Saxophonist and Parallactic Records founder Brandon Evans organized this late-night performance devoted to two of his mentors at what has become one of the nicer rooms for live music in the city. Evans has played and recorded with both Anthony Braxton and Sonny Simmons, and gave them the opportunity to present some of the elder saxophonists' most interesting work. Simmons played with his Renegade Society quartet, featuring (in this incarnation) Evans, drummer Mike Pride and bassist Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz (who also plays in Daniel Zamir's Satlah), while Braxton presented an eleven-piece band including many of his students performing his Ghost Trance Music.

After a couple of false starts, Evans kicked off the Renegade Society, stating a repeating four-and-five-note theme. He was joined briefly by Simmons, and then confidently took the first solo. He played with a fire in his belly, as if ensuring from the outset that he had a place on the stage. He and Simmons swapped solos, and the years they've spent playing together came through when they'd bridge solos. Each in turn would throw a couple notes that seemed entirely out of place when coming back in, but those stray threads quickly became the fabric.

Blumenkranz and Pride were a fast and solid rhythm section, but when it came time for his solo, Blumenkranz picked up his bow, condensing all of the energy of the horns into a simple line drawing. When the reeds returned, they were in pure ballad mode, and continued the same interplay of extended solos with abrupt interjections.

As the set wore on, however, one had to wonder how much stage time Simmons wanted. Evans, fortunately, was more than able to carry on. Simmons strayed from the lights and played his English horn only momentarily, stating themes only to drop them to Evans, and seemed to lose himself within his own variations. He played strongly, but it seemed the night was too overcast for him to keep an eye on the North Star.

The set closed with Simmons playing an unaccompanied version of "'Round Midnight" (which, in fact, it was, given how late the 10:00-advertised set began). His channelling of Monk was his most lyrical playing of the night.

What had been billed as a quartet more than doubled in scope as Braxton's band grew to include Evans and saxophonists James Fei, Seth Misterka, Jackson Moore and Scott Rosenberg, trumpeters Greg Kelley and Taylor Ho Bynum and a rhythm section of Chris Dahlgren on bass, Mary Halvorson on guitar and Satoshi Takeishi on drums. The massive eight-horn front line played in, out and through Braxton's Ghost Trance structures, sliding in and out of unison and crossing and cutting themes. They were a difficult force for the rhythm section to contend with, but they endeavored by pounding as led by Braxton, who alternated between conducting the front and back lines with his horn.

After seeing that a gale storm had been had, they slid suddenly into wider spaces with more room given to individual voices. This seems to be where the Ghost Trance concept comes into play, or at least works best. Braxton's system allows players to insert one Ghost Trance Music composition into another, creating a dissonance within a commonality. Braxton would also call different compositions for interpolation, assigning them to a section of the band while the rest repeated the opening themes. Yes it's difficult music and yes, it takes a lot of concentration to make sense of. There's a reason why Braxton's ensembles are so often comprised of his students (in this case, at least 60 percent): the music is no doubt more demanding to play than to absorb as a listener. Witnessing the music was like stumbling on what appears to be a football game but coming to realize they're actually playing chess.

Given the headiness of the music, it's hard not to wonder how many people in the full house (the chatty ones in the back, anyway) were just there for Braxton's reputation and thought they were at a football game all along. It's interesting too that Braxton has kept so much of his compositional ideas in the realm of jazz instrumentation. His methods for organizing improvisation probably work best with monophonic instruments, which more or less means horns, which more or less means jazz. If he were doing the same with a string orchestra, he might be received entirely differently. (Yeah, on Bizarro world anyway. How many times has Ornette Coleman's Skies of America been performed?)

With the density of information in Ghost Trance Music, it's difficult to segment different elements. James Fei, who has probably worked with Braxton more than anyone else in the ensemble, clearly gets it, and he and Evans called most of the frontline shots. Takeishi, who sits on the floor and so would seem a quiet and considered player, was more than powerful. Halvorson is a fine guitarist but was sadly overpowered in the mix. And when the leader took a solo on his sopranino, all pretenses of high-concept seemed almost beside the point.