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Anthony Braxton Quartet - Quartet (England) 1985 (Burning Ambulance, 2025)
Roundtable conversation with Gary Chapin, Andrew Choate, and Lee Rice Epstein
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_We join our trio of intrepids in the middle of a conversation about the new Burning Ambulance release of Anthony Braxton Quartet “bootlegs,”_ _Quartet (England) 1985_ _. The release presents music recorded by Graham Lock, who traveled with the quartet to write his book,_ Forces in Motion _. Adding to the original Leo recordings of the tour, we now get sets from Sheffield, Bristol, Leicester, and Southampton, in addition to sound check recordings from throughout the tour. If you are into this kind of thing, the set amounts to 6+ hours of manna from Heaven._
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Gary Chapin**
Let's start with the magnitude that we talked about because it seems like this has always been an iconic tour. Partly based on the Leo recordings—which are great—but also because of Graham Locke's book. This is probably the most well documented tour in this kind of music. So, is this an iconic tour because of the documentation or because of the performances themselves?
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Andrew Choate**
I think that's a great question. The music definitely stands on its own and listening to all of these further recordings made me think this is the heart of Braxton's music for me, It's where I discovered his music, you know, the first time somebody played me some of his music. 16 years old. They showed me _Forces in Motion_ and I was instantly intrigued and wanted to get to know more.
Graham's book helps a lot, but his book also talks about other aspects of Braxton's music. For me personally, this quartet was the height of when Braxton had a working band, and could do stuff on a really regular basis. They have this concentrated tour opportunity and I think it allowed a certain essence of his music to really get strong.
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Lee Rice Epstein**
Maybe before hearing these additional recordings, I might have said it was the book that helped cement these recordings. That tour is critical, but hearing more performances by the group—
You know what Andrew's getting at? It's a really transformational time for Braxton. He had already hit a bunch of highs, like his whole Arista run.
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Andrew Choate**
Yeah.
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Lee Rice Epstein**
Like _Montreaux/Berlin_ (1976), I go back to that a ton. That's a classic live Braxton. But in a way—listening to it in 2025—it’still just kind of like, yeah, they're really really out there in the compositional structure, but they're also still doing a lot of head, solo, solo, solo, head, right? And _England (1985)_ is like something else entirely. He's got three very brave musicians who are pushing as hard against expectations as he is. Marilyn Crispell's probably one of his most important all time partners in music.
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Gary Chapin**
I actually saw this quartet in New York City, and that was amazing. One of the things that I loved about this period was that Braxton was moving into his own universe. But he was still drawing from those compositions around the 40s and the thirty-threes and the twenty-threes. I saw them do 23G, which—I love that piece very much
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Andrew Choate**
There're a couple of sort of paradoxical things that I wrote down while I was listening. I kept thinking about Braxton's humbleness. Like he's writing these compositions and getting people to play them and push back. But I heard a sort of fundamental humility in the music, which I had never heard before. Like he's really excited about the music, but it's not ___For Alto_. The structures that he's created, and the young musicians with him pushing and pulling, emphasize that sense.
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Lee Rice Epstein**14:08
I for sure hear it. I've never met him. I only know people who know him, but he seems like one of the great humility engines in music.
[...]
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Lee Rice Epstein**
So what did you guys think [of the new set]? Even when you first heard they were coming out like, were you, “Oh yeah, that's gonna be all gold” or a little bit like, “I don't know.” They were very upfront about the fact that these were not professional recordings.
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Gary Chapin**
My first thought was that this is going to be extremely interesting. My second thought was that I am no longer the kind of person who listens to every archival recording recorded in the club bathroom with a mic snaked out to the bandstand. That kind of stuff just doesn't get me anymore. Since they warned us that it might not be great production, I said, “I'll manage my expectations.”
But there was nothing about the production that detracts from the music! For me it's just astounding that in 19—I don't know, what was that—80? 81? That they were able to get that quality from like a hand recording that Graham did.
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Andrew Choate**
Yeah, my first thought was also, “I bet the production is just not going to be very good.” But, I'm interested in the music and I can filter that out. But listening to it: these are absolutely acceptable recordings, really. The balance: you hear the differences in the halls. It's like, “Wow, this is, this is what a live concert feels like.
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Gary Chapin**
You can even hear the bass very clearly, which is so rare.
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Lee Rice Epstein**
One of them—I think it's the Bristol set—sounds like you're in a small room. And you’ve got all four instruments—I wasn’t ready for the quality of the playing. In a way it’s like the Leo sets were the safer ones because there is some very, very out playing here.
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Gary Chapin**
The opening of Sheffield, which is the first cut of the whole set, was such a blistering statement of purpose. It was just amazing, like a supernova of sound right from the start, so much energy. And it didn’t calm down for nearly 10 minutes.
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Andrew Choate**
A supernova of sound is a great way to put it because it is. It is really dense, it is really lively and it just grabs you right from the start.
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Lee Rice Epstein**
So, because I can't help myself. I made a playlist of the whole tour in order. I was looking at Graham's book a little bit online. Sheffield kicks off this set and is the first, yeah, but it's like the third, the third stop on their tour. By that point, they've really warmed up. And they sound it. They sound right. They don't let up for a minute. There's no coasting.
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Gary Chapin**
They're always interesting. There's a lot of emotional energy being spent.
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Lee Rice Epstein**
Additional thoughts? I don't know if we want to get into individual sets. We've talked about the whole of it, but are there specific highs? Listeners who haven't dipped into this yet, can get the set or you can get the individual concerts.
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Andrew Choate**
I mean, I would say if you're interested in this music, just get the whole thing. There's so much. I think the one show I came back to the most often though was Leicester, partly because in the first set there's just an extraordinary Mark Dresser solo.
There's also an extraordinary Gerry Hemingway solo, and they go on for more significant lengths of time than I think I would have guessed from reading Graham's book or from thinking about Braxton's compositions. They're significant.
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Lee Rice Epstein**
It's funny. This is exactly why I like the round table format for something like this, because I have my own favorite set that I've been going back to most, which is Bristol. So we each named a different one, right? Which is very fun, but I concur 100%. I think like anyone who's interested, there's no reason not to hear all, all, all the music. There's delight in every set.
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Andrew Choate**
We're really lucky that there's enough interest to have this stuff out there. It’s on a different level. There's no way not to be rewarded.
<a href="https://anthonybraxton-bam.bandcamp.com/album/quartet-england-1985">Quartet (England) 1985 by Anthony Braxton</a>
