For Alto is a jazz double-LP by composer/multi-reedist Anthony Braxton, recorded in 1969 and released on Delmark Records in 1971. Braxton performs the pieces on this album entirely on alto saxophone, with no additional musicians, instrumentation or overdubbing. Although other jazz musicians, such as Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, and Eric Dolphy, had recorded unaccompanied saxophone solos, For Alto was the first jazz album composed solely of solo saxophone music. Background According to Braxton, For Alto came about as a result of his fascination with the solo piano music of Arnold Schoenberg, Fats Waller, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. However, feeling that his skills on the piano were inadequate, he decided to create "a particular language for the saxophone." He also cited the experience of a 1967 improvised solo saxophone concert during which he ran out of ideas. He recalled: "I imagined I was just going to get up there and play for one hour from pure invention, but after ten minutes I'd run through all my ideas and started to repeat myself. I felt like, 'Oh my God, and there's still fifty minutes to go!'" This led to a project in which he catalogued specific, easily identifiable musical elements (for example, long sounds, trills, multiphonics, short attacks) which could then be used as "starting points or springboards to musical activity." The concept would become known as "Language Music," of which For Alto is an early example. Braxton later stated that he recorded the music himself in the basement of the Parkway Community Center in Chicago, and that he "basically gave it to Delmark Records." Although the published liner notes consist only of a series of diagrams, he had originally intended to include a convoluted, winding essay in which, among other things, he stated: "If this record doesn't sell a million copies I will be very disappointed. Already I am making room on my mantle for a gold record and I am going to have parties and I am preparing an acceptance speech." Braxton would go on to record a number of additional solo alto saxophone albums, such as Saxophone Improvisations Series F (1972) and Alto Saxophone Improvisations 1979, and For Alto would inspire other saxophonists, such as Joe McPhee, Evan Parker, and Steve Lacy, to record their own solo albums. Reception Initial reaction to the album was mixed. In a June 1971 DownBeat review, Joe H. Klee called the album "revolutionary" and