AKIRA SAKATA & JIM O'ROURKE with CHIKAMORACHI & MERZBOW – Flying Basket = すっ飛び篭 (2LP-2015)

Label: Family Vineyard - FV88

Format: 2 × Vinyl , LP, Album, Limited Edition

Country: US / Exit: 18 Sep. 2015

Style: Free Jazz , Free Improvisation , Noise , Minimal

Recorded June 2013 at Jim O’Rourke’s  Steamroom Studio, Tokyo, Japan.

Artwork [Collage], Design – Jeremy Kannapell

Mastered At – Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin December 2014

Lacquer Cut At – Dubplates & Mastering

Lacquer Cut By, Mastered By – Rashad Becker

Layout – Dan Zettwoch

Distributed By – SC Distribution

Producer – Jim O'Rourke

Matrix / Runout (Runout, etching, side A): FV88 – A -1

Matrix / Runout (Runout, etching, side B): FV88 – B -2

Matrix / Runout (Runout, etching, side C): FV88 – C -1

Matrix / Runout (Runout, etching, side D): FV88 – D -2

side 1:

A - Flying Basket - part 1 ....................................................................................... 18:29

side 2:

B - Flying Basket - part 2 ....................................................................................... 19:03

side 3:

C - Flying Basket - part 3 ....................................................................................... 15:06

side 4:

D - Flying Basket - part 4 ....................................................................................... 18:49

Personnel:

Akira Sakata – alto Saxophone, vocals

Jim O'Rourke – electric guitar, harmonica, electronics

Darin Gray – double bass, percussion

Chris Corsano – drums

Masami Akita – electronics [noise electronics]

Packaged in a gatefold sleeve with an obi strip, two inserts (one promotional and one informational), and a digital download card. 150g vinyl. Limited to 800 copies.

Jacket reads "Family Vineyard 2014" - however, two to manufacturing delays this is a 2015 release. Insert reads "released September 2015."

As the smoky licks of Akira Sakata’s opening sax solo suggest, this is, for long durations, not the free-form noise-fest that might be expected.

Jim O’Rourke, on guitar, joins in with subtle alternative or de-tuned chiming and Masami Akita aka Merzbow is only a ghostly background presence. Chris Corsano (drums) and Darin Gray (double bass) aka Chikamorachi make their presence felt only after five minutes as a low rumbling undertow, albeit Gray is soon thrumming with gentle plasticity á la Jimmy Garrison. Akata’s licks then turn to sour drizzle and Merzbow’s noise to thin, whiplash aerations, but after ten minutes the full group is finally in play.

O’Rourke is sounding unusually aggressive from the off, his playing spilling out of the end of the set’s first full-on improv thicket after 17 minutes in a state of wiry, drawn-out tensility, all feedback fuzz and gnarly sonics finally tamped down to near silence: a natural break bringing the first side of the double vinyl edition to a close.

With no indexes on the single-span the near silence is sustained, O’Rourke’s sonic scumble matched only by gently wavering Merz-sound and other noises unplaceable, collectively tense and abrasive but only very slowly, tentatively, testing boundaries, and coming to rest.

In context, Sakata’s birdsong-like clarinet and Corsano’s light-touch percussion sifting is as logical here as it is unexpected, and the duo have space to develop their controlled intensities in isolation. Again, rather than a gradual accumulation of inputs and ratcheting-up, this flighty duet winds down with only the subtlest of other accompaniments until Sakata is fully, thoughtfully introspective, the other players keeping in touch only via subtly thrummed bass, gentle touches of guitar and Merzbow at his most restrained and delicate.

