Anthony Braxton: For Alto

Copy at Case Memorial Library
Nate Chinen wrote in the New York Times: "[T]he Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians … has fostered some of the most vital American avant-garde music of the last 40 years. … The scene plays out vividly in 'A Power Stronger Than Itself: The A.A.C.M. and Experimental Music,' an important book by the trombonist-composer-scholar George Lewis. … 'If this was to be a revolution,' Mr. Lewis writes, 'it would be a revolution without stars, individual heroes or Great Men.' But the association has had its share of great men (and a few great women): audacious improvisers like the trumpeter Lester Bowie, the tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson and the violinist Leroy Jenkins; visionary composers like [Muhal Richard] Abrams, [Amina Claudine] Myers, [Henry] Threadgill, [Roscoe] Mitchell and the saxophonist Anthony Braxton. … Yet even in the most solitary of settings — the solo saxophone recital, as represented by Mr. Braxton’s landmark 1968 album, 'For Alto' (Delmark) — the aesthetic of the organization called for something other than the jazzman’s heroic voice" (5/2/08).