Saxophonist Anthony Braxton and the Revolutionary Ensemble's violinist, Leroy Jenkins, played together in a group called the Creative Construction Company during the latter part of the Sixties. Unlike the Art Ensemble of Chicago, which started around the same time and grew out of the same association of musicians, the CCC split after a brief, successful European sojourn.

Today, the members of the Art Ensemble are pursuing their separate careers with varying degrees of recognition and very little commercial success, while Braxton and Jenkins, both signed to major labels, have produced the most exciting LPs of new jazz to appear this year. Braxton has seemed abstruse to some—he titles his compositions with mathematical formulae and most of his music hasn't exactly been the kind you'd want to sing along to—but Creative Orchestra Music 1976, his first chance to compose for a big band, should convince the skeptics. It's a brilliantly realized album; the eclecticism that sometimes seemed scattered in a small-combo setting makes perfect sense in this band context, and there are delightful surprises at every turn.

The first side, for example, starts off with a lusty, roaring number in the classic Basie/Ellington/Mingus big-band tradition, slips into an entrancing mood piece—with soft rustlings, purrs, growls and unusual synthesizer effects prominent—and then abruptly bursts into a Sousa-style march that compares favorably with "The Stars and Stripes Forever." Side two offers further surprises. With this album Braxton firmly establishes himself as one of the few musicians recording for a major label who is broadening the frontiers of jazz.

The Revolutionary Ensemble, which consists of violinist Jenkins, bassist Sirone and drummer Jerome Cooper, also belongs within this select circle. The People's Republic is the group's fourth album, its first for a major label, and it offers several selections of collective improvisation which are virtually flawless. In addition to the collective pieces, there are examples of the group's more straight-ahead blowing, and these prove beyond a doubt that Leroy Jenkins is the most gifted jazz violinist to emerge during the contemporary period.

These LPs are classics of the new jazz in its emerging post-Coleman, post-Coltrane extensions. Significantly, the music is more ordered, more refined and altogether more listenable than much of the collective fury of the jazz avant-garde's first decade. The Braxton album, with its ties to big-band tradition, and the Revolutionary Ensemble LP, with its aural similarity to contemporary chamber music, are exploratory music that a wide audience should be able to appreciate. (RS 219)

ROBERT PALMER