The Ghost Trance Solos and especially the Ghost Trance Septet plays Anthony Braxton studio albums were extensively reviewed by a wide selection of international press, blogs, and (online) magazines. The overall very positive reception can be seen as a (non-academic) validation of my artistic research output, but this collection of texts also generated an interesting pool of data that proved to be very relevant to my research objectives. In what follows, I will present a qualitative data analysis of this collection of reviews as a measure to describe the perception of Anthony Braxton’s work through these two releases. In analyzing these reviews, I am, therefore, not focusing so much on collecting individual and collective praise for the interpretations of the music presented on both releases, but specifically on the perception of Braxton as a composer and the possible impact of my research activities on that perception.
Overview of Reviews
Ghost Trance Solos was released on the label All That Dust (ATD10) on November 5, 2020, and in the immediate weeks after its release, it received three reviews. Ghost Trance Septet plays Anthony Braxton was released by el Negocito Records (eNR105) on June 2, 2022. In the months following the release date, it received 26 reviews. In the wake of the Septet release, two more reviews of the Solo album appeared, and there were mentions of the solo release in several of the Septet reviews as well. For this analysis, I will merge the releases of both albums, which then amounts to a total of 31 reviews.
Before turning to the content of the reviews, I first made a distinction based on the external musical label of the different outlets (newspaper, magazine, or blog) in which a review appeared. I divided these into three categories: "jazz," "classical," and "undefined."
Jazz (20)1
All About Jazz (International)
Marc Corroto - Solo, 09/12/2020
Marc Corroto - Septet, 27/07/2022
John Sharpe - Septet, 23/07/2022
JazzWord (Canada)
Ken Waxman - Septet, 08/08/2022
Jazzwise (UK)
Martin Longley - Septet, 27/06/2022
Salt Peanuts (Norway)
Eyal Hareuveni - Septet, 20/06/2022
The Free Jazz Collective (International)
Sammy Stein - Septet, 23/05/2022
Jazz Music Archives (US)
Slava Gliožeris - Septet, 16/07/2022
JazzFlits (The Netherlands)
Herman te Loo - Septet, 12/09/2022
Jazz Special (Denmark)
Orynx improv and sounds (Belgium)
Jean - Michel Van Schouwburg - Septet, 13/10/2022
JazzdaGama (Canada)
Raul da Gama - Solo & Septet, 20/12/2022
Citizen Jazz (France)
Franpi Barriaux - Solo, 06/11/2022
Franpi Barriaux - Septet, 15/01/2023
New York City Jazz Record (US)
Kurt Gottschalk - Septet, 06/2023
Het Nieuwsblad (Belgium, flemish)
Peter De Backer - Septet, 22/06/2022
De Standaard (Belgium)2
Peter De Backer - Septet, 15/06/2022
Le Soir (Belgium, francophone)
Jean-Claude Vantroyen - Septet, 27/07/2022
Nettavisen (Norway)
Classical (5)
The Best Contemporary Classical, Bandcamp (International)
Peter Margasak - Septet, 30/06/2022
The Rambler (UK)
Tim Rutherford-Johnson - Septet, 06/06/2022
Nieuwe Noten (The Netherlands)
Ben Taffijn - Septet, 02/06/2022
The Art Music Lounge (US)
Lynn René Bayley - Septet, 07/05/2022
Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (Germany)
Undefined (6)
Downtown Music Gallery (US)
Bruce Lee Gallanter - Septet, 02/12/2022
Gonzo (Circus) (Belgium - The Netherlands)
Guy Peters - Solo, 01/2021
Guy Peters - Septet, 07/2022
Avant Music News (US)
Mike Borella - Septet, 04/06/2022
Boring Like A Drill
The Sound Projector
Statistically speaking, from a total of 31 reviews, 65% appeared in jazz-identified magazines or categories, 16% in classical-identified publications, and 19% in publications without a clear genre association. The fact that a vast majority of reviews appeared in jazz-identified publications can be seen as a confirmation of the still predominantly jazz-identified perception of Braxton’s music. Another reason for this is that the label on which the Septet recording appeared, el Negocito Records, has itself a generally jazz-oriented profile and subsequent press contacts. This classification is based on the different outlets, not on the individual authors of the reviews. I would like to note here that the authors of the reviews were predominantly male and white.
