In The Tradition, Volume 2
Anthony Braxton
In The Tradition
“he has shown for good that he can play his ass off in any context…” The Soho Weekly News
From 1976 featuring Albert “Tootie” Heath (drums); Tete Montoliu (piano); Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen (bass); Anthony Braxton (alto sax, contra bass clarinet)
Braxton and Co. rip through a bevy of jazz standards including “Body and Soul” and “My Funny Valentine” yet people like Wynton Marsalis don’t think Braxton plays jazz. Here’s Braxton on the Marsalis view – “This group in effect would say this. African American culture starts at New Orleans and ends at 1963 and restarts again at 1980 and goes forth and from 1960 to 1980, this is not jazz, this is not black, it is anti jazz (laughter).” from A Conversation with Anthony Braxton
And “You buy the Sunday New York Times, and wow, they have an article on some guy who just got out of prison who can say “motherfucker” in four different variations who is set to get millions of dollars, but there’s not one serious article on Cecil Taylor or Bill Dixon! I came up in a generation of young men and women who wanted to change the world, who wanted to go out and fight and build up the world, to reconnect with composite humanity.” Interview with Anthony Braxton by Ted Panken
Braxton’s tradition is clearly not for the revisionist traditionalist. I first heard the first track from Side Two of this record at a Monkeyhaus event when I believe Mike Quinn made a special request for it. John obliged (of course he had it) and we got to hear Braxton play his ass off through that wicked contrabass clarinet on Charlie Parker’s “Donna Lee” and the sound was startling and lovely. Like being punched with over-sized boxing gloves.
And I thought, “I need that record”. Less than a week later I came across it in the New Arrivals bin at PREX obviously waiting there just for me.
on December 21st, 2010 at 11:55 am
Hmmm… your search showed a few earlier and two of themn are gone suddenly. I wonder whom could have bought volume 1 and 2 on Ebay this morning…
on December 21st, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Didn’t I play volume 1 at the last Monkeyhaus..? A request by Mike Quinn.
on December 21st, 2010 at 1:59 pm
You very well may have. But I heard Volume 2 ;-)
on December 21st, 2010 at 9:44 pm
PREX is at the end of your rainbow, that’s for sure. Amazing.
on December 22nd, 2010 at 9:06 am
It’s not a place you can get to by a boat or a train. It’s far, far away. Behind the moon, beyond the rain…
on December 22nd, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Oh, it’s get-able. But from my house, it’s very far away, it takes about half a day, to get there, if we travel by my a . . . . . dragonfly
on December 22nd, 2010 at 6:25 pm
wow, I would love to hear Albert Heath with Braxton, kind of opposite poles…