Anthony Branker

Anthony Branker

Musicians | Instrument: Composer / conductor | Location: Trenton

With a unique combination of depth and accessibility, Branker is able to put forth a jazz perspective steeped in soulful optimism.

—All About Jazz

Updated: January 26, 2023

Born: August 28, 1958

Composer, conductor, and bandleader Anthony Branker is an Origin Records recording artist who was named in Down Beat magazine’s 63rd & 62nd Annual Critics Poll as a “Rising Star Composer.” Dr. Branker has nine releases in his fast growing and musically rich discography that include: What Place Can Be For Us? (Origin, 2023), Beauty Within (Origin, 2016), The Forward (Towards Equality) Suite (Origin, 2014), Uppity (Origin, 2013), Together (Origin, 2012), Dialogic (Origin, 2011), Dance Music (Origin, 2010), Blessings (Origin, 2009), and Spirit Songs (Sons of Sound, 2006), which have featured Walter Smith III, Philip Dizack, Remy Le Boeuf, Fabian Almazan, Linda May Han Oh, Donald Edwards, Pete McCann, Alison Crockett, Rudy Royston, Ralph Bowen, David Binney, Conrad Herwig, Jim Ridl, Kenny Davis, Renato Thoms, Mark Gross, Tia Fuller, Steve Wilson, Antonio Hart, Clifford Adams, Andy Hunter, Eli Asher, Jonny King, Bryan Carrott, John Benitez, Belden Bullock, Adam Cruz, Ralph Peterson Jr., Wilby Fletcher, Kadri Voorand, and Freddie Bryant.

In 2023, Origin Records will release Branker’s ninth project as a leader titled What Place Can Be For Us? A Suite in Ten-Movements that speaks to the overarching issues of inclusion, belonging, place as an emotional space of being, as well as circumstances of exploitation and zones of refuge experienced by people of color and other global citizens. It will feature tenor saxophonist Walter Smith III, trumpeter Philip Dizack, alto & soprano saxophonist Remy Le Boeuf, guitarist Pete McCann, pianist Fabian Almazan, bassist Linda May Han Oh, drummer Donald Edwards, and vocalist Alison Crockett. Origin Records will also reissue Branker’s Spirit Songs project in the summer of 2023 featuring the late, great drummer Ralph Peterson, Jr. along with alto saxophonist Antonio Hart, tenor saxophonist Ralph Bowen, pianist Jonny King, bassist John Benitez, and the late trombonist Clifford Adams Jr., who was also a member of the legendary group Kool & the Gang.

Branker has received composition prizes and was a Third Place Winner in the 2021 International Songwriting Competition (ISC) in the jazz category, has received commissions, served as a visiting composer, and has had his music featured in performance in Poland, Italy, Denmark, Finland, France, Estonia, Russia, Australia, China, Germany, Lithuania, and Japan. During his residency at the Estonian Academy of Music & Theatre in Tallinn, Branker composed The Eesti Jazz Suite, a five-movement work inspired by the culture and the spirit of the people of Estonia. The work was premiered in 2006 at the academy of music as part of the concert tour of the Princeton University Jazz Composers Collective, which was sponsored by the Department of State of the United States, the U.S. Embassy in Estonia, and the Estonian Academy of Music. Dr. Branker’s works have also been performed and/or recorded by the New Wind Jazz Orchestra, Sylvan Winds with Max Pollack Dance Ensemble, Composers Concordance Big Band, Princeton University Orchestra, Rutgers University Jazz Ensemble, Rutgers Avant Garde Ensemble, Orrin Evans, Steve Nelson, Stanley Jordan, Talib Kibwe (TK Blue), Curtis Lundy, James Weidman, Calvin Hill, Steve Kroon, Jann Parker, and the Spirit of Life Ensemble, and have featured such guest soloists as Kenny Barron, Eddie Henderson, Winard Harper, John Hicks, Valery Ponomarev, Joe Ford, Cecil Brooks III, Onaje Allen Gumbs, and Alex Blake.

Read more

Tags

All About Jazz Articles

1
Album Review

Anthony Branker & Imagine: What Place Can Be for Us? - A Suite in Ten Movements

Read "What Place Can Be for Us? - A Suite in Ten Movements" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


L'avventuroso post-bop del compositore Anthony Branker, ben espresso dall'album Beauty Within del quintetto Imagine, trova nuovi e più articolati sviluppi in questo What Place Can Be for Us?. Il gruppo conferma il chitarrista Pete McCann e la coppia Fabian Almazan e Linda May Han Oh ampliandosi fino a un medio organico con alcuni dei massimi giovani strumentisti di New York: il trombettista Philip Dizack, i sassofonisti Walter Smith III e Remy Le Boeuf, il batterista Donald Edwards e la vocalist ...

