RUSSELL / KONDO / TURNER – Artless Sky (CAW Records – CAW 001 / LP-1980)

Label: CAW Records – CAW 001
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: UK / Released: 1980
Style: Free Improvisation
Recorded live in Luton 19 Oct. 1979 on J.V.C. dummy head & Revox.
Design – Geoff Matthews
Photography By [Back Cover Photos] – Russell, Turner, Kondo
Photography By [Front Cover Photo] – Steve Francis
Composed By [All Compositions] – Russell, Turner, Kondo
Engineer – Tim Powell
Printed By – Senol Printing Ltd.
Pressed By – Nimbus Records Limited
Extra Rare Vinyl LP
Matrix / Runout (Side A Label): CAW 001 A
Matrix / Runout (Side B Label): CAW 001 B

side 1:
A - Artless Sky ......................................................................................................... 23:25

side 2:
B1 - Dear Listeners ................................................................................................... 3:30
B2 - When Crime Becomes An Option ...................................................................... 2:28
B3 - Pies .................................................................................................................... 6:10
B4 - Mounting On The Wind ...................................................................................... 5:02
B5 - Marcel Waves .................................................................................................... 2:59

Personnel:
John RUSSELL – guitar [plectrum]
Toshinori KONDO – trumpet, alto horn, effects [small amp & mutes]
Roger TURNER – drums, percussion

Note:
This album was made by Russell and Turner’s own label, CAW Records (not to be confused with Caw Records, no matter what Discogs claims).

In memory of the great guitarist John Russell (19 December 1954 - 18 January 2021)

It was German saxophonist Stefan Keune who told me in March 2020 that John Russell was dying of cancer and that he - depending on how well chemotherapy worked - didn’t know how long he would live. Now, the great British guitarist has passed away.

John Russell began to play in and around London from 1971 onwards. He soon connected with the emerging free improvisation scene and became a student of Derek Bailey's. Although he was obviously influenced by the legendary guitarist, Russell found his unique musical personality, he was highly abstract and unpredictable. Or, as my colleague Stuart Broomer once put it: “Where Bailey disrupted the idiomatic gesture, Russell sometimes invokes it; where Bailey practiced discontinuity, Russell can create alternative order“. Sometimes his improvisations seemed to resonate blues or swing patterns, but Russell used them extraordinarily freely, as if they had been carried by a gust of wind and moved on immediately. Another distinctive feature has to do with his instrument, a 1936 Zenith archtop acoustic guitar. It’s an unamplified but loud instrument, which was often used by swing band guitarists, who needed to compete with the brass section. This instrument allowed him to make use of harmonics in a genuinely significant way.

John Russell has played with almost everyone who’s important in the worldwide improv scene and his work can be heard on many albums. There’s a lot of his music which is really to be recommended, starting with his trio album Artless Sky (Caw Records, 1980) featuring Toshinori Kondo on trumpet and his longtime collaborator Roger Turner on drums. The album I became aware of him for the first time was News From The Shed (Acta, 1987) with John Butcher (sax), Phil Durant (violin, electronics), Radu Malfatti (trombone) and Paul Lovens (drums), a real masterpiece of improvised music, maybe the best FMP album which was never released on the seminal German label. London Air Lift (FMP, 1991) with Evan Parker (sax), John Edwards (bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) must be mentioned here, as well as his duos with Stefan Keune. Recently Stuart Broomer has reviewed Nothing Particularly Horrible (FMR, 2019) enthusiastically, another collaboration with Keune, Lovens and bassist Hans Schneider.

However, Russell was more than just a musician. In 1981, he founded Quaqua, a large bank of improvisers put together in different combinations for specific projects and in 1991 he started Mopomoso, which has become the UK’s longest running concert series featuring mainly improvised music.

A true gentleman, a master of subtlety, an excellent musician has left the stage. He will truly be missed.

(By Martin Schray / The Free Jazz Collective)


Note:
Downloading this album you also get the complete issue of EARTRIP Magazine No. 4 in which you can read a great interview with John Russell.

If you find it, buy this album!