When looking at the content of the reviews itself, classifications made above become much less clear. I recognized five recurring, sometimes overlapping, general topics that occur throughout the 31 reviews, regardless of the abovementioned genre distinctions, and which I filed as follows:
-
Rarely Performed
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On Interpretation
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Complexity of the music
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Beyond genre
-
Braxton as composer
Not taken into account here are other media appearances, interviews and radio broadcasts following both album releases. I was invited to talk about the Septet release on the podcast ‘Sound Making’ by Matthew Shlomowitz and Håkon Stene. There were two radio broadcasts on BBC’s Radio 3 The New Music Show. The first featured track two of Ghost Trance Solos, Composition No. 284, and aired on February 27, 2021. The second was a live recording at Café Oto of a GTM performance of Composition No. 255 with the Plus Minus ensemble, which aired on April 16, 2022.3 The first track of the Septet album (Composition No. 255) was also aired on radio shows in Canada and the US: One Man’s Jazz, WFMU (NYC), DubLab (LA), Flotation Device (Seattle), a.o. There was a double interview with James Fei for the Gonzo (Circus) edition of July-August 2022, and a profile by George Tonla Briquet for Jazzism which appeared in September 2022. At the end of the year the album was featured in several "end of year lists" such as the Free Jazz Blog’s top 10 of 2022 and Les Élus de Citizen Jazz 2023. It was selected Album of the Year 2022 in Avant Music News.
1. Rarely Performed
Several reviewers addressed the fact that Braxton’s music is rarely performed, especially by musicians or ensembles not led by Braxton himself or not connected to his Tri-Centric Foundation. In his review for the french magazine Citizen Jazz, Franpi Barriaux wrote:
So few orchestras have adopted Braxton's music and grammar on an entire album - apart from a wide circle of American musicians close to the Tri-Centric Foundation. (...) “Ghost Trance Septet Plays Anthony Braxton” is an ambitious and, to put it frankly, unexpected double album.4
Guy Peters for Gonzo (Circus) also regarded both Solo and Septet releases as an exception:
Anthony Braxton's oeuvre, as vast as it is intimidating, has relatively few performances in which he himself is not involved. One notable exception is the recent work by Belgian guitarist Kobe Van Cauwenberghe.
From a jazz perspective, it is actually a common practice for composers to perform their own work, even though there is a tradition of reinterpreting works by other jazz musicians and composers as well.5 From a classical perspective, the distinction between composer and performer is traditionally much more strict. In the first part of his extensive review, Tim Rutherford-Johnson addressed this distinction and how it affected Braxton’s perception as a composer:
Braxton’s marginalization by the art music establishment for much of his life required him to act as his own champion and impresario. For years, if he didn’t play his music, few others would. Nevertheless, the line between his different roles as composer and bandleader is a blurred one. This distinction is, to be sure, founded in a racially coded division between jazz and classical music, and in the different values the two respective genres (and the wider culture industry around them) place on writing and performing.
In Braxton’s work, this distinction also manifests itself in how some of his earlier works from the 70’s and 80’s are still perceived as closer to the jazz idiom, whereas his later works, starting with the GTM system, took it to more experimental levels and thus received even fewer performances. In his review for All About Jazz, John Sharpe wrote that:
Works by Anthony Braxton appear occasionally in the repertoire of others, but it is exceptional for entire albums to be devoted to them. That is especially true for some of his later works.
This sentiment was echoed by Bruce Lee Gallanter, reviewing the Septet album in his Downtown Music Gallery Newsletter:
It is pretty rare for other ensembles to perform their own versions of Mr. Braxton’s compositions and even rarer for anyone to do Ghost Trance Music.