Approaching the 40 minute mark, O’Rourke essays a tersely ductile solo and Merzbow joins in with thin, piping synth tones before bass and drums also kick in. O’Rourke plays gritty chords, Merzbow becomes more aggressive, and Sakata starts chewing over his phrases, blowing with increasing fervour. A sinewy passage this, with avant-rock dynamics soon exploding into ferocious freestyle, O’Rourke fairly shredding.
The blowout abates ten minutes later, lulled by a renewed melodicism in Sakata’s playing, thus wrapping up the third vinyl side as neatly as the first.
A fine, melodious sax solo by turns gruff and altissimo bridges to the next group passage, a tense and compacted crescendo, in which Merzbow and O’Rourke craft ring modulation (cf. Forbidden Planet) and feedback, and Sakata lets rip with guttural vocalisations. In the final straight, the perhaps inevitable payoff in free jazz frictions and raw noise finally floods the levees of control. While Corsano expends considerable energies, O’Rourke’s playing is notably ferocious. Sakata holds back until the very climax, piling in to urge a raucously ear-splitting collective transcendence.

Flying Basket was recorded at Jim O’Rourke’s Steamroom studio in Tokyo, but Akira Sakata rightly shares top billing on a session that casts established relationships in a new light. Sakata and Chikamorachi have recorded four previous albums together since 1991, as have Sakata and O’Rourke, the live double And That’s The Story Of Jazz… ‎(Family Vineyard, 2011) being the only one that brings them all together. Still, this is a finely-crafted session set. Merzbow is the added grit that’s produced a pearl. The scope in subtlety of his contribution may surprise those only familiar with his more uncompromising solo output.

(Review by Tim Owen)

If you find it, buy this album!

EVAN PARKER / JOHN EDWARDS / CHRIS CORSANO – A Glancing Blow (2006) - Live At The Vortex

Label: Clean Feed – CF085CD
Format: CD, Album; Country: Portugal - Released: Sep 2007
Style: Free Improvisation, Free Jazz
Recorded at the New Vortex, London, 24 August 2006.
Design – Rui Garrido; Photography By [Photographs] – Caroline Forbes
Re-Design (pages 2, 3, 4, 5) by ART&JAZZ Studio; Design by VITKO
Executive-producer – Trem Azul; Producer – Evan Parker
Liner Notes – Brian Morton; Mastered By – Luís Delgado
Recorded By, Mixed By – Steve Lowe

Review:

The music of saxophonist Evan Parker is an acquired taste. Like all the great jazz players he has created his own language. Think of Louis Armstrong calling Dizzy Gillespie's sound "Chinese music or that Ornette Coleman's music once caused a riot. It might be difficult to step back in time to understand the confusion over Ornette's music or that of Thelonious Monk, whose vision is now accepted into the jazz canon. Evan Parker holds that most sacrosanct title today. Listeners idolized his sound or reject it as Armstrong once did of Gillespie, or as folks once thought of Armstrong himself.

Parker's is the music of extended technique, the language of chirps, multiphonics, and circular breathing. Immediately identifiable, his sound is perhaps the next progression of the spirit of John Coltrane's final hours.

Parker has worked solo, but has also produced some fine trio sessions with Alexander von Schlippenbach and Paul Lovens or perhaps his most famous with Barry Guy and Paul Lytton. Here he is matched with a longtime collaborator, bassist John Edwards from the London Improvisers Orchestra and many an Emamen recording, and newcomer/percussionist Chris Corsano. Corsano, born in the US is most known for his collaborations with saxophonist Paul Flaherty and most recently in their band Cold Bleak Heat.

A Glancing Blow is a live recording from 2006 at London's New Vortex. The trio plays two lengthy tracks of twenty-eight and nearly forty-eight minutes. Its nontraditional compositions are suite-like improvisations, as the tempo and rhythms shift in and out and the players contribute, sit out, and play off an idea or the energy of their partners.

Theirs is a music of no beginnings and endings that appears out of thin air. The language spoken is both energetic and meditative. Corsano can play the colorist role or, when enabled, the provocateur. His highlights are the subtle shadings of tom-tom and cymbal, the completion of a remark made by his partners. The music changes directions, not like a traditional composition, but with a flow of energy. The quiet intensity of Parker's saxophone can be like syrup, making it's way from a high spot to a lower one. With a trio he has less of a burden to carry (as he does with his solo performances) and his thoughts come unhurried and with much deference to Edwards.

For his part, Edwards doesn't so much keep time as he spreads it. His performance on bass is that of slaps, plucks, bowing, knocks, and all other physical manipulation of his instrument.