YUJI TAKAHASHI – Seasons (ALM Records ‎– AL-14 / LP-1977)

Label: ALM Records ‎– AL-14
Format: Vinyl, LP / Country: Japan / Released: 1977
Style: Post-Modern, Avant-garde, Experimental
Live concert "Yuji Takahashi plays J.S. Bach & J. Cage", May 30. 1974.
Art Direction – Nobukage Torii
Artwork – Tatsuya Yamaguchi
Engineer – Kousaku Urano
Other [Concert Planner, Promoter] – Tost
Producer – Yukio Kojima
Composed By – J.S. Bach (tracks: B2), John Cage (tracks: A1 to B1)
Comes with insert in japanese language.
Matrix / Runout (Side A runout, stamped): AL-14-A 1S 2
Matrix / Runout (Side B runout, stamped): AL-14-B 1S 2

side 1:
A1 - (John Cage) - Cheap Imitation [Excerpts] ......................................................... 6:40
A2 – (John Cage) - Metamorphosis ........................................................................ 16:43

side 2:
B1 - (John Cage) - The Seasons, Ballet In One Act ................................................ 15:26
B2 - (J.S. Bach) - Toccata No. 2 In C-Minor BWV911 .............................................. 11:12

YUJI TAKAHASHI – piano

Cheap Imitation written in 1969.
Metamorphosis written in 1938.
The Seasons, Ballet In One Act written in 1947.

All pieces recorded from the live concert "Yuji Takahashi plays J.S. Bach & J. Cage", May 30. 1974.

Note:
Track B1 - The Seasons, Ballet In One Act, is stated on both the back cover and the label to last 14:40, however, the actual duration is 15:26. 

If you find it, buy this album!

MASAHIKO TOGASHI – Voice From Yonder (Denon ‎– YX-7519-ND / LP-1978)

Label: Denon ‎– YX-7519-ND
Format: Vinyl, LP / Country: Japan / Released: Jul 1978
Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation
Recorded on 2-3 February 1978, at Nippon Columbia's 1st Studio, Tokyo.
Japanese Original Press
Illustration [Cover] – Shozo Shinoda
Design [Cover] – Sign
Engineer – Masao Hayashi
Recording Supervisor – Yoshiharu Kawaguchi
Translated By [Poems] – Tom Oshidari
Composed By – Masahiko Togashi
Matrix / Runout (Side A, etched): YX-7519-ND – A
Matrix / Runout (Side B, etched): YX-7519-ND – B

side 1:
A1 - Voice From Yonder .......................................................................................... 13:40
A2 - Silence ............................................................................................................... 2:20
A3 - Welcome ............................................................................................................ 3:01

side 2:
B1 - Travelers .......................................................................................................... 12:13
B2 - It's Time ............................................................................................................. 3:34
B3 - Farewell ............................................................................................................. 2:35

Personnel:
Masahiko Togashi – percussion
Yoshiaki Fujikawa – reed, percussion
Takashi Kako – piano, percussion
Keiki Midorikawa – bass, cello, percussion

Note:
Recorded on 2-3 February 1978.
Production date on the record label says June 1978.
Production date on the sleeve says July 1978.
Liner notes (Japanese) written in May 1978.
Backside of the sleeve listed Personel as Masahiko Togashi Quartet. The album however is published with Masahiko Togashi as artist.

Masahiko Togashi (富樫 雅彦, Togashi Masahiko), March 22, 1940, Tokyo - August 22, 2007, Kanagawa) was a Japanese jazz percussionist and composer.

Togashi grew up in a musical household; his father was a double-bassist in a swing jazz ensemble, and Togashi learned violin and drums, playing the latter in his father's band. He worked with Sadao Watanabe, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Tony Scott in the 1950s, then founded the ensemble Jazz Academy in 1961 with Hideto Kanai, Masabumi Kikuchi, and Masayuki Takayanagi. He was an early free jazz leader in Japan, playing in this idiom with Yosuke Yamashita and performing with American musicians such as Ornette Coleman, Blue Mitchell, Lee Morgan, and Sonny Rollins on Japanese tours.

Togashi lost the use of his legs in an accident in 1969, and designed a new kit that would allow him to continue playing. Togashi’s technical expertise on a wide range of percussion instruments allows him to introduce into his performances telling effects that add intriguingly exotic undertones.
Later associations included performing or recording with Paul Bley, Don Cherry, Jack DeJohnette, Charlie Haden, Steve Lacy, Gary Peacock, Masahiko Sato, and Yuji Takahashi. 

