Anthony Braxton is widely and
critically acclaimed as a seminal figure in the music of the late 20th
and early 21st century. His work, both as saxophonist and composer, has
broken new conceptual and technical ground in the trans-African and
trans-European (a.k.a. "jazz" and "American Experimental") musical
traditions in North America; traditions defined by master improvisers
such as Warne Marsh, John Coltrane, Paul Desmond, Ornette Coleman,
Albert Ayler, and Braxton and his own peers in the historic Association
for the Advancement of Creative Musicians; and by American composers
such as Charles Ives, Harry Partch, and John Cage. Braxton has
developed a unique and personal musical language through a synthesis of
those American traditions with 20th-century European art music as
defined by Schoenberg, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Varese and others.
Braxton’s extensions of instrumental technique, timbre, meter and
rhythm, voicing and ensemble make-up, harmony and melody, and
improvisation and notation have revolutionized modern American music.Braxton's five decades worth of recorded output is kaleidoscopic and prolific, with well over 150 recordings to his credit. He has won and continues to win prestigious awards and critical praise, including the MacArthur “genius grant” Fellowship. Books, anthology chapters, scholarly studies, reviews and interviews and other media and academic attention to him and his work have also accumulated steadily and increasingly throughout the years. His own self-published writings about the musical traditions from which he works and their historical and cultural contexts (Tri-Axium Writings 1-3) and his five-volume Composition Notes A-E are unparalleled by artists from the oral and unmatched by those in the literate tradition.
Braxton is a tenured professor at Wesleyan University, one of the world's centers of world music. His teaching career began at Mills College in Oakland, California, and has become as much a part of his creative life as his own work. It includes training and leading performance ensembles and private tutorials in his own music, computer and electronic music, and history courses in the music of his major musical influences, from the Western Medieval composer Hildegard von Bingen to contemporary masters like Cage and Coleman.
Braxton's name continues to stand for the broadest integration of oft-conflicting poles in the current cultural debates about the nature and place of the Western and African-American musical traditions in America, poles such as “creative freedom” and “responsibility”, discipline and energy, and vision of the future and respect for tradition. The music of his newest ensembles brings to that debate a voice that is fresh and strong, still as creative as ever even as it takes on the authority of a seasoned master. 2005 was a watershed year, as Braxton celebrated his 60th birthday and the AACM celebrated its 40th anniversary, and in performances throughout the world, Braxton was again recognized as one of the preeminent figures in contemporary creative music.