3
Radio & Podcasts

Horace Silver, Bobby Broom & Anthony Branker

Read "Horace Silver, Bobby Broom & Anthony Branker" reviewed by Joe Dimino


We begin the 796th Episode of Neon Jazz with composer Anthony Branker and music from What Place Can Be For Us (Origin Records, 2023). From there, we dive into new music from the young NYC vocalist Emily Mazzella and her mentor Lonnie Leibowitz. From there, we profile tasty new music from the likes of Jimmy Farace, Anthony Bruno, Bobby Broom, Julian Lage and Hailey Brinnel. The show goes out in style with the richly talented Mark Lewis and music off ...

5
Liner Notes

Anthony Branker: What Place Can Be for Us? - A Suite in Ten Movements

Read "Anthony Branker: What Place Can Be for Us? - A Suite in Ten Movements" reviewed by Michael Ambrosino


Ma Rainey channeled music as her ritual of “singing to understand life." Congressman John Lewis leveraged music towards the “good trouble" he created fighting for civil rights in an uncivil land. Anthony Branker understands music as the calculus of his life's work—the art of weaving words and sound into transcendent tapestries that explore the rich, complex, and nuanced aspects of intolerance, beauty, prejudice, spirituality, gender, equality and social justice. The composite of this artistry exists within the remarkable ...

27
Album Review

Anthony Branker & Imagine: Beauty Within

Read "Beauty Within" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


The two aneurysms that forced composer and musical director Anthony Branker to give up the trumpet in 1999 have done nothing to stem the tide of thoughtful and progressive music that he consistently delivers. Downsizing from his “Word Play" ensemble, Branker guides a quintet of new and long-time colleagues on Beauty Within. A regular Branker collaborator, saxophonist Ralph Bowen joins a consummate session man in guitarist Pete McCann who has worked with Maria Schneider, Lindsey Horner and many ...

22
Album Review

Anthony Branker & Imagine: Beauty Within

Read "Beauty Within" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


The “Rising Star" status isn't confined to fresh music school graduates. Dr. Anthony Branker, Educator--who, for twenty-seven years, was engaged in a big way with Princeton University's jazz program--has achieved a recent “rising star" tag as a composer. This after releasing seven top notch CDs for Origin Records, including the masterful Uppity (2013). “Composer/Musical Director" is Branker's title on his recordings. He doesn't play, but rather molds the sounds of several different small group jazz collectives. On Beauty ...

6
Album Review

Anthony Branker & Word Play: Uppity

Read "Uppity" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


On Uppity, Dr. Anthony Branker, Director of Jazz Studies at Princeton University, has created a life-affirming, sometimes funky, and straight-through beautiful set of sounds--an ode to the resiliency and basic goodness of the human spirit.Branker began his jazz journey as a trumpeter, but complications from a brain aneurysm in 1999 brought his trumpet playing days to an end. He is now the composer and musical director of his Ascent and Word Play modern jazz ensembles.Uppity opens ...

1,175
Interview

Anthony Branker: Jazz Dialogics

Read "Anthony Branker: Jazz Dialogics" reviewed by Victor L. Schermer


Anthony Branker is a musician for all seasons. He began his career as a trumpeter, including a stint with the Spirit of Life Ensemble, which honored its African-American and Afro-Caribbean roots during a multi-year tenure as the Monday night band at the legendary Sweet Basil club in New York City. Over time, Branker developed an increasing interest in jazz education, which led him to teaching positions at Hunter College and Princeton University, where he organized and conducted memorable ensembles. Around ...

Read more articles
3

Website

All About Jazz Top 10 Songs: February 2023

All About Jazz Top 10 Songs: February 2023

Source: All About Jazz

All About Jazz features a free song every day spanning all genres of jazz, and of the tracks featured in February, these ten represent our reader's favorites as indicated by total listens. Musicians and record labels can submit full length MP3s for consideration here. Enjoy! I Wanna Fly Tobin Mueller From: Best of Tobin Mueller, Volume 1: JAZZ Originals (remastered) 2:26 Mardi Gras Day George Porter Jr. From: Mardi Gras ...