If you find it, buy this album!

MASAHIKO TOGASHI & MASAYUKI TAKAYANAGI – Pulsation (LP-1983)

Label: Paddle Wheel ‎– K28P 6244
Format: Vinyl, LP / Country: Japan / Released: 1983
Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation
A live performance: Masahiko Togashi Zojoji Concert No.13.
Recorded May 27, 1983 at Zojoji Hall, Tokyo.
Artwork – Masahiko Togashi
Photography By – Mieko Togashi, Tatsuo Minami, Toshihiro Asakura
Engineer – Hatsuro Takanami
Engineer [Assistant] – Seiji Kaneko
Mastered By – Akira Makino
Liner Notes [in Japanese] – Toshihiko Shimizu
Producer – Motohiko Takawa
Composed By – Masahiko Togashi
Manufactured By – King Record Co. Ltd
Matrix / Runout (Side A label): K28P 6244 A
Matrix / Runout (Side B label): K28P 6244 B

side 1:
A - Inner Pulsation ................................................................................................... 22:05

side 2:
B - Outer Pulsation .................................................................................................. 22:47

Personnel:
Masahiko Togashi – percussion, pearl drums 
Masayuki Takayanagi – guitar, Ren Hayashi's sound effecters

Virtually unnoticed in the West, the Japanese free jazz scene in the 1970s was bursting with creativity. The musicians shared a strong sense of adventure, as they welcomed the developments of creative music and free improvisation from USA and Europe while trying to find their own voice with a completely personal approach to improvised music. One of the main protagonists of that season was Masayuki Takayanagi, a strikingly original guitarist and musical thinker with a strong passion for both mainstream jazz and extreme noise. A generation younger but equally important was Masahiko Togashi, a drummer that, also due to an accident that forced him on a wheelchair after 1970, developed a unique approach to drums and percussions, using silence as an integral part of music making.

Originally released by Paddle Wheel in 1983, Pulsation documents a live concert at Zojoji Hall in Tokyo, and is the first record Togashi and Takayanagi made as a duo, even if they had worked together since the 1960s. The record is divided in two tracks ("Inner Pulsation" and "Outer Pulsation"), each one about 22 minutes in length, mirroring the original LP sides. The performance can be regarded as a single piece though, with a clearly symmetrical structure, even if the musicians cover much musical ground over the course of the album. The opening and closing sections are reserved to Togashi, that alternates between deeply resonating gongs and a relentless activity on the toms. Takayanagi enters the picture with sparse scratching sounds, slowly building an intense dialogue with the drummer, moving through a series of sections characterized by different approaches to both acoustic and electric guitars, with bowed strings, fast arpeggios, rumbling drones or heavily filtered electronic sounds, often opting to treat the guitar as an object to be manipulated more than a proper musical instrument. Throughout the performance Togashi tries different colors on the drum kit, adding bells, chains, shakers and tin cans, always returning to the toms in a mostly arhythmic percussive activity that maintains an intriguing, almost ritualistic dimension.

The extreme abstractness of the music guarantees many possibilities, but the main themes here are pure sound and space, investigated through a massive use of silence, ever-changing dynamics and slow structural developments unfolding with a mysterious musical logic. The improvisational process is always on full display, with the musicians constantly listening and responding to each other, and when the music opens up to more readable materials the effect is powerful: a few seconds of melodic statements from the guitar have the impact of a fully formed solo; a couple of minutes of insisting patterns on the drums achieves an almost hypnotic effect.

(Review By Nicola Negri, AAJ) 

If you find it, buy this album!

