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23/7/2006
Dr. Braxton tearing it up with the behemoth instrument, the contra bas saxophon....some live dates for 2006, past and upcoming:
April 29 - Anthony Braxton Trio - Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music - Dublin (Irland)
http://www.sonorities.org.uk
May 12 - Anthony Braxton - Richard Teitelbaum - Angelica Festival - Bologna (Italy)
http://www.aaa-angelica.com
May 14-16 - Rehersal-Workshop for Opera Trillium E - Siena Jazz - Siena (Italy)
http://www.sienajazz.it
June 4 - Anthony Braxton' 100 Tuba Piece - Bang-on-a-Can Marathon - New York City (USA)
Composition # 19 for 100 Tubas - World Financial Center Wintergarden Hall - World Premiere
http://www.bangonacan.org
June 10 - Anthony Braxton' Ensemble Braxtonia - Kerava Jazz Festival (Finland)
http://personal.inet.fi/yhdistys/keravajazz
June 12 - Anthony Braxton' Ensemble Braxtonia - Radio Recording (Finland)
July ?? - Anthony Braxton Sextet - Equator Festival - Singapore (Singapore) tbc
http://www.lasallesia.edu.sg
July ??-?? - Workshop - Equator Festival - Singapore (Singapore) tbc
http://www.lasallesia.edu.sg
August 12 - Anthony Braxton Twelvetet - Gulbenkian Foundation - Jezz em Agosto - Lisboa (Portugal)
http://www.gulbenkian.pt
October - Anthony Braxton - Charlie Kohlhase - Longy School of Music - Cambridge (USA) tbc
http://www.gulbenkian.pt
November 10-12 or 17-19 - Rehersal-Workshop for Opera Trillium E - Siena Jazz - Siena (Italy)
http://www.sienajazz.it
Dicembre 1 - Anthony Braxton Trio - Audio Culture - Rotterdam (Holland)
http://www.lantaren-venster.nl
23/7/2006
Hips Road Edition - Score publisher for John Zorn...all his notated stuff available buy and for rental, but you can also view the scores here and check out mp3s...even for unreleased stuff....I wonder what Evocation of a Neophyte and How the Secrets of the Black Arts were Revealed unto Her by the Demon Baphomet will sound like, Check it out:
www.hipsroadedition.com
23/7/2006
www.ultraeczema.com
23/7/2006
28/6/2006
23/7/2006
Anthony Braxton - 8 composition 2001
Anthony Braxton (alto, soprano & sopranino saxes, clarinet, B-flat clarinet, contrabass clarinet, flute) with Richard A. McGhee III (soprano & tenor sax, flute); Abubakar Alvin Benjamin Carter Sr. (percussion), Babafemi Alvin Benjamin Carter Jr. (percussion), Sipho Robert Bellinger (percussion) Two reeds and three African percussionists on nine original Braxton compositions. It is a challenging format and a synthesis of much of Anthony Braxton's artistic personality of the past 30 years. Challenging and rewarding listening. Recorded March 12 & 13, 2001.
28/6/2006
Photo: Sebastian Ludvigsen
23/7/2006
OCRILIM - Anoint (I & Ear 08; USA)
Mick Barr is the Webern of shred guitar. This is a solo album of multitracked electric guitar without the drumkit or drum machine component of his work in Orthrelm, Octis, Flying Luttenbachers, etc. At first blush, a lot of people might dismiss this as a cold, heartless shred wank, even Orthrelm fans who might lament the more conventional and toned-down feeling of this material that precludes the transcendence-through-extremes effect of the celebrated and groundbreaking Barr/Blair collaboration. In my opinion, however, this is a cold, heartless shred opus rich with fresh ideas that demand careful multiple listens. What's important here is that Barr sidesteps expressive cliches while tackling the dangerous territory of pitch relationships (melody, harmony) and narrative more explicitly than in Orthrelm. On the surface it's very similar to Buckethead at his anti-sentimental best, and to a lesser extent experimental shredders like Ron Jarzombek (Spastic Ink), Joe Bochar/Joboj, Ron Thal/Bumblefoot, etc, but closer listening reveals a deeply unique set of concepts including Ov-style extreme repetition, high-velocities-as-texture, massively delayed thematic reprisals, narrowly restricted timbres, etc. The clean, even, perpetual-motion feeling of the music is breathtaking. While the appeal of this music is even more esoteric than Orthrelm, it's the work of a genius devoted to his chosen medium with utter sincerity, bewildering virtuosity, and peerless ingenuity. - Michael Anton Parker
28/6/2006
Municipal Waste - Aug. 12 - Arthouse - Melbourne, AUS
Im so fukkin there!!!
www.facethewaste.com
27/6/2006
Bjarne Melgaard in Trondheim:
www.7011.biz
27/6/2006
RIP Harriet 1830 - 2006
SYDNEY (AFP) - A 176-year-old giant tortoise believed to have been studied by famed English naturalist Charles Darwin, has died in Australia after a short illness.