Together, the trio molds these two extended performances into an abstract, but consistently satisfying presentation of very thoughtful free jazz.

_ By MARK CORROTO, Published: September 15, 2007 (AAJ)

A Glancing Blow, with free pioneer Evan Parker joined by veteran bassist John Edwards and up-and-coming percussionist Chris Corsano for a live concert, would seem to be a classic free-form blowout. And certainly it has its moments of saxophone wailing over free time. On the opening title track, Parker, on tenor—the horn he features most on this disc—twists out lines that ring out the upper extensions of unstated harmonies. Underneath Corsano rolls out wave after wave of ametric time while Edwards grounds the musical melee with a few deeply planted notes. Later in the track, with Parker on soprano issuing tumbling, anxious lines, the band leaps forward over Corsano ’ s barline-melting ride patterns. Here Edwards plants a two-beat figure that leans back against the rhythmic current. But the most arresting moment comes midway through the half-hour long first track when Corsano and Edwards both take up bows and creating an eerie spectral curtain of sound that ’ s electric without being plugged in. The even longer second selection is all Parker tenor with interludes for solo bass and drums. Parker builds three solos, starting with the first two with ballad statements that grow increasingly gnarled as they progress. On the last he worries a fragment that sounds cribbed from Wayne Shorter. Each time Parker seems to be approaching a climatic explosion, he backs off, with the track drifting to the end with some more textural play.

_ By David Dupont (Cadence Magazine)



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SHOUP/FLAHERTY/MOORE/CORSANO – Live at Tonic (2002)

 

Label: Leo Records– CD LR 369
Format: CD; Country: UK; Released: 2003: Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation
Recorded live on September 14, 2002 at Tonic, NYC.
Artwork [Cover Art] – Wally Shoup
New Design (pages: 2,3,4,5) by ART&JAZZ Studio SALVARICA - 2012; Designer - Vitko Salvarica
Engineer, Edited By – Leo Feigin, Simon Brewer
Liner Notes – Dan Warburton
Photography – Stefano Giovannini
Producer – Leo Feigin; Recorded By – Chris Habib

Review:

This is a dream date, and unlike most dream dates this one works. Saxophonists Wally Shoup and Paul Flaherty have so much in common. They share a raw delivery of emotion, a passion that sets their free improvising on fire, and a history of dwelling in the shadows of American improv for way too long. Prior to this live date, they were both engaged in a revitalization of their careers — or was it simply that their music was finally falling into the right ears? Flaherty had released important albums on Boxholder, Ecstatic Yod, and his own brand-new label, Wet Paint. Shoup was about to have a fresh session released on the influential label Leo. And here they are sharing the stage at Tonic in New York City, pushing each other into a blowout contest of epic proportions. Between their towering presence, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore throws his mean guitar playing, matching their intense wails and feverish spurts. His presence occasionally becomes overwhelming, but in general he contributes an essential part to the exciting music, his relevance hitting peaks in "Tonic Two" — is this a free jazz quartet or Borbetomagus? Chris Corsano makes the perfect drummer for this group.
His playing is extremely busy, saturated, but he stays in the back, leaving the three already loud voices of the saxophones and guitar to tear up the front of the stage. Live at Tonic contains two or three episodes of confusion, especially in "Tonic Three," but in general it makes a compelling, exhausting, hell-raising session of fire music from the post-fire music era.

~ François Couture, All Music Guide.

 

 Liner Notes:

