| Contents |
Foreword -- Astro black mythology. Magic was my name ; Doors of the cosmos ; House of light ; 'I like all the sounds that upset people'/Goodbye to America/Compulsory tuxedos/Keeping the creators down/'Beauty is necessary for survival' ; Astro black -- Road. Tuesday 12, London ; Wednesday 13, London -- Metaroad. Sweet home Chicago: factories of death ; Biography 1, 1945-69 ; Black and poor in America/Frankie Lymon, James Brown, live at the Regal/Philosophy, Piano Piece 1/Racism in the army, Korea/The AACM, multi-instrumentalism/Sound tools, Live dump truck, environment strolls/For Alto, a syntax for solo saxophone/Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, Leo Smith/Dying in Chicago -- Road. Thursday 14, Newcastle -- Metaroad. Foreground music 1 ; Paul Desmond ; 'Only the essence remained'/The tightrope of 'it' ; Masters/Charlie Parker ; Talking of the upper partials/The post-Parker continuum/'Black exotica' ; The concept of African inferiority/Eric Dolphy ; Bebop to extremes/Jackie McLean, Roy Haynes, Jimmy Giuffre/Ornette Coleman ; Reaffirming the African composer -- Road. Friday 15, Manchester -- Metaroad. Biography 2, 1969-74. 'People were throwing rocks at us'/Chess hustler ; A lost generation/Living with Ornette/Circle ; Scientology/Titles ; A crack in the universe/chess ; 'A world of forces'/'Swing' ; The little box of 'jazz'/African intellectual dynamics ; The black Spaniard of Bonn/Stuck in LA, damned to hell in Downbeat, Paris/IRCAM: 'Business as usual' -- Road. Saturday 16, Manchester -- Metaroad. Foreground music 2. The unsung mastery of Warne Marsh ; Gravillic contours/Capablanca's line/The European mystic lineage/John Coltrane ; A new level of sound wonder ; 'Sit in with God!'/Attacked with an umbrella ; Spiritual power/Cecil Taylor, a Genius genius/The tenth floor ; 'Invisible things' -- Road. Sunday 17, Birmingham -- Quartet. Mark Dresser, bass -- Road. Monday 18, Liverpool -- Metaroad. Biography 3, 1974-85 ; The European improvisers/The Arista period ; 'Under the rug'/Notated music ; 'You take what you can get'/Record companies ; 'Aarrgghh!!!'/Four billion projects/In the tradition, the Inflexible group, Valium/Taking the lumps/A fortunate struggle/'Keep away from musicians'/The heat of logs ; In the basement -- Road. Tuesday 19, Sheffield -- Metaroad. Foreground music 3 ; 'The history of music evolution is not the history of nice guys'/'I see my music as a three-dimensional painting'/'Of course I'm crazy' ; Go to the ancients/Sun Ra ; The world of abstract consciousness/Why music is serious ; On and off the planet -- Road. Wednesday 20, Leicester -- Metaroad. Sound logic, sound magic 1: Musical evolution ; Restructuralism, stylism, traditionalism/Balancing the tri-vibrational dynamics/'I?ve always played the blues'/Conceptual grafting/Coding, co-ordinate and schematic musics/Ritual & ceremonial musics/'From the abstract to the concrete'/Structural criteria/Territories ; The vibrational liquid of improvisation -- Road. Thursday 21, Bristol -- Quartet. Marilyn Crispell, piano -- Road. Friday 22, Southampton -- Metaroad. Sound logic, sound magic 2: Pulse tracks, collage forms, multi-orchestralism ; 23G, 'Sound attacks', vertical and horizontal formings/116, a synchronist pulse track structure/Accordion sound space ; Diamond sound space/The solar system of pulse tracks ; Multiple logic musics/Opposition and collage forms ; Vibrational clash/Sound mass particles, environments/82: 'Like a city' ; Planet level musics/A music to heal deserts/Falling behind schedule/Higher thoughts ; A music to play God -- Road. Saturday 23, Leeds -- Metaroad. Sound logic, sound magic 3: Titles, colours, shapes ; Let 'A' equal curve line/Encoding ; 'The title will do its own job'/A reality of fundamentals/'Think a thought that will affect the planet'/Opus numbers/The emotional zone of red/The lost sign of the zodiac ; Negative energies/The difference between talk and talk -- Road. Sunday 24, Leeds -- Metaroad. Sound logic, sound magic 4: the metaphysics of structure ; Affinity insight ; What structure is/Bopbe/Inventing the wheel 500 times/Going to see the chicken fight/The theory of the isolated pawn ; Saved by unlogic!/Develop into a rock/Where thinking is a dirty word/Emotional zones ; 'I never meant become an android'/Freedom ; 'Now I can kill you'/Transformation and ritual/Endgame -- Road. Monday 25, Huddersfield -- Quartet. Gerry Hemingway, percussion -- Road. 1983, Belgrade/Venice -- Metaroad. Coda ; The quartet/George Lewis ; Mr Rzewski & Mr Teitelbaum/The political option dynamics for women/'Masters' ; The sexist bias of language/African-American intellectuals ; The left/'Put the mystics in charge'/How to live?/Everything is a vibration ; Forces at work!/Multi-dimensional language ; Choo choo trains -- Road. Tuesday 26, Coventry ; Wednesday 27, London ; Thursday 28, London -- Postscript 1. Celestial harmonies: a note on music, mysticism, ancient Egypt and world culture -- Postscript 2. 'In the light of the greater forces': a note on Tri-axium Writings -- Postscript 3. Lecture notes: i) Language music ; ii) Repetition and structural generation ; iii) Spatial distance and alternative structural models -- Catalogue of works, 1966-86 -- Discography. i) Anthony Braxton ; ii) Marilyn Crispell, Mark Dresser, Gerry Hemingway ; iii) Other artists. |
| Abstract |
Born in Chicago in 1945, the composer and multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton is among the most controversial figures in modern music. From an early piece for 100 tubas to his planned compositions for orchestras on different planets, Braxton's boundaries imagination has constantly broken through critical definitions of "jazz." This book, which resulted from a tour of England in 1985, features Braxton's thoughts on music history--Ellington, Coltrane, Parker--as well as the never-ending questions of racism and poverty. On one level a fascinating X-ray into the mind of a musical visionary, this is also a very funny account of a group on tour. Braxton talks about chess, hamburgers, astrology, feminism, Chick Corea, Egypt, and acid rain. Most of all this is a book about what it means to dedicate your life to creative music--the rewards, frustrations, and the reasons these players, black and white, men and women, continue to push themselves and the music toward uncharted territory. |
