Karl Berger, Ingrid Sertso, and Anthony Braxton

Talk about your cosmic, international, coincidental convergences:

I was talking with Karl Berger a few weeks ago, and he told me that Anthony Braxton had happened upon a concert that Karl and Ingrid were doing in Italy. They talked and agreed that a recording project with the three of them would be a fine and worthy thing to do. Karl seemed enthused and pleased at the outcome of their chance encounter.

Shortly after that, while on vacation with the family and waiting for our luggage at the Geneva airport, big whacky coincidence number two (maybe bigger and whackier than the first, given the context of my conversation with Karl) comes along. I looked up and who should I see, also waiting for his luggage? Did you guess Anthony Braxton?

How weird! I hadn’t seen Anthony since 1977 or ’78 at the Creative Music Studio. I went over to chat, and he corroborated his meeting with Karl and the upcoming project.

Look for the recording (I don’t know when it will happen), and if you ever run across Anthony Braxton in an airport, make sure you go up and say hi.