The Music of Anthony Braxton

by Steve Lehman

Overview

This live date is an early 80th birthday tribute to Anthony Braxton (June 4, 2025). It is also saxophonist, composer, musical theoretician, and conceptualist Steve Lehman's thank you to a mentor. He studied with Braxton at Wesleyan University, and worked with him between 1998 and 2007. The Music of Anthony Braxton is Lehman's 17th date as a leader, and he appears with his running trio of bassist Matt Brewer and drummer Damion Reid; tenor saxophonist Mark Turner is a special guest. The set was recorded live at ETA, an L.A. bar -- it once housed the defunct jazz spot Enfield Tennis Academy. Lehman approaches Braxton's music organically: He reinforces the angular, expansive harmonies, inventive rhythms, and intervals and rebalances them. Lehman maintains the contrast between the composer's slipstream meld of formal composition and improvisation, American and European jazz. The album comprises five Braxton tunes, two by Lehman, and a closing cover of Thelonious Monk's "Tinkle, Tinkle." Braxton's music is drawn entirely from the 1970s; Lehman underscores the composer's reliance on the quartet and relatively more accessible recordings from the decade. "34a" opens at a furious tempo. Its circular theme recalls Ornette Coleman's Dancing in Your Head in post-bop language. Compelled by Brewer's hard-driving bassline, each saxophonist solos with intervallic athleticism. Lehman's "L.A. Genes" works out of a Middle Eastern mode initially, offering taut yet seemingly chaotic processional rhythms with a Spanish tinge. The interplay between Reid and Brewer does support the saxophonists, but they establish a defining signature during the saxists' solos. "40b" is introduced by a gorgeous two-minute Brewer solo; he grabs hold of the vamp as Reid picks it up (it references Duke Ellington's "Caravan") before the saxophonists engage in knotty melodic solos that shift modality and tonality in concentrated conversation. The tune's lyric line is important in Braxton's "23" series of compositions, and several are utilized here. The quartet work with Braxton's signature compositional collage while combining and recombining those compositions with others. This approach is utilized with energy, inspiration, and canny saxophone technique on "23b + 23g," where the frontline plays in bop-like unison before Turner's illuminating solo. "23c" is rhythmically intense with interlocking cadences propelling Brewer toward the saxophones. Lehman's "Unbroken" adds harmonic phrases before engaging in dialogue as Reid syncopates the rhythm and Brewer bridges the dialogue between the reeds. The saxophonists introduce "23e + 40b" in duo before the rhythm section enters in a swinging groove as the reeds reiterate the "23e" theme. Brewer's solo is intimate, resonant; he's followed by Lehman playing without accompaniment, introducing the charging, pulsing "40b," followed by the closer, a searching, Braxton-esque read of Monk's "Tinkle, Tinkle." While it's not difficult to find jazz and other musicians covering Braxton's music, it's still rare when considering his massive oeuvre. Lehman's quartet with Turner shifts that balance on this fantastic outing using their subject's aesthetics and the bandleader's approach in extending possibilities for the compositions. ~ Thom Jurek

Product Details

Release Date:	07/04/2025
Label:	PI RECORDINGS
UPC:	0808713010619

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Steve Lehman   Primary Artist,Sax (Alto)
Damion Reid   Drums
Mark Turner   Sax (Alto)
Matt Brewer   Bass