Should one wish to explore the thorny question of where "free jazz" ends and "free improvisation" begins (I don't particularly want to get into it, but..), it's perhaps the continuing need on the part of some musicians to retain the idea of a theme, a "head" (albeit symbolically) that ought to be discussed (that and the role of the rhythm section bass and drums, but that's another story). Despite its audacious title, Ornette Coleman's "Free Jazz" followed the time-honoured bop structure of head (ensemble) alternating with individual solos (horns first, rhythm section last), and the idea of a head remained central to Coltrane, Ayler and Frank Wright, to name but three major players. Though it soon lost its earlier role as central organising pillar (either vertical, as harmonic "changes" to be played over the legacy of bop or horizontal, as melodic/intervallic material to be developed by the soloist Monk, Ornette, Lacy...) the head nevertheless retained a structural function. (Ayler used it to delineate form, marking the end of one solo and preparing the ground for the next.) When American free jazz, as Sunny Murray put it, "got lost" in the late 1970s (some musicians crossed over into funk; others retreated into academia; some plied their trade wherever they could in draughty lofts; others disappeared altogether and died in the street), a few brave souls established links with like-minded explorers in Europe and Japan, where younger generations of players (free from the constraints of the Tradition imposed by the American media, that pompous self-appointed arbiter not only of what jazz is, but also apparently of what's good and bad jazz), had taken the plunge and dispensed with themes altogether. 

Twenty years down the line, discovering that they can quite easily do without the head, and the melodic and/or harmonic information it contains, what do musicians improvise "over"? Answer: they improvise full stop, they play, they take it to the edge. Parameters other than pitch, harmony and rhythm (in the strict metrical sense of the word) are less important here than timbre, event-density and volume. To adopt an analogy from the visual arts, we've moved away from figurative to abstract expressionist it's no coincidence that a Jackson Pollock was chosen as cover art for "Free Jazz", and no coincidence either that many improvising musicians are also painters: Alan Silva, Bill Dixon, Peter Brötzmann, Ivo Perelman, Jack Wright and, as you can see, Wally Shoup. 

Shoup and Paul Flaherty have doggedly pursued the goal of improvised music for over two decades in a United States where jazz (and its attendant codes of behaviour) still holds sway. (This isn't to say that they are uninfluenced by it name me a saxophonist who is both men possess a strength and purity of tone and a determination to pursue musical ideas that clearly points not only to Ayler and Coltrane, but further back to Sonny Rollins and Coleman Hawkins.) Until recently they've had to labour on in relative obscurity between 1984 and 1994's "Project W" (Apraxia), Shoup only released his work on self-produced cassettes, while Flaherty curated his Zaabway imprint with kindred spirit Randy Colbourne until 2001's magnificent "The Ilya Tree" (Boxholder) and the sensational "The Hated Music" on Ecstatic Yod. 

Guitarist Thurston Moore needs little introduction, of course, neither as a performer in his own right with Sonic Youth nor as a tireless champion of free music. In an interview in 1998 with The Wire's Biba Kopf, he recalled the thrill of his discovery of the "amorphous [...] spontaneous blowout" at a New York loft session in the early 1980s featuring guitarists Glenn Branca and Rudolph Grey (whose group The Blue Humans with Arthur Doyle and Beaver Harris was one of the first improvisation outfits to cross over into the ugly, noisy world of No Wave). Moore subsequently asked writer Byron Coley to compile some free-music tapes to take on a mid-80s SY tour (Coley made sixty!) and "then someone gave me a copy of [Brötzmann's] "Machine Gun" and it was all over..." Coming from rock, Moore arrived in free music without the baggage of a jazz soloist (i.e. notes matter he recalls being bemused the first time he heard Derek Bailey) but with an arsenal of extended techniques that would make any jazz guitarist (with the possible exception of the late Sonny Sharrock) shudder with fear. 

Drummer Chris Corsano (who partners Flaherty to perfection on "The Hated Music" and the more recent "Sannyasi" on the saxophonist's new Wet Paint imprint) is, as he has to be in such company, a veritable powerhouse, just as adept at exploiting percussion's timbral potential as he is its rhythmic propulsion. Sunny Murray would be proud of him. 

It's only just that this magnificent work should find itself on the venerable Leo label, and I for one can't wait to hear more of it, especially now that the likes of Matt Shipp, William Parker and David Ware are sliding progressively back towards orthodoxy, secure in the knowledge that the safety net of Tradition be that bebop or hiphop lies beneath them. It's good to know there's still somebody on the edge willing to come back and remind us what it's like out there. 

_ Dan Warburton

Welcome to new prog-blog "Different Perspectives In My Room...!".
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