It is known that Braxton’s trans-idiomatic approach to music seems to fall in between genres and their associated practices. Nevertheless, the fact that it is rarely performed is generally seen as problematic, as Slava Gliožeris observed in Jazz Music Archives:
More current Braxton music is rarely played by other musicians and it's a shame. (...) [I] hope we will hear more Braxton compositions, recorded by younger generation artists more often.
Herman te Loo, in JazzFlits, pondered the question of why so little performances have occurred and applauded the initiative of the Septet recording:
Given the size of his oeuvre, it is quite strange that relatively little of Anthony Braxton's work is performed by anyone other than himself. It is presumably because of the stamp of 'difficult', 'complicated' and 'cerebral' that is often unfairly placed on his music. (...) [This recording] is an ardent plea for a body of work that should reach the stage much more often.6
Peter Maragasak also took up this point in his review for Best of Contemporary Classical in Bandcamp:
Despite his prodigious, mind-expanding compositional output, the music of Anthony Braxton remains largely the property of his own ensembles. [Commenting on both Solo and Septet recordings]: I hope others will follow suit and give Braxton’s pieces the treatment they deserve.
Lastly, Kurt Gottschalk, writing for NYCJazzrecord, alluded to the necessity of performing the repertoire if a composer is to be remembered:
It takes a performance history to save a composer from the dustbin. (...) For a composer as prolific and brilliant as Anthony Braxton (who turns 78 this month), continued performance is vital. His work has been performed almost entirely by ensembles led either by himself or by musicians who have worked closely with him. With work so open to individual interpretation, it’s not just important for its future to have it performed; any such performance directly informs the present. Kobe Van Cauwenberghe has engaged with, indulged in and absorbed the Ghost Trance Music, one of Braxton’s headiest and most exciting compositional systems.
2. On interpretation
I've always tried to stay as close as possible to Braxton’s own compositional and interpretational terms when developing the Solo and Septet recordings and performances. The essence of these terms is clearly described in his "Introduction to Catalog of Works."7 In contrast to the notion of the performer's "fidelity to the score" or "Werktreue," which in many ways is still the standard approach to interpretation in Western art music, Braxton’s radical view on the musical work comes with a great deal of openness for the interpreter, who is required to engage with Braxton’s scores in their own way, by “taking risks,” “making mistakes,” “being creative,” etc. Braxton’s scores are never an end in themselves; any given interpretation of a score has to be unique. Raul Da Gama hinted at the matter of interpretation in Braxton’s work when reviewing both the Solo and Septet recordings:
In this regard Kobe Van Cauwenberghe wants you to listen to an interpretation of Mr Braxton’s provocative work – the key being “an interpretation” as Mr Braxton’s shape-shifting, chameleonic music, is crafted to never be the same as it is driven by the fact that while it is guided by the composer’s suggestion of musical form and gesture, each performance is but an interpretation.
Given this radical openness of the written material, the eventual result of both Solo and Septet recordings at many points sounded quite different from Braxton’s own interpretations.8 Even though Braxton’s extensive recorded output was an important reference when preparing these recordings, it was never my intention to establish a standardized performance practice of how to perform Braxton’s GTM or to try and replicate his recordings. Herman te Loo, writing for Jazzflits, recognized our intention and appreciated the resulting differences:
Van Cauwenberghe and his musicians take Braxton's cues to heart, and go their own way with the material. [The music sounds] like a kind of avant-rock - not something you associate with Braxton, but which makes for extremely engaging music.9
This comment is echoed in Franpi Barriaux’ review for the Solo album, adding how an interpretation without Braxton’s presence can lead to new insights as well:
Kobe van Cauwenberghe's great achievement in this solo is to dig his own path. (...) It's also a fine way of penetrating the composer's music without his presence: here we can perhaps more clearly perceive the paths taken and the form of infinity characteristic of GTM, which van Cauwenberghe exploits to marvelous effect.10
Dietrich Heißenbüttel seconds this opinion in his review, writing in Neue Zeitschrift für Musik:
That Braxton doesn't have to be there himself to play the music properly is demonstrated by the Ghost Trance septet on this double CD. (...) "How do you play Braxton?" The CD offers a convincing answer to this question.11
According to Tim Rutherford-Johnson the Septet’s interpretation offered an entirely new perspective on the recording of Braxton’s music, as he wrote in his review:
My own view is that Van Cauwenberghe and his septet have redefined the landscape of Braxton recordings. (...) Newcomers to Braxton’s work may still wish to start with those quartet recordings, but for the sound of Braxton without himself at the helm, they will want to come here very soon after.
