For Alto

Anthony Braxton

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 25, 2000)
• Original Release Date: October 1968
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Delmark
• ASIN: B00004U04J
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #125,363 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Originally released as a two-LP set in 1969, For Alto is 73 minutes of unaccompanied saxophone solos by a young musician issuing just his second recording under his own name. Solo saxophone was then a rarefied tradition in jazz. Coleman Hawkins had done it once in the 1940s and Sonny Rollins in the '50s. More to the point, Eric Dolphy and Jimmy Giuffre had done it a few times in the early 1960s. Braxton was being more than brash, however, and doing something very different. He was applying fresh structural concepts to sustain extended improvisations, and he was exploring John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, as well as the jazz tradition, to mark a new direction in the avant-garde.

Forgoing the "energy music" school, Braxton was exploring silence, noise, and forms of serialism with an analytical, almost sculptural, approach to sound. Each piece here explores a different approach or set of materials. There's buzz-saw saxophone on "To Composer John Cage," while "To pianist Cecil Taylor" is heartfelt blues that delves back before bebop for its sources. Tracks 5 and 6 are breathy, extended improvisations, the former exploring pianissimo understatement, and the latter developing elliptical complexity, with both drawing on and redirecting the jazz-ballad tradition. The concluding piece, nearly 20 minutes long, builds dialogue from contrasts between brittle, abrasive overblowing and the merest suggestions of notes. For Alto is one of those rare works that point to new possibilities, and it's been one of the most influential recordings of the past 30 years. It remains brilliant, challenging--perhaps even daunting--music. --Stuart Broomer

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars historic Braxton solo flight, August 2, 2000

By	R. Hutchinson "autonomeus" (a world ruled by fossil fuels and fossil minds) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This album was one of the first solo records in jazz. That, and the fact that it was an early product of the Chicago scene, which most famously included the Art Ensemble, make it a historic recording. This is not music for just anyone, but if you are into the avant-garde, it has a forbidding beauty that is only enhanced by knowing it was conceived and executed in 1969! Braxton opens with a 9-minute tour de force dedicated to John Cage which sounds somewhat like a cross between Coltrane's 1961 "Chasin' the Trane" and a 90s Evan Parker solo. Close listening is required for "Dedicated to Ann and Peter Allen," which is played at a barely audible level. This exemplifies one of Braxton's core concerns -- experimentation with pure sound as well as form. Unfortunately, there is one such experiment that I judge a failure, and that is the original Side 4, "Dedicated to Leroy Jenkins." Braxton, in this 20-minute piece, repeatedly, deliberately, honks, Ayler-style, interrupted by brief forays into higher registers. I'm sure that in his mind this represented some sort of formal exploration of the context of the "honk," a noble sax tradition going back to the earliest days of jazz. However, not all such formal experimentation is worthy, in the end, of presenting to the public. My recommendation is this -- listen to "For Alto" side by side. Rather than trying to digest it whole, listen to each of the original LP sides separately, which physiologically more closely corresponds to the the human attention span than a 70-minute CD. If you are open-minded, I think you will hear the beauty in this great late-60s record.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A little history for ya., March 15, 2009

By	greg taylor (Portland, Oregon United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

I thought I would provide a little history on this CD and its reception before I offer some mildly phrased opinions.
I had thought the story behind For Alto was fairly well known but maybe not. I believe I read about this in Forces in Motion by Graham Locke. If you are interested in anything AB, that is a good place to start. I am going off memory since I cannot find my copy so if I misrepresent what happened, please correct me in the comments.
Anyway, sometime back around 1967, AB was giving a solo sax concert in Chicago and found himself nonplussed. He had thought it would be easy to improvise soli for an hour or so but found himself very quickly repeating himself.
The result was a period of practise wherein he developed his saxophone languages concept. If I remember correctly, AB came up with the idea of using certain qualities of saxophone sound as the basis for improvisation. "Buzzing" was one of them, I think "trills" was another.
These pieces are the result.
This CD fell on the jazz public, media and fellow musicians like a bomb. I bought a copy of the double CD back in early 1969 and I had the usual reaction to it. Some of it I didn't understand at all and some of it I loved. But I kept listening to it (along with a ton of other stuff that annoyed my parents no end).
The controversy over AB's music can be gauged by following his rep in Downbeat from that period. They ignored him until he started appearing in their Talent Polls. This CD was not reviewed until 4 or 5 years after it appeared! The writers and many of AB's fellow musicians complained about his tone or his fingering or ego or his sanity.
Here is the deal. This is not music that is meant to entertain. It is meant to challenge, to educate, to explore, to suggest and to foster change. Not least, to foster change in the way we hear the possibilities of what are musical materials. Not least, to change how we hear the possibility of melody and what is harmonious. The pieces that the other reviewers complain about, the ones dedicated to Cage and Jenkins are not what I listen to everyday but when I do I still love them. They still sound radical and fresh. The Cage piece in particular still sounds incredibly skillful, oddly melodious and fascinating.
If you are new to AB or to solo sax, I recommend the later CDs of his devoted to his solo work. Something like Wesleyan (12 Alto Solos)1992 or Solo Willisau. They are more accessible. But if you have the courage to musically explore then, for the love of doG, get thee a copy of this bad boy and listen to it. Then wait a month or two and listen to it again. And then wait another month or two and do it again. You may never learn to really tap your feet to it but it will change the way you hear the possible in music.
Mingus did one of Downbeat's Blindfold tests in 1960 during which he insisted on commenting on Ornette Coleman. He concluded by saying, "I'm not saying everybody's going to have to play like Coleman but they're going to have to stop copying Bird." (Quoted from George Lewis's A Power Stronger Than Itself, p.46). Well, I'm not saying you have to like AB or enjoy what he does, but I am saying that AB and his AACM associates changed the music. This CD is a masterpiece. Whether you like it or not.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars No-holds-barred honkin'and squealin', May 24, 2007

By	Honkinsax (Palmerston North, New Zealand) - See all my reviews

Intense, uncompromising solo saxophone. This is not the kind of music to provide background for a dinner party, as Mr. Braxton demands your full attention.