12 April 2008

Anthony Braxton Standards Quartet - Bergamo, Italy 2003

A quick one for Boromir now. I thought that his suggestion to lay off the Braxtons and Baileys for a while and get into real music required a quick response, so what could be better than Braxton doing standards! I believe Bailey did a cd of standards, too, but that may still be in print, so better lay off that one for the time being.

What we have here is ureleased material from the same European tour in 2003 that resulted in two four-cd sets on the Leo label. This is from what I understand off a concert at the Bergamo jazz festival, recorded at Teatro Donizetti, Bergamo, Italy on Feb 21, 2003.

Four pieces in all:

01 East Of The Sun [Oscar Peterson]
02 Afro Blue [Mongo Santamaria]
03 Nancy (With The Laughing Face) [P Silvers & JV Heusen]
04 Little Melonae [Jackie McLean]

Line-up:

Kevin Norton - dr
Anthony Braxton - as. sop.
Kevin O'Neil - gtr
Andy Eulau - cb

In the words of one critic,"In an era when the jazz past is regularly bowdlerized, trivialized and travestied - reduced to little more than a marketing plan - Braxton presents it in much of its true potentiality as the authentic discourse of its time, making both the past and the present (even the future) that much richer than it was before". Yep.

Do lend an ear to "Afro Blue" and then dig out your Coltrane at Birdland album for comparison.

Superb playing from all concerned and Kevin O'Neil is a minor revelation IMHO. Right, then, and I'll get to the heavy-duty stuff later on, Sotise.
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8 comments:

  1. kinabalu12 April 2008 at 12:16:00 CEST

    Goodies here:

    http://rapidshare.com/files/106724606/Anthony_Braxton_-_Standard_2003_Quartet.part1.rar

    http://rapidshare.com/files/106724905/Anthony_Braxton_-_Standard_2003_Quartet.part2.rar

    These were posted on Usenet as high-quality mp3s, so no flacs for these files.

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  2. Tantris12 April 2008 at 13:09:00 CEST

    Listening to Afro Blue now - sensational.

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  3. SOTISE12 April 2008 at 17:51:00 CEST

    thanks...
    just one correction, oscar peterson didnt write east of the sun(and west of the moon)it was written by brooks bowman , and first recorded by crooner hal kemp in the 30's, billie holidays version is pretty famous, but i know it mostly from stan getz's classic 1955 recording.
    there must be thousands of versions other than oscar's

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  4. Boromir12 April 2008 at 19:51:00 CEST

    Thanks kinabalu. This one I can appreciate and enjoy.

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  5. centrifuge12 April 2008 at 19:52:00 CEST

    hmmm... i pulled this one with mixed feelings (but did pull it!) - the 23 standards box was the first braxton i've ever heard that i couldn't finish. naturally i will check this out now that i've downloaded it...

    the creative orch with mitchell - i had a copy myself, pretty good from what i remember but i didn't give it my full attention. as for comp. 113... we were gonna post that at c#9 (in a solo-album theme series) but of course it didn't happen in the end. looking at what happened here, probably just as well. anyone got cover scans (i.e. liners) by any chance? ;-)

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  6. centrifuge12 April 2008 at 20:50:00 CEST

    whaddya know, i really enjoyed afro blue too :-D

    had to skip the first one tho, midway through the leader's solo. (to say that i normally enjoy listening to this man solo is a bit of an understatement...) it was going nowhere, and the knowledge that i had five or six mins of clean guitar tone after that, then probably bass and drums too, then a restatement... couldn't face it. still, the second piece was so good that i will try and get through it properly, soon..! the jackie mac piece sounds promising also.

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  7. Anonymous14 April 2008 at 15:27:00 CEST

    Enjoying this one,

    thanks a lot!

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  8. hulaboy4 March 2009 at 14:00:00 CET

    Thanks - one of my favorite Braxton bands.

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