Review: Braxton, by Kleeb (Composition No. 1, 1968)

As you can see from my profile, I am also a lover of all kinds of music and a beginner composer. I will now make a brief review of a song composed and performed in such a way that it avoids almost any material about it.

Anthony Braxton is a jazz composer related to classical music that almost no one outside of circles knows about. A few years ago he came to Brazil but I couldn't see it (unlike with Cecil Taylor, who I saw live).

This composition is unusual to say the least, and still does today. I will not comment on the technical aspect, which I am unaware of, but rather on what it expresses as a work of a certain avant-garde.

We, as music lovers with a profile suited to the purest, simplest and most effective expression, need to challenge ourselves from time to time. And Braxton, with Kleeb, challenges us. We seem to be in a troubled mind, which doesn't seem to move properly, and which explodes into stupidly strange chords, while we navigate a composition that seems to take us to an environment of placidity and tranquility.

Few compositions achieve this. Because there are always those who calm down with timbres - like Barry Manilow. Others, with compositions that move forward and backward smoothly, like a Chopin. Others, with shrill screams that tell us that the world is a real struggle - those who hear gutturals like Abbath. Each one aims for calm in a different way.

Braxton offers us the calm of a strange composition, apparently without a fulcrum, without a core - but hiding the fact that behind so many disparate notes there is SOMEONE.

Kleeb is respectful of the work. It does not try to express its subjectivity. Restrict yourself to doing what the score seems to tell you. And it does it well.

(This is the first text about art, in this case, music, in which I express on a Sunday something about a work - among many that I have not yet commented on - absolutely exceptional and, in addition to being at the moment, extremely current - it is from 1968).

(Rodrigo Contrera)

Translated by Google Translator

Link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4MHzITYppA

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