Anthony Braxton Project

This is a collaborative attempt to document all Anthony Braxton appearances, whether recorded or not. Comments, additions, corrections via email to braxtonproject at yahoo.com

Please visit the official Anthony Braxton website


Anthony Braxton is widely and critically acclaimed as a seminal figure in the music of the late 20th and early 21st century. His work, both as saxophonist and composer, has broken new conceptual and technical ground in the trans-African and trans-European (a.k.a. "jazz" and "American Experimental") musical traditions in North America; traditions defined by master improvisers such as Warne Marsh, John Coltrane, Paul Desmond, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, and Braxton and his own peers in the historic Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians; and by American composers such as Charles Ives, Harry Partch, and John Cage. Braxton has developed a unique and personal musical language through a synthesis of those American traditions with 20th-century European art music as defined by Schoenberg, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Varese and others. Braxton’s extensions of instrumental technique, timbre, meter and rhythm, voicing and ensemble make-up, harmony and melody, and improvisation and notation have revolutionized modern American music.

Braxton's five decades worth of recorded output is kaleidoscopic and prolific, with well over 150 recordings to his credit. He has won and continues to win prestigious awards and critical praise, including the MacArthur “genius grant” Fellowship. Books, anthology chapters, scholarly studies, reviews and interviews and other media and academic attention to him and his work have also accumulated steadily and increasingly throughout the years. His own self-published writings about the musical traditions from which he works and their historical and cultural contexts (Tri-Axium Writings 1-3) and his five-volume Composition Notes A-E are unparalleled by artists from the oral and unmatched by those in the literate tradition.

Braxton is a tenured professor at Wesleyan University, one of the world's centers of world music. His teaching career began at Mills College in Oakland, California, and has become as much a part of his creative life as his own work. It includes training and leading performance ensembles and private tutorials in his own music, computer and electronic music, and history courses in the music of his major musical influences, from the Western Medieval composer Hildegard von Bingen to contemporary masters like Cage and Coleman.

Braxton's name continues to stand for the broadest integration of oft-conflicting poles in the current cultural debates about the nature and place of the Western and African-American musical traditions in America, poles such as “creative freedom” and “responsibility”, discipline and energy, and vision of the future and respect for tradition. The music of his newest ensembles brings to that debate a voice that is fresh and strong, still as creative as ever even as it takes on the authority of a seasoned master. 2005 was a watershed year, as Braxton celebrated his 60th birthday and the AACM celebrated its 40th anniversary, and in performances throughout the world, Braxton was again recognized as one of the preeminent figures in contemporary creative music.

While this is the most comprehensive and accurate chronology of Anthony Braxton ever produced, there still may be omissions and errors. Please help if you can.

This project results from the collective efforts of the Anthony Braxton Project, coordinated by Jonathan Piper.

Photo courtesy Jason Guthartz.

Thanks to contributors:

David Beardsley, Kirby Bell, Bart Borgmans, Tom Bowden, Frank Büchmann-Møller, Jean-Philippe Burg, Jan Carlsson, Bhreandain Clugston, Marilyn Crispell, Andrew Raffo Dewar, Andreas Dietz, William Fielder, Michael Fitzgerald, Kevin Frenette, Franz Fuchs, Jason Guthartz, Patrick Herwarth, Timo Hoyer, Larry Kart, Bob Lambert, Dirk de Leeuw, George Lewis, John Litweiler, Alberto Lofoco, Rick Lopez, Ronald Lyles, Terry Martin, Francesco Martinelli, Martin Milgrim, Chuck Nessa, Agustín Pérez, Patrick Pohlmann, Michael Rosenstein, Henning Schenck, John Sharpe, Damon Short, Leo Smith, Jens Tilsner, Jeroen de Valk, Uwe Weiler, David Wight, Nils Winther, Russell Woessner

and Anthony Braxton.

Sources:

Walter Bruyninckx: 85 Years of Recorded Jazz
Safford Chamberlain: An Unsung Cat, Lanham, MD, Scarecrow Press, 2001.
Michael Cuscuna & Michel Ruppli: The Blue Note Label, Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 2001.
John Gray: Fire Music: A Bibliography of the New Jazz, 1959-1990, Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 1991.
Graham Lock: Forces In Motion, New York, Da Capo Press, 1988. (GL)
Tom Lord: The Jazz Discography, v. 5.0 2004, v. 6.0 2005, Lord Music (Lord CDROM)
Francesco Martinelli: Anthony Braxton - A Discography, Bandecchi e Vivaldi, Pontedera, Italy, 2000. (FM)
Erik Raben: Jazz Records, 1942-1980,
Ronald M. Radano: New Musical Figurations: Anthony Braxton's Cultural Critique, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Michel Ruppli: The Atlantic Label, Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, .
Hans Wachtmeister: A Discography & Bibliography Of Anthony Braxton, Stocksund, Sweden, Blue Anchor, 1982. (HW)
Peter Niklas Wilson: Anthony Braxton

Cadence (Cad)
The Chicago Defender
The Chicago Tribune (CT)
Coda
Down Beat (db)
Elyria Chronicle-Telegram
Jazz & Pop (J&P)
Jazz Journal (JJ)
The Los Angeles Times (LAT)
The New York Times (NYT)
Oakland Tribune
The Washington Post (WP)
Wire

All-Music Guide
Anthony Braxton Discography by Jason Guthartz
The Chicago Jazz Archive at the University of Chicago
Moers Festival
Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies
U.S. Library of Congress

This chronology was produced using BRIAN, a computer discography database program created by Steve Albin. BRIAN is a significant step in the field of jazz research and holds much potential. I encourage discographers to investigate this program. Steve has been incredibly helpful in terms of technical support and in custom-tailoring this program.