1

Recording

Origin Records To Release "Uppity," By Composer/Bandleader Anthony Branker & His Sextet Word Play, March 19

Origin Records To Release "Uppity," By Composer/Bandleader Anthony Branker & His Sextet Word Play, March 19

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

On the provocatively titled Uppity, Anthony Branker’s second CD with his all-star sextet Word Play, the prolific composer and bandleader harnesses his vibrant jazz originals and his band’s dynamic interplay to deliver a bracing social and spiritual message. Uppity will be released by Origin Records March 19. His “Ballad for Trayvon Martin,” one of the album’s emotional centerpieces, honors not only the 17-year-old who was slain in 2012 because of “what he looked like,” but victims of racial violence who ...

146

Recording

Anthony Branker and Ascent, "Dance Music" a Treat for the Ears

Anthony Branker and Ascent, "Dance Music" a Treat for the Ears

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards

Anthony Branker's ensemble Ascent serves as a vehicle for his jazz writing and arranging. At the time of his new recording Dance Music (Origin 82579) it consisted of seven instrumentalist and a vocalist. What they do is modern jazz that has roots in the music McCoy Tyner and related players were doing in the early '70s, a sort of acoustic Afro-post-hard-bop if you will, with some ventures into funky things here and there. But before you start pegging them note ...

167

Performance / Tour

Anthony Branker & Ascent "Spirit Songs" CD Release Tonight at the Iridium Jazz Club 8 & 10pm Sets

Anthony Branker & Ascent "Spirit Songs" CD Release Tonight at the Iridium Jazz Club 8 & 10pm Sets

Source: All About Jazz

THE IRIDIUM JAZZ CLUB IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE CD RELEASE WEDNESDAY'S THREE WEDNESDAY'S IN MAY FEATURING ARTISTS CELEBRATING THEIR NEW CD'S MAY 17 ANTHONY BRANKER & ASCENT “Spirit Songs" (Sons Of Sound) MAY 24 HARVIE S “FUNKY CHA" (Zoho Music) May 17 Anthony Branker & Ascent “Spirit Songs" featuring Antonio Hart (alto & soprano saxophones), Ralph Bowen (tenor & soprano saxophones), Clifford Adams, Jr. (trombone), Jonny King (piano), John Benitez ...

“Honing a hybrid of freewheeling post-bop and social commentary, abetted by judicious dollops of funk, fusion, spoken word, clave and polyrhythmic percussion…Branker incorporates these elements in broad, bold strokes, like a muralist. He has yet to make a bad record” — JazzTimes

“With a unique combination of depth and accessibility, Branker is able to put forth a jazz perspective steeped in soulful optimism.” —All About Jazz

“Anthony Branker is rising to the top of American jazz composers…a force to be reckoned with in the world of modern post-bop jazz” —Sea of Tranquility

Read more

Primary Instrument

Composer / conductor

Location

Trenton

Willing to teach

Advanced only

Credentials/Background

Dr. Anthony D.J. Branker held an endowed chair in Jazz Studies, was Founding Director of the Program in Jazz Studies, Director of University Jazz Empembles, and served as Associate Director of the Program in Musical Performance at Princeton University, where he taught for 27 years. He directed an extensive list of ensembles and taught courses in jazz theory through improvisation & composition, jazz performance practice in historical and cultural context, jazz composition, the evolution of jazz styles, and the improvising ensemble. He has served as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar and visiting professor at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in Tallinn, Estonia and has also been a member of the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts, Hunter College of the City University of New York, Ursinus College, and the New Jersey Summer Arts Institute. Dr. Branker was visiting composer at the Southern Danish Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in Odense/Esbjerg, Denmark; Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg, Germany; the Estonian Academy of Music & Theatre; and for the Socrates/Erasmus Intensive Programme in cooperation with the European Union, the Association of Baltic Academies of Music, and the Estonian Academy of Music & Theatre.

Clinic/Workshop Information

Read more

Artists who share similar musical characteristics to Anthony Branker.

Contact

Publicist

Fully Altered Media

Music

Chant for Peace Eternal

From: Spirit Songs
By Anthony Branker

The Door of No Return

From: What Place Can Be for Us? - A...
By Anthony Branker

Unity

From: Together
By Anthony Branker

Ancestral Tales

From: Dialogic
By Anthony Branker

The House of the Brotherhood of the Black Heads

From: Dance Music
By Anthony Branker

Ascent

From: Blessings
By Anthony Branker