Roscoe Mitchell Creative Orchestra feat. Anthony Braxton

Another quick one, for Sotise this time. This is the Roscoe Mitchell Creative Orchestra, featuring Anthony Braxton and recorded live at the Konfrontationen '84, more specifically at the Jazzgalerie, Restaurant Falb (outside in the court yard), Nickelsdorf, Austria on 30. June 1984.

One contiguous piece only, lasting close to one hour.

Line - up:

Anthony Braxton - as,cond
Roscoe Mitchell - as,ss,bs,fl
Anthony Holland - as, bs
Faruq Z.Bey - ts
Michael Mossmann - tp, flh
Pinguin Moschner - tuba
Conny Bauer - tb
Johannes Bauer - tb
Martin Mayes - horns
Ursula Opens - p
Spencer Barefield - g
Susanna Heilmeyer - vla
Richard Teitelbaum - synth
Jaribu Shahid - b, eb
Ponda O'Bryan - perc
Tanni Tabbal - dr

This is a dense, orchestral piece which shifts across several moods and passages, some rooted in jazz, others in collective improvisation and yet others in formally composed contemporary music. As such it may be representative of the AACM philosophy of not recognising any stylistic boundaries in music, drawing as much on the Afro-American jazz tradition as on the European classical-contemporary tradition. Mitchell and Braxton were (and are) explicit exponents of this worldview, at the risk of not being fully accepted by either camp. But they know what they're doing and are fully able to defend themselves. Needless to say, perhaps, I'm in full sympathy with this view and with the deconstruction of artificial boundaries in music.

By the way, George Lewis has now published his book on the AACM which can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/6nj9ep

Braxton and Lewis up next, but that won't be quick as it's back to the vinyls again ...