He'll perform in a duo with harpist Jacqueline Kerrod, and then is scheduled to give a post-concert talk after the performance.
Though this will be his first gig ever in St. Louis (!), Braxton has been a major figure in creative music for the past half-century, first gaining wide attention for his groundbreaking 1969 solo recording For Alto and subsequent membership in the short-lived band Circle (with Chick Corea, Dave Holland, and Barry Altschul).
From there, he's gone on to create a huge catalog of music - literally hundreds of hours of recordings - ranging from free improvisations to distinctive, sometimes-skewed interpretations of jazz and popular standards, as well as hundreds of original works . Some have titles resembling math equations or cubist drawings (these days, to the relief of music journalists, he mostly just numbers them) and more recently, he's taken to writing music derived from highly specific compositional systems with names like Diamond Curtain Wall, Ghost Trance Music, and ZIM.
Given the range of Braxton's work and the length of his career, it's impossible even to begin to cover it all in a single blog post; indeed, it seems likely that his music will be the subject of considerable academic study in the future.
What we can do, though, is help you at least get acquainted with his music, starting with a couple of clips from early in his career, when he was still leading a band that at least superficially resembled a small jazz combo, followed by some performances from the past decade using some of the ideas he's developed for the 21st century.
The first clip up above shows Braxton with the first band he put together after the demise of Circle (because Corea had gone off to form Return to Forever). It included trumpeter Kenny Wheeler plus Holland on bass and Altschul on drums. Here, they're playing Braxton's "Composition 40M," as recorded in July 1975 at the Montreux Jazz Festival.
After the jump, you can see Braxton offering his take on Coltrane's "Impressions," recorded in 1981 at the Woodstock Jazz Festival with Miroslav Vitous on bass, Corea on piano and Jack DeJohnette on drums.
Fast-forward to July 2008 for the third video, which features Braxton's Ghost Trance Septet performing his "Composition 348" at the San Sebastian Jazz Festival in Spain. The leader/composer is on various reeds, along with Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet, flugelhorn), Jessica Pavone (viola), Chris Dahlgren (bass, cello), Aaron Siegel (drums, percussion, vibes), Mary Halvorson (guitar), and Jay Rozen (tuba).
Next up is a a recording of the Braxton's 12+1Tet, made on October 13, 2012 at the Festival Internazionale di Musica Contemporanea in Venice, Italy. The piece is called "Composition 355," and it features Braxton, Bynum, Pavone, Halvorson, Rozen and Siegel, plus Ingrid Laubrock (alto sax, tenor sax), Andrew Raffo Dewar (soprano sax, tenor sax, clarinet), James Fei (alto sax, soprano sax, sopranino sax), Sarah Schoenbeck (bassoon, shenai), Reut Regev (trombone), Erica Dicker (violin, baritone violin), and Carl Testa (bass, bass clarinet).
That's followed by a set of just Braxton, Halvorson and Bynum, aka the Diamond Curtain Wall Trio, recorded in January 2015 at Jazzhouse in Copenhagen, Denmark, and one from Braxton's ZIM Sextet, featuring many of the same musicians mentioned above, recorded in 2017 at the Moers Festival in Germany.
The final video is a nearly hour-long interview with Braxton, done in 2013 by percussionist Gerry Hemingway, who toured and recorded with Braxton in the 1980s and 90s.
This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features the much-anticipated local debut of the iconic saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and conceptualist Anthony Braxton, plus some superlative mainstream jazz piano from an NEA Jazz Master, new music from an adventurous, genre-busting guitarist, and more.
Let's go to the highlights...
Wednesday, October 3
Pianist Kenny Barron(pictured, top left) and his trio will perform for the first of five nights at Jazz St. Louis.
Barron, named an NEA Jazz Master in 2010, has played with many jazz greats over the last 50+ years, and also is known as a premiere interpreter of the music of Thelonious Monk, thanks in large part to his membership in the group Sphere in the 1980s and 90s. You can see some samples of more recent performances by Barron, with his trio and playing solo, in this post from last Saturday.
Thursday, October 4
The Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University will present a free concert of "Early Jazz & Blues - Music of the St. Louis Riverboats" as performed by an ensemble including trumpeter Randy Holmes, guitarist William Lenihan, trombonist Wayne Coniglio, saxophonist Paul DeMarinis, drummer Steve Davis, pianist Ken Kehner, and bassist Paul Steinbeck.
Then on Saturday night, guitarist Brandon Seabrook brings his new trio to the Schlafly Tap Room, with locals Pat Sajak Assassins and Apathist opening the show.
Seabrook (pictured, center left) explicitly incorporates metal and punk influences into his improvisations, sounding quite unlike most traditional conceptions of "jazz guitar."
Later on Sunday, drummer Montez Coleman's "Jazz All-Stars" will team up with the Coleman Hughes Project for two performances of the "Music of Grover Washington & Phyllis Hyman" at .ZACK in Grand Center.
Monday, October 8 New Music Circle presents the St. Louis debut of multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton, who will be performing with harpist Jacqueline Kerrod at St. Louis University's Xavier Hall.
It's a little hard to believe that Braxton (pictured, bottom left), who's traveled around the world playing music many times over the last 50 years, has never done a gig here before, even in the late-1960s heyday of the Black Artists Group. But according to NMC, StLJN's own research, and a consultation with St. Louis jazz historian Dennis Owsley, that seems to be the case.
Still, better late than never, and on Monday, the St. Louis audience finally will get a chance to hear in person one of the most talked-about (and often, argued-about) composers, improvisors and thinkers in contemporary music. StLJN will have more on Braxton in this week's Saturday video post...
For more jazz-related events in and around St. Louis, please visit the St. Louis Jazz Notes Calendar, which can be found on the left sidebar of the site or by clicking here. You also can keep up with all the latest news by following St. Louis Jazz Notes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/StLJazzNotes or clicking the "Like" icon on the StLJN Facebook page.
(If you have calendar items, band schedule information, news tips, links, or anything else you think may be of interest to StLJN's readers, please email the information to stljazznotes (at) yahoo (dot) com. If you have photos, MP3s or other digital files, please send links, not attachments.)