MASAHIKO TOGASHI QUARTET – Sketch (Denon ‎– YX-7516-ND / LP-1977)

Label: Denon Jazz ‎– YX-7516-ND
Format: Vinyl, LP / Country: Japan / Released: Nov 1977
Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation 
Recorded at Nippon Columbia's 1st Studio, Tokyo, June 7, 8 & 9, 1977.
Design [Cover Design] – Masahiko Togashi
Photography By [Cover Photo] – Masahiko Togashi
Engineer – Masao Hayashi
Producer [Recording Direction] – Tsutomu Ueno, Yoshiharu Kawaguchi
Composed By – Masahiko Togashi
Matrix / Runout (Side A, etched): - YX-7516-ND – A
Matrix / Runout (Side B, etched): - YX-7516-ND – B

side 1:
A1 - Sketch 3 ............................................................................................................ 10:02
A2 - Sketch 4 .............................................................................................................. 6:43

side 2:
B1 - Sketch 2 .............................................................................................................. 7:01
B2 - Sketch 1 ............................................................................................................ 10:54

Personnel:
Masahiko Togashi – percussion
Masami Nakagawa – alto saxophone, flute, percussion
Takashi Kako – piano, percussion
Keiki Midorikawa – bass, cello, percussion

I picked up "Sketch" (LP-1977) a rarity - it happens to be considered one of the three very important free-jazz LP's (avant, creative music, regardless...) in the country's (Japan) musical index on Quartet. Otherwise, Togashi seems a prolific composer, with this album being one of the best, if still a non notable one, or an all-over-the-place collaborator, with the Quartet as a particular condition. Quartet itself isn't really a designative term, since on all three such albums - this one, and two earlier "Speed & Space" from 1969 and also from 1969 "We Now Create" - the only constant presence is Togashi himself.

Not sure if the album, based on its title, is supposed to be a work-in-progress, with no final character whatsoever, or driven by some kind of desire to give shape to things at some point while performing. Togashi tends to overwhelm his fellow musicians and make it even more percussion-centric than expected, but here he queues, or builds up, significantly. Variations features a mixture of warm, reverberating, but isolated chords and pizzicato serialism at the alto sax and flute (I do recognize Masami Nakagawa, having listened to some of his albums). "Sketch" is the folkloric-inspired, rubato and boldly improvised - sounds amazing. "Sketch" is a fantasy for strings, flute, piano and percussion, airy and fragmented, alludes more to modern classical. Album "Sketch" is as traditionally conceived, even with Togashi forcing his bassist (Keiki Midorikawa) to remain in ostinato throughout his long improvisations, only to get himself moved in his own expressions later on. These are pretty serious and evolved free jazz compositions,  worth listening to after some unstable strident acts.

(Review by M. D)

If you find it, buy this album!

KONDO / KAISER / OSWALD ‎– Moose And Salmon (mge30 / LP-1979)

Label: Music Gallery Editions ‎– mge30
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: Canada / Released: 1979
Style: Free jazz, Free Improvisation
Recorded live 1978
Mixed By [Mixdown] – Henry Kaiser, John Oswald
Selections from seven to eleven takes (a-k) plus guitar solo excerpt.
Lacquer Cut At – The Lacquer Channel Limited / derived from matrix
Matrix / Runout (Side A, etched): MGE 30 - MOOSE THREE TLC-T
Matrix / Runout (Side B, etched): MGE 30 - SALMON TLC-A

side 1:
A - Moose ............................................................................................................... 26:16
      c .............................. 7:06
      a ............................ 16:07
      b .............................. 3:40

side 2:
B - Salmon ............................................................................................................. 26:12
      h .............................. 1:26
      d .............................. 5:46
      b .............................. 2:51
      HK ........................... 1:57
      g .............................. 5:45
      i ............................... 3:40
      b .............................. 5:03

Personnel:
John OSWALD – performer [player], alto saxophone (Toronto, Canada)
Henry KAISER – performer [player], electric guitar (Oakland, USA)
Toshinori KONDO – performer [player], trumpet, Horn [alto horn] (Tokyo, Japan)

Musician Toshinori Kondo recently left us...... This post is in his honor, and for eternal memory.....