The extremely elderly tortoise, Harriet, was hatched on the Galapagos Islands in 1830 but lived out her final years at Australia Zoo in southeast Queensland where she was the star attraction. Senior veterinarian John Hangar said the 150-kilogram (330-pound) reptile died on Thursday night after a short illness. "She had been sick yesterday with, in effect, heart failure," Hangar told ABC radio. "She had a fairly acute heart attack and thankfully passed away quietly overnight." Hangar said Harriet, who had made it into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's oldest living animal, had been credited with helping Darwin pioneer his theory of evolution. "It's thought she may have been taken off there (Galapagos) by Charles Darwin," he said. "She's spent a period of time in Britain and found herself at the Botanic Gardens in Brisbane from about 1850 or 1860 onwards and eventually she found her way up to Australia Zoo." Harriet was originally named Harry, as she was mistakenly identified as male, an error which was not rectified for more than a century.
25/6/2006
Metal is the Fuckin Law........
Keep is Sick Fast and Heavy.....Thrash Till Death......
Louder Than Fuckin Hell.........
25/6/2006
Toxic Holocaust after theire gig at CBGB, Mars 2006
24/6/2006
I pinched this text from the Yahoo Anthony Braxton discussion group.....I think its relevant cause it gives a clear description of what Ghost Trance music ”is”. Its also a good story about a good time….nothing wrong with that, read hear:
Hi all! After recovering a bit from the 7000 km drive, 40 °C in Lisbon, our creditc crads & driving lisences being stolen and all the things to take in, here´s my brief recollection of Braxton´s appearance at the Gulbenkian Jazz em Agosto festival... My friend and i arrived in Lisbon (most chaotic trafiic i´ve ever been in, wilder than South American cities!) on the day of the concert, we were camping outside the city at the Atlantic coast. We regretted missing Leroy Jenkins solo performance that day, but time was short and we didn´t want to drive all the way *just* for the concert and wanted to see the city a bit. The Gulbenkian Foundation is a huge art collection (museum + modern art centre) within a park, that includes also auditoriums, lecture halls and an amphitheatre. (Think Leroy jenkins ensemble played there a few days later). All donated by oil millionair Calouste Gulbenkian. The really cool thing was, we could park our car (full with our belongings) right outside the museum on a free, guarded parking lot, all day :) There were lots of posters for the festival, on which Braxton was announced with the "Ghosty Trance Ensemble" :) So, after strolling through town all day, we arrived on the parking lot with some food and water, just in time to see Mr. Jenkins leave, chased by some journalists.Ca. 9 pm, half an hour before the Braxton concert sudenly *hundrets* of people were flooding the art center! All kinds of folks, "normal" looking ones, long-haired folks like us who carried bags of necessitie4s around with them. and dressed up people in suits & long dresses. very mixed. i went in to have a look around and despite all the guards outside found some Americans who lay barefeet on sofas right among the pictures reading and nobody was offended at all. We went in and found our great 3rd row center seats. The hall was ca. 4/5 full, i´d say. The concert started in time at 9.30 pm and was just amazing. If anybody considered the Ghost Trance Musics monotonous or repetitive, that period is past.After playing the theme - very complex, with sudden pulse doublings and even quadruplings, and also with a spot where everybody plays a "random" note for a given amount of time - the ensemble quickly dissolved into ever-changing groups, mostly, but not always led by Braxton, James Fei, Jackson Moore and another ensemble member. Of course all the musiciand were excellent and watching their communication was enlightening and funny. They exchanged hand-signals or even discussed what to play next. At one point, James Fei picked something up from the floor and held it at Braxton who started to laugh really hard (while playing...). i think it was a clock (maybe telling them how much time they had left). The music went from very intense to extremely beautiful, included everything from soloing to complete ensemble interaction. The whole composition 224 lasted 90 minutes and they returned to the theme one time around the 60 min mark (and for the closing of the piece). Bill Shoemaker said he identified Fei and Seth Dellinger (bass) playing No. 40 O somewhere in there. Myself i noticed Fei playing No. 23 C - because we´d listened to Quartet (Santa Cruz) 1993 on the way there... All in all, there was not one uninteresting moment in the music and i never felt like it left me behind intellectually. Could have gone on for another 90 min as far as i´m concerned :) When it was over, ca. 1/3 of the audience nearly *ran* out of the hall without clapping. These obviously had waited for the setbreak... oh well.
