Anthony Braxton

[Rabshakeh]

In case anyone’s missed it, there’s an interview with Braxton on the Grammy website, of all places. 

https://www.grammy.com/grammys/news/2021-anthony-braxton-interview-12-comp-zim-quartet-standards

As with all Braxton interviews, it is unexpected reading. Not just because he claims his nickname among his friends is Anthony 'Simon and Garfunkel Boy' Braxton. 

Edited June 6, 2021 by Rabshakeh

[Dub Modal]

On 6/6/2021 at 3:53 AM, Rabshakeh said:

As with all Braxton interviews, it is unexpected reading.

Yeah, sure is. 

I know he's won several awards but does anyone know if he's ever performed on behalf of the State Dept or something similar? 

[Rabshakeh]

57 minutes ago, Dub Modal said:

Yeah, sure is. 

I know he's won several awards but does anyone know if he's ever performed on behalf of the State Dept or something similar? 

He he.

I went back and re read it. Once the surprise at the terminology he uses had gone (so strange for someone who has spent so much of his career arriving at a personal language to describe his own music and ideology to pick those particular phrases), I think what Braxton's saying is probably broadly in line with what he says in some chapters of Forces in Motion. He isn't going to turn up in a red cap any time soon.

The interviewer obviously sensed click bait where he had least expected and just dove right in.

Edited June 7, 2021 by Rabshakeh

[Dub Modal]

2 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

He he.

I went back and re read it. Once the surprise at the terminology he uses had gone (so strange for someone who has spent so much of his career arriving at a personal language to describe his own music and ideology to pick those particular phrases), I think what Braxton's saying is probably broadly in line with what he says in some chapters of Forces in Motion. He isn't going to turn up in a red cap any time soon.

The interviewer obviously sensed click bait where he had least expected and just dove right in.

Ah, I figured maybe he'd demonstrated a perspective like this before but I haven't read any of his book(s). The interviewer absolutely honed in on those comments. 

[Rabshakeh]

5 minutes ago, Dub Modal said:

Ah, I figured maybe he'd demonstrated a perspective like this before but I haven't read any of his book(s). The interviewer absolutely honed in on those comments. 

His books are great, but Forces of Motion is particularly good - it isn't by him but by a journalist, which helps to cut the heady stuff a little.

[JSngry]

Forces In Motion is "required reading" if you want to even begin to develop an understanding of the things that Braxton is "up to".. either that or being around him personally for however long.

The guy is deep, and he's consistent. But he's not easy, if only because his "all at once" view is not what most people have. When mos peolle start sensing the wholeness of the whole, it gets,,,disorienting, probably. But not this guy.

[Rabshakeh]

Another interview, in The Quietus:

https://thequietus.com/articles/30084-anthony-braxton-interview

Less clickbaitey than the Grammys one, and worth reading.

[erwbol]

Only just now started reading the Grammy interview. Great to see Anthony Braxton blasting woke academia! Thanks, @Rabshakeh.

[mjzee]

2 hours ago, erwbol said:

Only just now started reading the Grammy interview. Great to see Anthony Braxton blasting woke academia! Thanks, @Rabshakeh.

Thanks for pointing that out to me.  It was a pleasure reading his words.  Just don't make me listen to his music.

[Guy Berger]

I’m curious based on that interview (and knowing I am touching a live wire) - how have Anthony Braxton’s political views changed over time (if at all)?

[erwbol]

9 minutes ago, Guy Berger said:

I’m curious based on that interview (and knowing I am touching a live wire) - how have Anthony Braxton’s political views changed over time (if at all)?

I think the nature of Braxton's work would qualify him and his work as what's called 'white adjacent' by wokies. So, his views shouldn't come as a surprise, but still a relief.

[JSngry]

They haven't changed, really. He's still against anything that looks at "history" (which is really to say, time) from a fixed-lens perspective.

Read it from that perspective, and note how he talks about "these things" having been resolved a long time ago...which means, yes, racism and other theft-mechanisms and the intellectual diversionism/divisionism by all parties in response to same...known quantities, nothing new here.

So don't think he's letting anybody off the hook, here. He's just saying that it's revisiting old truths and looking to avoid moving forward from them. And THIS time, it 'wokeness" falling into the trap.

AB was an original Wokeman!

[erwbol]

After reading that Grammy interview, Anthony Braxton is a hero of mine more than ever.

[Rabshakeh]

I think the weird thing is he uses Fox News-type terminology. Otherwise, I don't read anything there that is really anti-progressive in any way. Note the passing reference to George GM James' Stolen Legacy. 

[JSngry]

13 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

I think the weird thing is he uses Fox News-type terminology.

He's doing an interview with the Grammy-site. He's speaking ignunt-consumer jargon. Because if he spoke like he usually does, he would not get that much print space - knowing his audience!

The guy plays the longest of games, always has, probably always will. If he hooks anybody on a single "point", mission accomplished. There's plenty more of them if you want them, and if you don't, at least remember the name, pass it on to your kids. He will NOT be one of the many names conveniently lost from history at the first opportunity to formulate the "Conventional Wisdom" narrative.

[erwbol]

His continued reference to Egyptian spirituality is what's called Afrocentrism?

[JSngry]

It depends on who's doing the calling...pretty sure that to him it's just basic/documented known history.

Don't try to bring him into a 3D reality, that's not where he lives.

[erwbol]

From that Wikipedia page it looks like Afrocentrists live in la-la land.

[JSngry]

I'm sure some do, and that some don't.

Follow the anthropology/archeology.

[Rabshakeh]

49 minutes ago, JSngry said:

It depends on who's doing the calling...pretty sure that to him it's just basic/documented known history.

Don't try to bring him into a 3D reality, that's not where he lives.

I have noticed that Braxton references James’ book at almost every opportunity, though, including in the more recent article from The Quietus (which is a more interesting insight into Braxton, I think, than the Grammy interview). It gets nearly a whole chapter in Forces (not Braxton’s own book, obviously, but he must have treated it sufficiently at length in the interviews to prompt such a lengthy recitation of the book’s theory by Lock). I take from his frequent references that Braxton considers James’ book to be a powerful source of inspiration and insight. 

It is an interesting one, because, despite its rather narrow thesis, Stolen Legacy does end on a very Braxtonian note, with a call for humanity-wide liberation and renewal through an embrace and understanding of what the book describes as the “Mystery System” of “Ancient Egypt”.

(Edited to remove first para, which I think misunderstood JS’ point.)

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

He's doing an interview with the Grammy-site. He's speaking ignunt-consumer jargon. Because if he spoke like he usually does, he would not get that much print space - knowing his audience!

My concern, I guess, is that, in a world where 90% of discourse happens in the most shallow way possible on social media, the jargon used is apt to become the message itself. I have seen a lot of dismay on Twitter etc. at his use of this terminology.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Rabshakeh

[JSngry]

Twitter dismay...is that any different than Twitter aggression, or Twitter joy, or Twitter...anything?

Twitter is not a long game. It's a bright shiny object. At best, like, if your gig got moved up an hour or something, oh, good, thanks for letting us know 

Long game.

[Rabshakeh]

24 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Twitter is not a long game. It's a bright shiny object. At best, like, if your gig got moved up an hour or something, oh, good, thanks for letting us know 

Long game.

Oh, I see.

Facebook 😁

[JSngry]

Not QUITE as short a game, but still, hardly Egyptian!

[jlhoots]

I believe that the Blu - ray DVD is mis-priced at Amazon. Don't delay if you're interested.

Edited June 23, 2021 by jlhoots

[JSngry]

Well now! Good lookin' out!