https://discusmusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-locals-play-the-music-of-anthony-braxton-103cd-2021
Hello, all. Wanted to hear your thoughts on who is perhaps the most controversial figure in the history of jazz, Anthony Braxton
https://preview.redd.it/57n028d1dxs71.jpg?width=164&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9deb4ff018da47a53cfffcdc51f658daa0510be9
This one got by me, though I try to keep up with Braxtonia. I thought it was just a video companion to the Six Compositions (GTM) 2001 4cd box on the same label (Rastascan). True, the 2001/2003 thing should have been a giveaway. It is in fact entirely different, and not video at all, but audio plus screen shots. The music is mid-period of Braxton's Ghost Trance Music:
>The Ghost Trance Music compositional series comprises approximately 150 pieces written from 1995–2006. The central thread in a GTM composition is a ceaseless "primary melody", which Braxton describes as "a melody that never ends". This line of music, which may extend for 80 pages or more, is written to be played in unison by any performer who wishes to participate in the "ritual circle dance". Musicians are also able to move in and out of the primary melody, with notes marked by a shape—a circle, triangle, or square—signaling opportunities to move to a different composition, or mode of composing, in the system. The Ghost Trance Music works went through four phases over the eleven years of their composition, with each phase considered a different "species" of GTM. (wiki)
Here is one of the pieces - 1:26:31, with 13 players (I think).
The performances range from 7-86 mins, trios to 13tets. On a DVD disc, which is unusual for a music-only release - and probably restricts the market for it. Which might be why it is out of print and hard to find. I could only find one for sale - on discogs. Cheap, considering. Curiously a different label recently released an 11hr Braxton $80 Blu-ray disc of similar configuration. Maybe it's a Braxton quirk.
Not for everyone, but a substantial piece of the Braxton puzzle - and essential for the Ghost Trance Music fan.
Braxton is slowly but surely becoming one of my favorite composers ever in jazz, but most of the time his ideologies go right over my head lol. I’m willing to further understand Braxton as a musician because he is truly one of the most intelligent minds to have ever crossed the genre
Check out Brian Kiwanuka's review of Thumbscrew (Mary Halvorson, Toma Fujiwara and Michael Formanek)'s newest album "The Anthony Braxton Project" before it is out this Friday, 7/24 on Cuneiform Records.