The rest of us gave standing ovations for quite a while. Afterwards, there were food and drink served outside (heh?). was that why some folks so rushed out...? The msuicians (except Braxton) also lingered, think many met freinds there. i overheard Kevin Norton tell some people who had gathered around him that it was all recorded (thank god :) We met some guy from Austria who´d also traveled all the way for the festival (not just Braxton), hoping to finance his expenses by writing about it for his local jazz paper. We delivered him to his campground next to the city highway. Braxton also held a free lecture about Ghost Trance Musics the next morning, which we attended (although a bit late). Bill Shoemaker of Downbeat was there and also someone Braxton called Hugo. And was that You, Francesco, who kept looking over his shoulder for the score of No. 222 that was passed around? Anyway, here´s some of the stuff i remember: - he started the Ghost Trance Musics as a means to use improvisation only as embellishment or no improvisation at all. not because he wasn´t interested in it any more but because he was looking something new. and of course, the "great trance msuics of the world" were a source of inspiration.The GTM will fulfill his "first house", the "house of Shala" which deals with continuity (trhe steady pulse). The "third house (Ashmenton" were the multiple-logics-musics of the Quartet. He´ll write some 20 more GTM compositions and then move on to other "houses". - ca. Compositions 181-200 are the "first species of GTM", where essentially, the pulse consists of nothing but equal-length pulses. He played samples from 181-184 for the early first species GTMs and some later composition for a "ripe" first species GTM which includes open improvisation on top of the steady pulse. - Compostions past #200 are "second species" GTM and contain rhythmical opposition in the written parts. They also have doors into other compositions etc. He played two examples here, both unreleased. One (No. 247, he said) was a smaller ensemble which i think included a duo of sax and dudelsack (english word? - i mean the scottish national instrument :). this sounded weireder than any other GTM i heard so far. The other was a three-orchestra piece where the players also change from one orchestra to the other (!) - could this have been from the orchestral peformance in Ljubljana, Slovenia iearlier this summer? - Composition 192 (with Lauren newton) is, besides a GTM, also an example of a "cuesheet music" (i think this was the term). Braxton wants to give the "friendly experiencer" indications where to turn next, like "blue, yellow, a, b, c, d," etc. (does that make any sense?). he referred to these "cuesheets" as "roadsigns" and also said "as an old model railroader, i imagine trains going in all kinds of different directions..." - one question came from a Portugese anthropologist, who said Braxton´s music seemed to him like a model of human society (utopian society maybe) and reminded him of new concepts in anthropology which take into account all the different relations a human being has with his family, clan etc. (i.e. if we say this native American is a Sioux we totally neglect the complex network of affiliations he lives and feels with different groups (and tribes) of people around him). He asked if Braxton would agree that his music with all its interactions was like a society model. Braxton had a huge grin during that question, obviously enjoying it a lot. His answere answer went something like "well, hmm, generally, i agree with You but in my model...hmm...hmm...maybe i should just throw away my model!"
(Bill Shoemaker doubled over laughing...:)
- other topics included the composition Giant Steps and why Coltrane moved away from modal music. Also, Shoemaker said he identified 40 O in last nights performance and if hearing older compositions in this new context would make them feel fresh again to Braxcton? Braxton´s answer to that wasn´t too clear, he said the different conductor´s in the groups had some leeway to do things without his awareness and "if You have a man like Jackson Moore, *anything* can happen". Could that mean Braxton himself did *not* recoignize 40 O being played...? :)
That´s as much as comes to mind right now and it´s already gotten quite long. thanx for Your patience if You read this far.
For my friend and me, this trip to Portugal was definitely worthwile and we decided should ornette play in the Gobi dessert next year we´ll be there ;)
Cheers, jens
21/6/2006
/www.olafbreuning.com/
21/6/2006
www.rodland.net
21/6/2006
www.philipkdick.com/
20/6/2006
A Tuba Army Ushers In the Bang on a Can Marathon at the World
Financial Center
By JON PARELES
Published: June 6, 2006
There were plenty of tubas but no oompah in Anthony Braxton's
"Composition No. 19 for 100 Tubas," the biggest spectacle at this
year's Bang on a Can Marathon of new music on Sunday at the World
Financial Center. Carrying a drum major's baton, Mr. Braxton
mustered his "100Tubatet" — playing tubas, sousaphones, Wagner tubas
and double-belled euphoniums — on the center's plaza. It played
glacially slow, sustained melodies, creating a low growl that was
uncannily similar to the tone of airplanes and helicopters flying
overhead. So close to ground zero, the sound was unmistakably ominous.
Over the next hour Mr. Braxton and three other conductors led groups
of tubas to parts of the plaza, following an inscrutable
choreography. Sometimes two groups would be near each other, but
there was no way to hear the entire ensemble. The slow melodies
continued; every so often, one of the groups would huff a few
sharply accented notes or make jokey noises. Yet over all, the piece
was somber: an arbitrary ceremony, luxuriating in tuba tone,
somewhere between elegy and exorcism.
19/6/2006
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