Alan Braufman

Alan Michael Braufman has built a reputation as an inquisitive alto saxophonist, flutist, and composer whose harmonically rich approach draws from post-bop, spiritual modal traditions, and free jazz. Emerging from Manhattan’s 1970s loft-jazz community, he first drew widespread attention through his 1975 partnership with pianist Cooper-Moore on Valley of Search. Over the decades he has joined forces with other innovative figures such as Carla Bley, Cecil McBee, and Philip Glass. As a bandleader he has kept pushing his sound forward, issuing several albums that incorporate psychedelic pop colors, among them Lost in Asia in 1988 and As Daylight Fades in 1995. After stepping back from the spotlight for a stretch, he returned to strong reviews with the 2020 reunion recording The Fire Still Burns alongside Cooper-Moore and followed it with Infinite Love Infinite Tears in 2024.

Born in Brooklyn in 1951, Braufman spent his childhood on Long Island and began clarinet studies at age eight. He switched to saxophone three years later and received classical instruction, yet his deepest inspiration came from listening to his mother’s records by Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, and John Coltrane. He taught himself to improvise by transcribing patterns and scales from those discs. During his teenage years he often visited his sister in Manhattan and frequented Slugs’ Saloon, where he absorbed performances by forward-looking artists including Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, and McCoy Tyner. After high school he enrolled at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he first encountered pianist Cooper-Moore, then known as Gene Ashton. While a student he worked the lights at the Jazz Workshop and met bassist Cecil McBee, who would later become a frequent collaborator.

In 1973 Braufman moved to New York City with Cooper-Moore and fellow Berklee alumni saxophonist David S. Ware, bassist Chris Amberger, and drummer Marc Edwards. They took over a four-story building on Canal Street in Lower Manhattan that served as both living quarters and performance space. The location quickly became a hub for musicians from across the city and helped define the loft scene. Out of that fertile environment came Braufman’s landmark debut, Valley of Search, which drew on the work of Don Cherry, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and others. Issued by India Navigation and captured live inside the Canal Street building, the album featured Braufman with Cooper-Moore, bassist Cecil McBee, drummer David Lee, and percussionist Ralph Williams. Now viewed as one of the essential documents of the loft-jazz period, it highlighted the ensemble’s exploratory modal language and earned a devoted following.

Braufman broadened his reach through the 1980s by touring with the Psychedelic Furs, Philip Glass, Carla Bley, and additional artists. He also dropped his surname for a time, recording under the name Alan Michael. In that guise he released his second leader date, Lost in Asia, on the Passport Jazz label in 1988; the set merged jazz with psychedelic pop and rock textures and included guitarist Bill Frisell and bassist Mark Egan among its contributors. The similarly eclectic As Daylight Fades followed in 1995 and featured drummer Omar Hakim. During the same decade Braufman relocated with his family to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he has continued to perform and teach.

In 2018 he worked with his nephew, music executive Nabil Ayers, to remaster and reissue the long-unavailable Valley of Search. To celebrate the re-release he staged a series of concerts devoted to the album’s repertoire. The following year he reunited with Cooper-Moore for a Basilica Soundscape Festival appearance in Hudson, New York, and issued an archival live recording they had made together at New York’s WKCR in 1972. August 2020 brought The Fire Still Burns, Braufman’s first studio album in decades and a spiritual successor to Valley of Search; the session again featured Cooper-Moore along with tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, bassist Ken Filiano, drummer Andrew Drury, and percussionist Michael Wimberly. In 2024 he returned with another collection of original material, Infinite Love Infinite Tears, recorded by his working group of Lewis, Filiano, and Wimberly plus vibraphonist Patricia Brennan and drummer Chad Taylor.