Anthony Braxton Quotes

The word music is a convenient way to talk about what I'm interested in, but actually, in some ways, it's a limitation.

I am interested in the study of music and the discipline of music and the experience of music and music as a esoteric mechanism to continue my real intentions.

There's a lot of creative music happening in the underground, which is a very hopeful kind of sign....[These initiators are] usually kind of outcasts--for the most part no one can relate to them. And it's all over the planet; you go and look in the alleys and under the doorways, in the coal mines--they're there, lurking in the
shadows; a significant amount of people in different parts of the planet who are genuinely creative. And I associate and attach myself to that. Usually when I go to any new place I try to find out from the musicians--they'll usually say 'this guy can't play,' or 'he's crazy,' 'he's not doing anything,' 'he's a sick, warped, demented
fool'--and immediately I try to find him. He's probably one of us.

I would find myself backing away from all of the 'isms', all of the communities. I have always been able to be misused by every community But that is OK. I would rather be misused than neglected.

I'm seeking to have an art that is engaged as a way for saying, 'Hurray for unity.'

Evolution is the phenomenon of change and the challenge of the next time cycle will involve the creation of constructs that will provide the kind of dynamic knowledge base that can assist the challenges of tomorrow (involving both fundamental and extended information).

Growing up in the '50s and being in the '60s, in that revolutionary time space, I thought freedom was what I was looking for. Slowly but surely, it became clear that the last thing I was interested in was freedom. Because if you're going to be free, you have to be free from something.

I know I'm an African-American, and I know I play the saxophone, but I'm not a jazz musician. I'm not a classical musician, either. My music is like my life: It's in between these areas.

Is jazz a rhythm, or is it a vibration?

There is more to creative mastership than the surface of satisfaction and political certainty. The music of Joe Fonda is part of a living tradition of belief and dedication. Future historians will be surprised at the breadth of Mr. Fonda's offerings. This is a real virtuoso and composer of the highest order.

I am viewed as the Negro who has gone outside of the categories assigned to me.

So, yes, I am in the underground, but actually, it feels like home.

I have great hopes for the possibility of a dynamic universalism that respects all our people.

For the most basic assumption that dictated my early attempts to respond to creative music commentary was the mistaken belief that western journalists had some fundamental understanding of black creativity - or even western creativity - but this assumption was seriously in error.

My work has been marginalized as far as the jazz-business complex is concerned, or the contemporary-music complex.