Note:

The material is out takes and reiterations from 2 LP records, "Improvised" (Music Gallery Editions 12), and "Moose And Salmon" (Music Gallery Editions 30). There are some technical problems with over modulating, print thru, and, in the case of the trio tracks and TK 24/02/79, modulation of hum by DBX coding. For the record Moose And Salmon this latter problem was somewhat alleviated by notch filtering and compression, but at the cost of regeneration noise compounded with a low level signal on LP, necessitated by cutting long sides.
Tracks from the Moose And Salmon sessions are coded with letters A-L (12 takes 24, 25 Feb 1979) and sub numbered 0-25 indicating the initial minute of the selection within the take. Each instrument was recorded stereo onto 6 tracks of a Teac 80-8. Mixdown to 2 track stereo by HK & JO.
On this program the selection HK is an excerpt from a longer solo as is the dual horn solo that follows it. Ice Death is HK x 5, California early 1978, and JO (Calgary) is from a session for "Improvised" 23 Jan 78.

Canadian alto saxophonist John Oswald began as a post-jazz improvisor, accompanying Henry Kaiser on "Improvised" (february 1978 - Music Gallery, 1978).Moose And Salmon (february 1979 - Music Gallery, 1979) was a trio with Kaiser on electric guitar and trumpet player Toshinori Kondo. In Moose Kondo's minimalist, viscid and clownesque trumpet forces Kaiser to restrain his acid/psychotic soliloquies and lets Oswald's youthful madness overflow. Salmon is even noisier and even less structured, with the horns squeaking against subliminal guitar drones.

Out Of Stock ...... Very hard to find.

If you find it, buy this album!

SOMEI SATOH – Mandala / Sumeru (ALM Records - AL-26 / LP-1982)

Label: ALM Records - AL-26
Format: Vinyl , LP, Album / Country: Japan / Released: 1982
Style: Contemporary
Recorded At - NHK Electronic Music Studio
Mandala for vocal drones and electronics recorded at NHK Electronic Music Studio in October 1982.
Sumeru was recorded in December 1982.
Comes with insert
Cover [Design] – Hitoshi Susuki , Kohei Sugiura
Illustration – Fujio Watanabe
Liner Notes – Ishida Kazushi 石田 一 志 , Sato Clever 佐藤 聰明
Producer  Yukio Kojima

Matrix / Runout (Side A runout, stamped): AL 26 A ⁜ Y 1
Matrix / Runout (Side B runout, stamped): AL 26 B ⁜

side 1:
A - Mandala ............................................................................................................. 19:00
      (for vocal drones and electronics)
      Special thanks to Wataru Uenami

side 2:
B - Sumeru .............................................................................................................. 28:00

      conductor – Hiroshi Kumagai
      cello – Masaharu Kanda, Tadao Takahashi
      viola – Hiroshi Nakayama, Takashi Satoh
      violin – Kazuo Yageta, Kenji Kobayashi, Masanobu Hirao, Michiko Yageta
      double bass – Akira Imamura , Kensuke Inomata
      percussion – Midori Takada

RARE ORIGINAL FIRST PRESS ISSUE FROM 1982 of this Minimal / Electronic music & Drone masterpiece.
Released on the collectible ALM / KOJIMA RECORDS imprint.

MANDALA or MANDARA 曼荼羅
Especially important to Japan’s Esoteric Sects

Origin = India
Sanskrit = Maṇḍala, मण्डल
Chinese = Màntúluó
Japanese = Mandara
English = Mandala

The mandala, Hindu in origin, is a graphic depiction of the spiritual universe and its myriad realms and deities. Much later, first in Tibet and China then Japan, the mandala was adopted as a powerful religious icon among practitioners of Esoteric Buddhism (Skt. = Vajrayana). In Japan, the mandala rose to great prominence as a “living entity,” one that ensured the efficacy of esoteric rituals performed in its presence. The original Sanskrit term “maṇḍala” comes from India, and is sometimes translated as circle, essence, or hitch (as when connecting an ox to a cart). The Sino-Japanese spelling of mandala (曼荼羅 or 曼拏羅 or 曼陀羅) is a transliteration of the Sanskrit term. But these transliterations have no inherent meaning -- they simply resemble the sound of the original Indian term.