Lastly, Ken Waxman, in his Septet review for JazzWord, made a similar claim and then pointed to another crucial aspect of interpreting Braxton’s radically open scores, which is the fact that it is as much about navigating the scores as it is about finding your own voice.12
Taking advantage of all Braxton themes have to offer from fanfare to formalism to free-form, the Ghost Trance Septet have created a blueprint in how to play this music. More crucially, by emphasizing each member’s talent as well as Braxton sequences, they’ve come up with an original piece of work true to themselves and the composer.
3. Complexity of the music
More than simply writing music, Braxton has always thought of his music in terms of systems, constructs, models, and categories. This is also reflected in the massive three-volume Tri-Axium Writings and the five volumes of Composition Notes. But his systematic approach, both in his music and writing, as complex as it may be, is never restrictive and always leaves space for intuition and the unknown. In a review cited earlier, Ter Loo called it "unfair" to label Braxton’s work as complex, cerebral, and difficult. It is a recurring topic in many of the other reviews as well, revealing different and sometimes strongly opposing points of view. Peter Margasak, like Ter Loo, applauded the initiative of both the Solo and Septet releases and how they approached Braxton’s music on his own terms:
[Braxton’s] pieces can be notoriously difficult and require real immersion in his systems, but it does seem like more musicians are finally beginning to confront his massive body of work on his terms—well beyond the realm of “jazz”.
For her Septet review in the blog Art Music Lounge, Lynn René Bailey understood the playful intentions of Braxton’s use of complexity in his scores but stuck to a somewhat outdated notion of "swing" to describe it:13
[Braxton’s music] is very cerebral music, then, and isn’t meant to swing, but it is meant to be played with in an amusing way despite its very serious complexity.
In order to give background and context to some of Braxton’s ideas and concepts, specifically related to the GTM system, both Solo and Septet releases were accompanied by liner notes.14 These texts are by no means required reading to appreciate the music. In his review for Salt Peanuts Eyal Hareuveni was nevertheless thankful for:
[the] insightful liner notes [by Timo Hoyer] that decipher some of the extremely idiosyncratic, uncompromisingly advancing compositional ideas of Braxton.”
A different reaction appeared in a review by Jean-Claude Vantroyen for the Belgian newspaper Le Soir:
Now that's beyond my comprehension, I admit. If you have to read ten pages of notes to try and get a grasp of the music on this album, I'm at a loss. For me, music is about the immediacy of emotion, the imaginary paintings that are conjured up, the dreams that are generated. So there are melodies, harmonies, riffs, twists and turns, but there has to be something to which the shipwrecked listener can cling, with which he can move forward, open up a path and enjoy it.15
The reviewer here dismissed Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music as too intellectual, projecting his own ideas of what (jazz?) music ought to sound like, but in doing so ironically also giving quite an apt description of several elements that are very much a part of Braxton’s music. Vantroyen’s review, which was accompanied by a 1-star out of 5 rating, hit on a subject that Braxton has been confronted with throughout his career.16 Commenting on my online posting of the review, guitarist, improviser and composer Fred Frith described the matter clearly:
[This review] could have been written any time in the last 50 years... sigh (...) Somewhat reminds me of reviews of Braxton's first solo record. The implication being then as now that you can't think AND feel!!"
Countering Vantroyen in a review that appeared almost simultaneously, critic Mark Corroto, writing for All About Jazz, argued that Braxton’s music is not about ‘understanding’, but about keeping an open mind to what music can be:
For the casual observer, his graphic scores are merely squiggly drawings with geometric shapes and colors; think an Albert Einstein equation. (...) [It] does not require the listener to understand Braxton's cryptographs to enjoy the event. (...) Braxton's equations, although dense and indecipherable to most mortals, turn out to be readily accessible sounds if you leave your preconceptions about music and the nature of time at the door.
