Anthony Braxton Piano Music

[Sordel]

Just a heads-up to anyone who might be interested and hasn't seen this already: Leo Records is releasing in February a 9-disc set of Braxton's piano music. It's a limited edition of 500 and it's cheaper to buy direct from Leo than to go through DMG: much cheaper if you're in the UK. (PayPal price is £43 including shipping to UK, DMG price is $135 without shipping).

www.leorecords.com/?m=select&id=CD_LR_900/908

Naturally I'm not connected in any way with Leo, DMG, Braxton or pianos!

[King]

I'd love to buy that, but its too expensive considering my current budget.

[Sordel]

king said:

I'd love to buy that, but its too expensive considering my current budget.

It's my first Braxton purchase, yet for the same price I could have bought For Alto and the 23 Standards boxed set, both of which seem like more essential purchases. Not really sure where to start with Braxton, though: if I started with his Ghost Trance music, I could probably give up after one disc, which would be a good economic strategy but wouldn't do anything to broaden my taste.

[King]

I started with For Alto a few weeks ago. Great album. Not sure where to go next...

[Sordel]

Agreed ... getting onto terms with Braxton seems to be about three times as hard as getting onto terms with Zorn, because there is so much less available on the internet. There's a very good discography that helps one to pick through the works:

www.restructures.net/BraxDisco/BraxDisco.htm

The choice descriptions for the budding Braxtonian include: "Composition 9 for four amplified shovels (1969): Fifteen pages of cell structured notation to be utilized with one large pile of coal - with costumes and choreography. In addition to this material, electronic modulation is also required."

The list of compositions only goes up to 96, but because it shows you which compositions appear on which albums it does enable you to get more of a sense of how the discography "works".

Edit: another good account of the discography is here:

www.scaruffi.com/jazz/braxton.html

[King]

Ooh, nice. Cheers.