Wednesday, September 12, 2007

People Get Ready - Guelph Jazz Festival + Colloquium 2007: Anthony Braxton - Diamond Curtain Wall Trio + One

Anthony Braxton - Diamond Curtain Wall Trio + One @ Guelph Youth Music Centre, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Sunday, September 9, 2007

Anthony Braxton: alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, sopranino saxophone, contrabass clarinet
Taylor Ho Bynum: trumpet, piccolo trumpet, flugelhorn, alto trumpet, trombone, conch shell
Mary Halvorson: guitar
Kyle Brenders: saxohpones

The triple dose of weekend Braxton concluded with a small ensemble incarnation with the multi-faceted composer/multi-instrumentalist/academic/thinker putting on a clinic of raw interactive creative energy. On stage with Anthony Braxton were three players up for the "improvisative" experience and a notebook computer running Supercollider that was more reactive than actively engaged.

For some reason, I've been exposed to a lot of "Supercollider" live performances this past year. Very few of them are worth writing about. Anthony Braxton deftly avoided the many pitfalls this piece of software draws out from other "performers" by limiting its role to an interactive function. In effect, it added a subtle layer of resonance to the sound based upon the live input of the performers.

But it was the energetic, exquisite "input" that made this performance so profoundly amazing. Watching Braxton and Bynum match frenetic, high octane bursts at one another as each performer stretched fearlessly into aggressively reactive territories relative to one another made for a fitting concluding concert after a weekend of creative highlights and thought provoking words and deeds.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The other saxophonist was Kyle Brenders, a student of Braxton's, who also rehearsed and performed with the AIMToronto Orchestra for their performance with Braxton on Friday, Sept. 7. Find out more at http://www.aimtoronto.org/

Unknown said...

Thanks! I was enormously impressed with his playing and it's good to know where to find out more.