Anthony Braxton Live

With only fourteen posts last year and none so far this year, due mainly to less available time, the format here is switching to fewer words, but still promoting and highlighting inspiring music that others may enjoy.  So, we'll see how this goes.

This live recording from a 1970s stint on Bluebird Records, an imprint of the major Arista label, and produced by Michael Cuscuna with Steve Backer as executive producer, is a phenomenal effort.

It hightlights some of Braxton's finest early compositions, including combinations (Braxton often does this--mingles elements of compositions) of numbers 6, 23 and 40, performed by his quartet at the Montreux Jazz Festival in July 1975 and at the Berlin Jazz Days festival in September 1976.  The tour de force rhythm section at both concerts are the formidable Dave Holland on bass and Barry Altschul on drums.  Trumpeter Kenny Wheeler is the other horn player at Montreux with trombonist George Lewis at Berlin.  Braxton wields his alto, as well as soprano, clarinet and contrabass clarinet at both shows and the flute at the latter.

As Cuscuna observed in his brief liners, Braxton, Holland and Altschul were part of the brilliant, though short-lived group Circle, led by Chick Corea, and then Wheeler joined with the other three for some recordings in 1971 and future dates over the following years.  Montreux was a highlight of the band before it disbanded because, Cuscuna says, Braxton was looking for a change.

For his amazing Creative Orchestra Music from 1976, Braxton brought in Lewis and resulting performances constituted, for Cuscuna, pure magic including the last piece on this disc, which the producer reckoned  as "one of the pinnacles of collective jazz playing."

This disc is full of fantastic ensemble and solo work, as well as some of Braxton's most interesting compositions.  He's had a long career filled with many highlights, but these live performances are among the greatest this admirer has heard.