eMusic Review
No visionary composer has been more derided by jazz gatekeepers than Braxton. Likewise, none has been so strongly defended, inspired such devotion from players he's mentored, or seen his wide-ranging music so extensively documented, often in imposing box sets like this nine-CD (+ DVD) brick. The nine CDs comprise nine sets, recorded live over three nights, with a 13-piece including past or present students making their own reps: trumpeter Taylor Ho Bynum, altoist Steve Lehman, violinist Jessica Pavone, guitarist Mary Halvorson…. (Ringers include Chicago flutist Nicole Mitchell.) It's the culmination of the Ghost Trane Music Braxton been making for a decade. The rhythmic subdivisions are so complex the pulse seems constantly in flux; multiple subgroups pop out to improvise or layer on other compositions. Charles Ives celebrated the glorious clash of two bands converging on a square; this gleefully dense music is Ivesian simultaneity with 13 browser windows open.