YOSUKE YAMASHITA TRIO – Montreux Afterglow (Frasco ‎– FS7014 / LP-1976)

Label: Frasco ‎– FS7014

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: Japan / Released: 1976

Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz

Recorded in live on July 9, 1976 at Casino de Montreux.

Manufactured By – Nippon Phonogram Co., Ltd.

Distributed By – Nippon Phonogram Co., Ltd.

Cover Design – Hideomi Ishikawa

Front Cover Photo – Takumi Ushida

Back Cover Photo – Yosuke Yamashita

Recording Engineering – Montreux Sounds

Re-mix Engineering – Tsuyoshi  Miyasaka

Linor Notes – Hisamitsu Noguchi

Matrix / Runout (Side A, stamped): F S 7014 A I

Matrix / Runout (Side B, stamped): F S 7014 B II

side 1:

A - Ghosts ............................................................................................................... 21:30

       Written-By – Albert Ayler

side 2:

B - Banslikana ......................................................................................................... 23:00

      Written-By – Yosuke Yamashita

Personnel:

Yosuke Yamashita 山下洋輔 – piano

Akira Sakata  坂田明 – alto saxophone

Shota Koyama  小山彰太 – drums, percussion

Possibly the most intense Yosuke Yamashita I've heard thus far. The cover of Ayler's Ghosts is... incredible. At one point Akira Sakata just starts screaming. The staggering expressive range of Yosuke Yamashita... an abstract landscape of geometrical disorder and rhythm whose arteries slowly congest and lead to a cacophonous fracture.

The B side, "Banslikana" quite as focused over its duration (the hugely underwhelming drum solo, particularly on the back of the rest of the album's monster drumming), the last five minutes have to be heard to be believed.

Good on Yamashita for being one of the few jazz cats to go into the second half of the 70s in a LESS accessible direction. Herbie Hancock and Weather Report and damn near everybody else had already sold their souls by this point. Yamashita kept busy on the sidelines playing shoji with demons.

Well worth finding.

If you find it, buy this album!