Always searching for new musical lands, Anthony Braxton used an hourglass four times as a guide to determine the length of these songs for two days of performances at Firehouse 12 in New Haven, CT back in 2014. He brings in the flexible and disparate team of guitarist Nels Cline, drummer Greg Saunier and multi-brass man Taylor Ho Bynum while Braxton himself plays every type of sax from sopranino to contrabass sans the tenor.
The other creative idea was to bring these four artists together in order to improvise in tributes to various American musical icons, namely Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, James Brown and Merle Haggard. Don’t think that you’re going to hear variations of a “Purple Haze,” “Pearl,” “I Feel Good” or “Okie From Muskogee” theme, as the hourlong pieces are more of an attitude of subliminal respect. Thus, “Improvisation One for Jimi Hendrix” definitely has Clines bringing in some fuzzy electric guitar, but the high pitched saxes and cornet swirl around Saunier’s hard hitting drums.
The “Joplin” pieces have muted trumpet and baritone sax along with some snappy sticks, but the horn players mix and match as they weave in and out. The most rhythmic, predictably, is the “James Brown” hour, with Saunier laying down a hip groove to Braxton’s thick as molasses visceral riffs on the contra bass, and Cline slicing through with some hip moves that you can envision the GFOS dancing to. You get some interesting sounds on the “Haggard” episode, with Bynum’s bass trumpet, his trumpbone and Braxton’s contrabass making some sounds like an ’58 Oldsmobile backfiring in some alley in Bakersfield.
A free-flying tour through cultural heroes of the Baby Boomers.