Library Person
Anthony Braxton
American composer and multi-instrumentalist, an original member of the AACM and one of the most prolific figures in creative music.
Anthony Braxton (b. 1945, Chicago) joined the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in 1966 after military service, having already studied philosophy and composition at Roosevelt University alongside future collaborators Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman. In 1967 he formed the Creative Construction Company with violinist Leroy Jenkins and trumpeter Leo Smith, and the following year recorded For Alto (1968), the first full album of unaccompanied solo saxophone. Working across composition and improvisation on alto and sopranino saxophone, clarinet, and contrabass clarinet among a large personal arsenal of woodwinds, he has written roughly four hundred compositions spanning orchestral, big-band, chamber, solo, and small-ensemble forms, recording more than seventy albums as a leader. He taught at Mills College before becoming a longtime professor of music at Wesleyan University, and was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2014.