Anthony Braxton – For Alto

Without a doubt one of the high points of avant garde jazz…this album has few peers. The intellectual and spiritual rigor in each breath uttered by this great artist hits the mind and the soul with a force so uncommon they only come around a few times within a musical genre. Cheers Mr. Braxton!

After issuing Anthony Braxton's Three Compositions of New Jazz in 1968, Chicago's Delmark Records took an enormous chance by issuing the first lengthy solo saxophone improvisation record in 1969 -- and as a double LP no less! And while it's true that hindsight is 20/20, For Alto is still, over 30 years later, a record that is ahead of its time. There is nothing tame or nostalgic about these blasts of jazz futurism from the young Braxton, who sounds here like he's trying to blow his way out of Chicago. Most of the pieces on this set are over nine minutes, and all are dedicated to various influences and friends in the saxophonist's circle. Perhaps the most frightening -- and enlightening -- improvisation here is "To Composer John Cage." Braxton attempts to literally change the entire tonal terrain on which the saxophone plays solo. His skittering skeins of cascading runs are interspersed with huge shouts and screeches all played at lightning speed with a deftness and angularity of approach that is far superior to most of his peers at the time.

Good. I'm glad the definition of Jazz has expanded to include musical works that wish to exist in their own bubbles and defy categorization.
The problems of pigeonholing continue.
Breathtaking recording.

Why do you bother to listen to something that makes you feel such pain let alone write about it. It is always a matter of taste either you like it or not. Try and listen Coltrane's "Interstellar Space" maybe easier to get into the spirit of "free jazz".

With complete Absolution and Certainty, I can say that this hopelessly unlistenable album contains some of the worst music I've ever heard.
Sitting through almost any section of it induces sensations that resemble pain. I understand that what he was doing was revolutionary - and I strive to always acknowledge a music's context - but this recording is best left as a reference point in Jazz history, rather than an actual album of listenable material... Just leave it alone. Holding a saxophone up to a freshly-slashed truck tire would produce a more intelligible series of sounds than this unholy descent into madness.