4. Beyond genre
The discussion on complexity in music and what is or isn't "allowed" for it to be called "jazz" immediately also leads to Braxton’s ambiguous relation toward musical genre. His music defies any form of essentializing categorisation. In interviews, you often hear him say that “my music is not a rejection of anything”, an attitude which resulted in what he calls a trans-idiomatic approach to music, embracing rather than excluding different practices and musical genres, but always with a sense of experimentation. It is a key element in the performance practice of Braxton’s music, which I tried to integrate into my own recordings of GTM.17 This was reflected in several of the reviews. Eyal Hareuveni, writing for Salt Peanuts, observed:
The eclectic GTM encompasses rituals of the Native Americans, the repetitive continuums of Minimal Music, the rhythmic diversity and trans-tonality of African music, the parallel sound events of street parades, and the intensity and improvisational passion of jazz, and much more.
The term jazz evidently still comes up a lot. Sammy Stein in his review for The Free Jazz Collective, recognized the music’s roots as jazz, but envisions its potential to appeal to broader audiences:
The subtle blueseyness of the central section of the number with the unsettling bass clarinet just audible beneath the intricate top lines reflects jazz roots, (...) This music exemplifies the ensemble style of blended notated and improvised sound and is a delight to both those with an ear for classical and those preferring a freer form of playing.
Guy Peters in his Gonzo (Circus) review for the Septet recording acknowledged the music's connection to both the classical and jazz traditions:
It is ensemble music first and foremost, some firmly in the chamber music tradition, but also steeped in jazz as an ongoing art of transformation.18
Others simply denied the need to try and categorize Braxton’s music, like Tor Hammerø in his Septet review for the Norwegian newspaper Nettavisen:
As always, Braxton's music is somewhere between the "most" borderlands. Is it jazz, is it improv, is it contemporary music? As always, the answer is both yes and no - I struggle with and have no need to categorize Braxton's unique musical visions.19
Similarly, Lynn René Bailey in her Septet review for Art Music Lounge displayed the same open attitude, but then still seemed to be rather attached to very specific notions of "jazz" and "swing":
(...) Over the years I have learned to be more patient when listening to and assessing music that lies outside of both the classical and jazz spectrums. (...) Aside from the fact that this music is intended as a basis for improvisation, they cannot be called “jazz” at all. (...) Even more surprisingly, towards the end of this track the septet actually swings!
Critic Ben Harper, reviewing the Ghost Trance Solos recording in his blog Boring Like A Drill, used an interesting analogy to express his doubts about Braxton’s trans-idiomatic performance practice, but then made and apt observation much in line with Braxton’s original intentions, which I tried to express in this recording:
My innate aversion to jazz always leaves me approaching Braxton like a fussy child picking the good bits out of a plate of fried rice, so I cling to albums like this where I can fully embrace his approach to music. (...) The music pursues erratic, discontinuous lines that can drift away into moments of dream-logic, (...) This is true postmodernism, an eclecticism that retains a clear character throughout, never stooping to pastiche.
Lastly, Tim Rutherford Johnson, in his review avoided the term jazz and gave an eloquent observation of the Septet’s polystylistic interpretation of the different compositions on the recording, referencing composers Charles Ives and Salvatorre Sciarrino as well as Braxton’s own quartet recordings:
The polystylism of some of the secondary and tertiary breakdowns – when the individual identities of the players come to the fore – are more Ives than Ives: melting and melding more than clashing. They are deliciously fluid, rippled through with energies of seven players continuously listening and adjusting to each other. There is the same unstoppable magmatic flow that is captured on the classic quartet recordings, but there is also introspection, stillness, melancholy even, as in the slow breakdown into the central section of 193 or the Sciarrino-like glitter of 358.
