Released as part of Delmark's 50th anniversary commemoration, this disc is forced to play catch-up with the ever-increasing catalog of Anthony Braxton music, a steadily mounting mass that advances inexorably onward. The first Ghost Trance pieces were recorded in 1995 (Compositions 181-184). His more recent work, as in Compositions 304 & 305 which appear on the fine Duets (Wesleyan) 2002, seems to have left GTM behind. The pieces on this new disc, recorded in 2000, can be heard as transitionary between those two poles, retaining some of the rigid structure of the earlier work while allowing for something of a disintegration of that structure.

Working with a quartet of younger musicians, all students of his (Kevin Uehlinger, piano/melodica; Keith Witty, bass; Noam Schatz, percussion), Braxton adopts the same initial strategy used on that first GTM recording: the players were not shown his scores until the day of the recording session-no rehearsals. The freshness with which the date is thus imbued more than makes up for the rough patches entailed by this approach. I'd always had the mental image of GTM as a kind of vine, a fairly regular, if serpentine growth off of which would sprout the occasional unexpected curlicued tendril or flower. At this point, the flowers are far more numerous, often entirely obscuring the stem. The regular patterns are still there and they're still a bit on the static, march-like side of things, but they're cast aside with far greater frequency than before, the quartet launching into multiple sound-worlds including dirge-like free-improv and rich post-Coltrane improvisation. True to the concept Braxton developed in the mid 80s, the players are also free to interpolate any of his prior works so, for example, Uehlinger plays some written material from Composition 139 during Composition 245. The pianist stands out here, often supplying some strikingly rich chords, almos t Tyner-like, that one rarely associates with Braxton. Bassist Keith Witty is also notable, recalling Sun Ra-era Ronnie Boykins on pieces like Composition 243.

Composition 244 offers a rare (!) bass sax/melodica front line which, after the obligatory unison section, crumbles into a lovely flute-led section reminiscent of something like "Q&A" from "Conference of the Birds" before reorganizing with a vengeance, that dinky bass sax jettisoned for the contrabass monster, leading a loopy march replete with celesta. The final track, Composition 245, might be the most successful overall; Uehlinger and Witty mix wonderfully and Braxton, here on soprano and alto, roars. The fluctuation between written and improvised sections is complex and shimmering, the interplay between musicians inspired. It's at moments like this, when the structure becomes transparent enough to be felt rather than drummed into the listener's skull, that his Ghost Trance idea takes hold most forcibly. It's a tough, gnarly nut to crack but one that has proven in the past to bear some sweet fruit and does so here often enough to easily recommend this disc to the committed Braxophile.