Anthony Braxton

Visionary composer Anthony Braxton, who emerged out of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) circle in the 1960s, probably has more ardent devotees and dismissive critics than your average jazz-rooted musician. Maybe that’s because he refuses to limit his reach, drawing as deeply on classical conceptualists like John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen as on such personal avatars as Charlie Parker and Dave Brubeck.

From sincere bebop evocations to theoretical operas written to be performed simultaneously on different planets, his work has roamed more widely than that of any American artist of his generation. Braxton is nothing if not eclectic.

The beauty of this eight-CD box set, released on the encyclopedically minded Mosaic label, is as much its context as its content: Included are the nine albums Braxton made for the Arista label in the 1970s, when it was still feasible to consider a jazz avant-gardist a potentially popular artist.

The best stuff here includes the Sousa-on-laughing-gas marching-band anarchy of Creative Orchestra Music and the monster combo sessions of New York, Fall 1974 and Five Pieces 1975—which feature Braxton alongside bassist Dave Holland, trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and drummer Barry Altschul. The music swells and bustles, and even the most abstract moments invite vivid engagement thanks to lustily alive performances. These aren’t dry, cerebral exercises in tone science.

Braxton has easily recorded another 300 (!) albums since the work encapsulated here, but the Arista sessions remain a highly inviting portal into one of the most original creative minds of our day. Bonus: Thoughtful crib notes are provided with the set.

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