with Wolf Eyes, or Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier, who was part of the New Haven Quartet with Taylor Ho Bynum and Nels Cline. It’s really beautiful how it all comes together.
"Well, I feel the same way. All praise to Wolf Eyes and all praise to the Quartet. In a way, I feel like a billionaire. We have the chance to play with these guys, and they felt like family immediately. The communication was immediate. We like to put down America in this period. But I’m telling you some of the best people I’ve ever met on this planet have been American, and they’re all over the place. And if you treat them with respect, they’ll treat you with respect and maybe raise the ante. Because there are a lot of positive parts in our country. And of course, there are positive parts wherever you go. But there is something that can be called American in the vibration that we have in our country. And I say I feel like I feel like I’ve been especially blessed by the Creator to have been born an American."
I bring things to a close by asking Braxton about growing up in Chicago in the 50s and 60s. It must have been pretty special with all jazz, blues and doo-wop around.
"Well, I grew up on 62nd and Michigan, right in the middle of the African American community. And so I could go for these walks and hear Benny Green and Sonny Stitt playing. My Uncle Willie was saying [in a raspy voice], ‘Anthony, you’re only listening to these white saxophone players, you need to spend more time with Stitt!’ I said, ‘Oh ok Uncle Willie!’ Muddy Waters, Bobby Blue Bland, everybody was there. And there was a radiance in the air. I’ll never forget playing in Boston, opposite Bobby Blue Bland. They were in one room. And we were on the other side in our room. Now you know those guys came to hear us. And my band we came to hear them. It was we were at a jazz workshop in Boston for something like a week. And I was blown away at how the blues musicians are, and were, always evolving a music that was actually as substantial technically and conceptually as the jazz guys or the folk guys. And so it was a it was something that helped to shape me."
"My hope was to continue learning about music and different kinds of music. And so growing up in Chicago was certainly something. I ran into [drummer] Thurman Barker, I think I was seven years old. And our mothers were in the Tulsa Oklahoma club. And so when I met Thurman, he was talking about Eddie Harris, and I was talking about Dave Brubeck. And then later I graduated in my first year in high school, and Henry Threadgill and I, we studied with the same teachers. And then Roscoe Mitchell who I would meet at Wilson Junior College. There were so many men and women who were doing things and evolving. Later, looking back at that time space, I would discover actually, what happened to three fourths of the women? And it would only be later where I would begin to understand that there was something called sexism. I didn’t even realise what was happening. Many of the guys survived it, only a handful of women. Great masters like Renee Baker, like Amina Claudine Myers. Amina Claudine Myers is off the charts. That’s how great she is. And my hope is to document some music with this great master. We’ve all known each other for a long while now. What a life!"
12 Comp (Zim) 2017 is out now on Firehouse 12; Quartet (Standards) 2020 is out on June 18 on Tri-Centic Foundation/New Braxton House Records
