Anthony Braxton

Biography

4 June 1945, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Braxton began playing clarinet in high school, studied music for one semester at Wilson Junior College, then joined the US Army, where he played clarinet and alto saxophone. In 1966 he joined Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (the AACM), a newly formed musicians’ co-operative whose leading members included Muhal Richard Abrams and Roscoe Mitchell. Braxton formed his own group (later called the Creative Construction Company) with Leroy Jenkins and Leo Smith and their first release, 3 Compositions Of New Jazz, was recorded in 1968. Their music typified the Chicagoans’ new experimentalism, with its emphasis on sound, space, texture - as opposed to the John Coltrane -led energy music prevalent in New York. Braxton also followed the AACM trend towards multi-instrumentalism, becoming an accomplished master on most members of the saxophone, clarinet and flute families. However, alto sax had....

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