MASAYUKI TAKAYANAGI And NEW DIRECTIONS – Independence: Tread on Sure Ground (LP-1970 / Re:LP-1982)

Label: Union Records – JUP-3

Format: Vinyl, LP, Reissue / Country: Japan / Released: 1982

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded at Teichiku Kaikan Studio on September 18 1969.

First vinyl reissue / Press: Japan-1982 / Different cover

Engineer – Mac Onuki

Mixed By – 伊豫部富治 (Tomiharu...?)

Conductor [Time Conduct] – Toshio Sato

Producer – Mitsuhiko Dairoku, Masayuki Takayanagi

All music composed and arrangements by Masayuki Takayanagi

A1 - 銀河系 [The Galactic System] ......................................................................... 11:26

A2 - 病気のおばさん [Sick...Sick...Sickness...My Aunt] ............................................ 1:12

A3 - 習作第３番アップ・アンド・ダウン [Study No.3 Up And Down] .................... 5:55

B1 - スペインの牧童の笛 [Herdsman's Pipe Of Spain] ............................................ 6:46

B2 - 夜の沼 [Deepnight...Swamp] ............................................................................. 1:24

B3 - ピラニア [Piranha] .......................................................................................... 13:22

Masayuki Takayanagi and New Directions:

Masayuki Takayanagi – guitar

Motoharu Yoshizawa – bass, cello, percussion, reeds [folk pipe], voice

Yoshisaburo Toyozumi – drums, percussion

Dear fans of free jazz, today I present to you another beautiful copy from my special collection of rarities. This is a vinyl edition of the album " MASAYUKI TAKAYANAGI And NEW DIRECTIONS – Independence: Tread on Sure Ground“, first vinyl reissue / Press: Japan-1982 / Union Records – JUP-3, with different cover.

Otherwise, originally released in 1970 on Teichiku / Union Records – UPS-2010-J.

This is a quintessential album by Takayanagi Masayuki and it was his debut recording as a leader with his newly erected unit The New Directions, a trio consisting out of bassist (and other instruments) Motoharu Yoshizawa and drummer Yoshizaburo Toyozumi. Recorded at the Teichiku Kaikan studios on 18 September 1969 (released in 1970), Independence – Tread on Sure Ground, is largely regarded as the first true classic of Japanese free jazz. The group thrashes out an entirely new Japanese methodology for improvisation based on Takayanagi's theories about progressive art. As Alan Cummings explains in his texts to review issues, the group's sonic outburst is pregnant with an urgent intensity similar to a violent rotating windstorm.

.....“An electric guitar string is pinged with a sour and markedly unlovely resonance. It is left to fade away naturally, its dying whisper replaced with a wavering feedback tone that grows steadily in volume and thickness. Against the slow feedback wave, a sudden loud percussive crash, urgent staccato rolls across the toms, and the dry rasp of a rattle. A choppy, non-sequential series of chords from the guitar, still mouth-puckeringly bitter is set against the warmer resonance of an alternately bowed and plucked double bass. Each instrument sounds self-contained, like lunar bodies spinning on their own axes at different tempos, but locked together by unfathomably complex rules of motion. Additional percussive rattles and scrapes have been overdubbed to fill in the blank space. Tendrils of feedback snake in and out, like cosmic dust from some cataclysmic celestial event. The playing is exploratory and deliberate, technically adept and keenly judged, easily sustaining interest and motion across the track's eleven minutes. Its sense of focused concentration is more akin to the European free improvisation of AMM or The Spontaneous Music Ensemble than the violent ecstasies of American fire music.”....... (by Alan Cummings).......

Note:

In 1969 Takayanagi formed his New Directions trio (initially Motoharu Yoshizawa on bass and cello, Yoshisaburo Toyozumi on percussion) that proceeded to record Independence (september 1969 - Union, 1970), Call in Question (march 1970 - PSF, 1970), with the addition of Motoreru Takagi on sax.

He also recorded with saxophonist Kaoru Abe (who died of a drug overdose in 1978 at the age of 29): Kaitaiteki Koukan/ Deconstructive Communication, recorded live in june 1970, Gradually Projection (july 1970) and Mass Projection (july 1970), the latter two recorded at the same live performance.

Free Form Suite (may 1972 - Three Blind Mice, 1972), with the three-movement Free Form Suite, credited to New Directions For The Arts with Kenji Mori on clarinet, flute and saxophone, Jazz Guitar Forms (november 1973) for a quartet with Kenji Yokoyama on piano (two side-long jams, Collabolation and Straight Away), April Is The Cruellest Month (may 1975), credited to New Direction Unit but still a quartet with Kenji Mori and a rhythm section, Eclipse (may 1975) and the double-LP Axis Another Revolable Thing Parts 1 & 2 (september 1975), all with the previous line-up.

Panic (august 1974) was a collaboration with pianist Mitsuaki Kanno. Grune Revolution (january 1976) was a collaboration with bassist/cellist Keiki Midorikawa....ect...

If you find it, buy this album!