Anthony Braxton News From The 70s

The sheer paced ferocity white-knuckle ride of the closing Dave Holland-penned Four winds is a scary musical moment. The preceding 5 Braxton compositions are excellent too, varying from solo introspection to full-on group interplay, but each of these invaluable cuts rescued from a box in Braxton's basement are priceless insights in to the avant genius' playing at the cusp of his rise to fame in the mid-70s, collaborating on-and-off with a long-term quartet involving Altschul, Holland, and either Wheeler (superb here) or Lewis. Here we get one of each and Duhamel and Mechali on another. In contrast to the free movement who were moving away from Western musical forms (Russell's Concept and Coleman's Harmolodics), Braxton's jazz alienated some by seeming to embrace late 20th century classical music, but in letting themselves do so they denied themselves this wonderfully sophisticated and idea-driven music. We can only dream what else may be lurking in Braxton's basement.