Music Book Review: Forces in Motion by Graham Lock

Forces in Motion: Anthony Braxton and the Meta-Reality of Creative Music
by Graham Lock (Music 781.65 Bra)

Anthony Braxton is a musician and composer whose work might not be incredibly well-known to the general public, but his work looms large over the fields of contemporary creative music and music education. Braxton is often included in the pantheon of jazz artists, and particularly the free jazz movement of the 1960s. Indeed, his early work as an improvising saxophone player was a major influence on free jazz. But in the ensuing years, his compositions often fall into what seems more like contemporary classical works, and Braxton himself often refers to his work simply as “creative music.” As Professor of Music at Wesleyan University from the 90s to 2013, he inspired and educated new generations of creative musicians, often filling his own ensembles with young East Coast musicians.

We have a recently reprinted book about Anthony Braxton here in Polley that I would highly recommend. It’s called Forces in Motion: Anthony Braxton and the Meta-Reality of Creative Music by Graham Lock. Originally published in 1988, the book follows Braxton on a tour of England in 1985, featuring a series of casual on-the-road interviews in which Braxton and Lock cover a wide range of topics. Some allusions are made to Braxton’s own “Tri-axium writings,” a body of writing in which Braxton elaborates on his on philosophies at length, though these have unfortunately remained out of print for decades. Through these conversations, one can get a good feeling for how Braxton’s music works, his musical interests, and influences on his work as a black musician straddling the line between composed and improvised worlds. After the main touring section of the book, we get three lengthy postscript sections that further explain Braxton’s thoughts on how music and societies are related, an overview of the Tri-axium writings, and some lecture notes that delve into the kinds of structural models used in his compositions. Finally, there is a catalog of Braxton’s works covering the time period between 1966 and 1986.

While the time period from 1986 to the present isn’t covered in the book–hopefully someone is working on a new book to cover his fascinating work since then–you’ll be sure to get a sense of the pure magic of Braxton’s music through these pages.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Message to our folks: The Art Ensemble of Chicago by Paul Steinbeck, The Free Musics by Jack Wright or Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music by Derek Bailey.]

[ page for Forces in Motion on jazzstudiesonline.org ]

Recommended by Scott S.
Polley Music Library

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