5. Braxton as composer
As an African-American composer, Braxton’s ambiguous relation to genre, in combination with the border policing functions of genre, has certainly contributed to the fact that Braxton’s status as a composer has hardly received the recognition it deserved within the field of Western art music. This has been addressed in an earlier cited review by Rutherford-Johnson when he mentioned the “racially coded division between jazz and classical music”. This was a recurring topic in several other reviews as well, where the critics in question seem to have taken the album releases as an opportunity to explicitly address Braxton’s position as a composer. Peter De Backer, for instance, reviewing the Septet recording in the Belgian newspapers De Standaard and Het Nieuwsblad, introduces Braxton as follows:
This American avant-gardist is considered a jazz musician, but is actually a contemporary composer who has since written more than 700 pieces for a wide variety of line-ups.20
Ben Taffijn in his review for Nieuwe Noten saw the Septet recording as part of a changing attitude towards Braxton’s position:
Anthony Braxton is fortunately increasingly seen as a composer of contemporary music as well, and not merely as a saxophonist, active within free improvisation and avant-garde jazz.
This was confirmed by Dietrich Heißenbüttel who opens his review for Neue Zeitschrift für Musik with the phrase:
Anthony Braxton has been filed away as a jazz musician for far too long.21
T.S. Høeg also shared this view from a different angle in his Septet review for the Danish magazine Jazz Special, where he wrote:
The highly original thinker, composer and multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton has, more than anyone, had to put up with head-shaking or downright ridiculous perceptions of his diligent work.
Like Høeg, Sammy Stein, writing for The Free-jazz Collective, hinted at Braxton’s singularity as a composer, therefore dismissing comparison to other composers all together:
Braxton proves that comparisons to other composers are pointless, and Braxton is a rare thing nowadays - a composer whose work is unique.
Kurt Gottschalk, in his review for NYCJazzrecord, gave a more elaborate view on Braxton’s ‘status of composer’ and praised how the Septet recording contributed to establishing this status within a broad canon of 20th century music:
Performance histories are what move musicians associated with the jazz tradition from the entertainer role across the line to the (racially-defined and more esteemed under Eurocentric standards) status of composer. The Ghost Trance Septet hasn’t just made an enjoyable (and very much so) record for the current moment; they’ve contributed to the future critical assessment of a musical mind as important as Ellington and Riddle on the one hand and Stockhausen and Xenakis on the other.
In his review for All About Jazz, critic Mark Corroto echoed a similar assertion, briefly and poetically:
"Kobe Van Cauwenberghe's Ghost Trance Septet remembers both a Braxton future and a Ghost Trance past."
Conclusion:
The wide coverage of the Ghost Trance Solos and Ghost Trance Septet plays Anthony Braxton albums suggests a significant interest in Anthony Braxton's work within various music communities. While the majority of reviews appeared in jazz-identified publications, reaffirming Braxton's continued association with the jazz genre, a deeper analysis provides a multifaceted view of Braxton's work that goes beyond simplistic categorizations. The reviews touch on issues of genre, interpretation, complexity, and the evolving recognition of Braxton as a composer within the broader musical landscape. The impact of both album releases in contributing to the changing perception of Braxton’s work and his position as a composer can be seen in several points highlighted throughout the different reviews.
The interpretative freedom showcased in the reviews underscores the albums' contribution to expanding the understanding of Braxton's work. This often comes with the expressed hope that the albums could inspire more musicians to engage with Braxton's compositions, potentially influencing future performances and contributing to the preservation of his legacy. The question of complexity in Braxton’s music brought out strong opposing views, echoing historical tensions within jazz journalism. This topic is linked to Braxton’s ambiguous relation to genre and the tension that arises when attempting to categorize his music and musical concepts within traditional genre boundaries. The albums were generally praised for adopting Braxton’s trans-idiomatic approach, challenging these traditional genre boundaries, and reinforcing Braxton's reputation as a composer with a diverse and eclectic musical language. Lastly, critics across different publications acknowledged Braxton's role as a contemporary composer, placing him alongside influential composers from various traditions in the 20th-century musical landscape. The albums are seen as instrumental in broadening the recognition of Braxton beyond traditional jazz contexts, emphasizing his significance as a composer with a unique and influential musical voice within the broader canon of 20th and 21st-century music.
