YEAH, MORE ABOUT THIS THING

Big box o' Braxton
[From Jazziz, December 2008.]

If you had one copy of every album Anthony Braxton has released or been a guest on in his long career, you'd need a 40-foot shipping container to hold them. Between 1974 and 1980 alone, Arista Records funded nine albums (including several doubles and one triple vinyl epic) and licensed two others from the European label Freedom. Although the latter titles aren't included in The Complete Arista Recordings of Anthony Braxton, a new collection from Mosaic, you'll find more than enough to sift through and digest.

Initially, Braxton recorded somewhat straight small-group sessions, lulling his corporate paymasters into a false sense of security. Then, after achieving tenure, he embarked on less commercially palatable projects like Alto Saxophone Improvisations 1989 and the aforementioned triple album, For Four Orchestras. (Braxton's album titles remain stubbornly self-explanatory.)

His debut for the label, New York, Fall 1974, is nothing that listeners accustomed to the rhythmic and melodic twists and turns of Ornette Coleman's 1959-1960 recordings couldn't immediately embrace. Only the presence of a squelching, zapping synthesizer on "Opus 38A" hints at fusion or hardcore avant-garde. Everything else is free but swinging, with ribbon-like unison passages that captivate the ear. Five Pieces (1975) makes for an admirable sequel, even including a standard ("You Stepped Out of a Dream," performed as a lovely saxophone/bass duo). And the double live album The Montreux/Berlin Concerts offers a superb mix of the audience-friendly and more outré Braxton.

Even some of the edgier releases never devolve into ultra-abstruse exercises in beard stroking. Creative Orchestra Music 1976 lives up to its title, moving from hard-swinging big band charts to squiggly, arid experimentalism and even into the realm of John Philip Sousa (on the giddy "Opus 58"). For Trio is less rooted in traditional jazz, but won't seem at all foreign or forbidding to fans of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The album contains two versions of the same piece by different trios, one of which features the AEC's Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell alongside Braxton, each man playing "little instruments" in addition to the expected variety of woodwinds.

Comprising eight CDs, this beautifully remastered box is but a shaving from an iceberg. While it's nowhere near a complete portrait of Braxton, it's a marvelous collection worthy of in-depth listening at length and at leisure.

RIP JOHN MARTYN

British avant-folk guy John Martyn has died at 60. I've never listened to the guy, but other smart folks say he was great; you can read an excellent essay on his album Solid Air, by Simon Reynolds, in Marooned, available now at a shockingly low price.

THEIR BEST ALBUM YET

FRANZ FERDINAND
Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
Domino

Franz Ferdinand's self-titled debut was a ball of witty postpunk energy and dancefloor savvy. Its follow-up, You Could Have It So Much Better, tried to keep the hot streak going with the stomping glam-rock single "Do You Want To," but was derailed by side trips into balladry. Four years later, the band is a little weirder and more stylistically omnivorous on Tonight, but it's also more fun than ever before.

The members borrow keyboards and a creepy, lurching rhythm from Iggy Pop's The Idiot on "Twilight Omens" and a manic noise-guitar outro that's pure Ron Asheton (R.I.P.) on "What She Came For." Whiteboy-funk jewel "No You Girls" stomps all over Blur's "Girls and Boys" with throbbing bass, guitar lines straight from Talking Heads' Remain In Light, and handclaps (handclaps!). Most bands would kill a close relative to write a hook half as irresistible as "No You Girls," and Franz does it with a grin and a shrug. "Send Him Away" could be a Grace Jones cover, while "Live Alone" is straight-up disco-rock with throbbing sequencers and another spine-readjusting bassline. Tonight peters out somewhat after the eight-minute "Lucid Dreams," the latter half of which is spent in an electronic fugue state. "Dream Again" is an ill-advised dubby experiment, followed by acoustic album closer "Katherine Kiss Me," a juxtaposition that defies all logic. Still, nine smart, upbeat tracks out of twelve make this a welcome return indeed. [From the SF Weekly.]

BACK FROM THE SMACKDOWN

Well, as previously mentioned, I was on the radio today. I was paired with an editor from Blender, we took calls from listeners and read emails on the air and listened to Springsteen's awful new "Queen of the Supermarket" song; it was fun. If you want to listen to the whole 30-minute thing, you can download it by clicking here.

PURELY COINCIDENTAL

So the day after I posted my comments on Springsteen, Meat Loaf and Styx (see below), I got an email from the producers of Soundcheck, a radio show I've been on twice before - once to plug Marooned (and hey, check out that bargain price! Go get yourself one, why doncha?) with the help of Greg Tate and Ian Christe, and once to debate the merits of Metallica with Ryan Schreiber of Pitchfork. They've asked me to return, this time to take the anti- side in a debate on the merits of...yes, Bruce Springsteen, whose new album comes out on Tuesday, the same day I'll be on the air. So check it out at 2PM EST, at 93.9 FM or 820 AM if you're in the NYC area, or online at WNYC.org. I hope it'll be at least mildly entertaining.