Mandala scrolls and paintings became popular in Japan in the 9th century onward with the growth of the Shingon 真言 and Tendai 天台 sects of Esoteric Buddhism (Jp. = Mikkyō 密教; Skt. = Vajrayana), which arose in part as a reaction against the power and wealth of court-sponsored Buddhism. The founders of Esoteric Buddhism in Japan were the monks Kūkai 空海 (774 - 835 AD) and Saichō 最澄 (767 - 822 AD). Kūkai, aka  Kōbō Daishi 弘法大師 (his posthumous name), founded the Shingon Sect of Esoteric Buddhism, while Saichō founded the Tendai Sect. Both traveled to China to study and learn the esoteric secrets, and both returned to Japan with numerous artworks and sutras to help spread the teachings. Yet, the oldest surviving color mandala in Japan is thought to be a copy of the Ryōkai Mandara (from China) which was brought to Japan in 859 AD by the Tendai priest Enchin 円珍 (814-891).

Somei Satoh (SATOH Somei 佐藤聰明) was born in 1947 in Sendai (northern Honshu), Japan. He began his career in 1969 with "Tone Field," an experimental, mixed media group based in Tokyo. In 1972 he produced "Global Vision," a multimedia arts festival, that encompassed musical events, works by visual artists and improvisational performance groups. In one of his most interesting projects held at a hot springs resort in Tochigi Prefecture in 1981, Satoh places eight speakers approximately one kilometer apart on mountain tops overlooking a huge valley. As a man-made fog rose from below, the music from the speakers combined with laser beams and moved the clouds into various formations. Satoh has collaborated twice since 1985 with theater designer, Manuel Luetgenhorst in dramatic stagings of his music at The Arts at St. Ann's in Brooklyn, New York.

Satoh was awarded the Japan Arts Festival prize in 1980 and received a visiting artist grant from the Asian Cultural Council in 1983, enabling him to spend one year in the United States.He has written more than thirty compositions, including works for piano, orchestra, chamber music, choral and electronic music, theater pieces and music for traditional Japanese instruments.
Somei Satoh is a composer of the post-war generation whose hauntingly evocative musical language is a curious fusion of Japanese timbral sensibilities with 19th century Romanticism and electronic technology. He has been deeply influenced by Shintoism, the writings of the Zen Buddhist scholar DT Suzuki, his Japanese cultural heritage as well as the multimedia art forms of the sixties. Satoh's elegant and passionate style convincingly integrates these diverse elements into an inimitably individual approach to contemporary Japanese music.

Like Toshiro Mayazumi an Toru Takemitsu, the most well-known of contemporaryJapanese composers outside Japan today, Satoh has succeeded in reshaping his native musical resources in synthesis with Western forms and instrumental sonorities. His work cannot, however, be considered within the mainstream of contemporary Japanese art music, for he writes in an unreservedly non- international style, remarkably free from any constraints of academism. This may be attributed to the fact that being primarily self-taught, he has never been subjected to a formal musical education. Satoh has on occasion, been referred to as a composer of gendai hogaku (contemporary traditional music). Much as Satoh is reluctant to be so classified, this assessment of his writing has some validity if one views him as reworking the traditional Japanese musical aesthetic in a broader, abstract context infusing it with a new vitality.

Minimalism, that Eastern-derived Western phenomenon born of the sixties, has much in common with the hypnotic, regular pulsations of rock. In Satoh's case, however, the repetitions are perceived more as vibrations because of the rapidity of the individual beats in conjunction with an extremely slow overall pulse. This creates the sensation of being in a rhythmic limbo, caught in a framework of suspended time which is typically Japanese. This experience can be summed up in the Japanese word 'ma' which may be defined as the natural distance between two or more events existing in a continuity. In contrast to the West's perception of time and space as separate entities, in Japanese thinking both time and space are measured in terms of intervals. It is the coincidental conceptualization of these elements which is perhaps the main feature distinguishing Japan's artistic expression from that of the West. 

In Satoh's own words:
"My music is limited to certain elements of sound and there are many calm repetitions. There is also much prolongation of a single sound. I think silence and the prolongation of sound is the same thing in terms of space. The only difference is that there is either the presence or absence of sound. More important is whether the space is "living" or not. Our sense of time and space is different from that of the West. For example, in the Shinto religion, there is the term 'imanaka' which is not just the present moment which lies between the stretch of past eternity and future immortality, but also the manifestation of the moment of all time which is multi-layered and multi-dimensional …. I would like it if the listener could abandon all previous conceptions of time and experience a new sense of time presented in this music as if eternal time can be lived in a single moment."

If you find it, buy this album!