|
contents | jazz | |||||||||||||
| Out Jan. 24: trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and guitarist Keiji Haino's What happened there? via Libra Records Two of improvised music's greatest provocateurs, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and guitarist Keiji Haino, join forces for the first time in the outrageously unpredictable What happened there? (Libra Records, January 24, 2025). Recorded live at the daylong Aremo Koremo ("Each and Every") festival, which is curated by Tamura and his wife, pianist-composer Satoko Fujii, the densely packed set gleefully subverts expectations, veering abruptly from lyrical beauty to sonic abstraction, from pensive quiet to the reckless energy, all with a leavening of absurdity and humor that makes for a riveting performance full of surprises. "Satoko and I were thinking about interesting musicians to play with during the marathon live at Pit Inn, and Haino came to mind, " Tamura said. "I had never played with him before and I thought it would be an interesting challenge. We didn't talk about what we would do, all we said was 'nice to meet you' right before we played." Although they hadn't performed together before, there are parallels in their respective careers. They each have worked in a wide range of genres, including avant-rock, free jazz, and free improvisation and often blur the borders between them. They also share an interest in folk music from around the world, and incorporate them in oblique ways into their music. Yet each makes very different music from the other, and they remain strong individualists who are unrestrained by convention. "That's the most important thing when looking for a collaborator, " Tamura said. There's no telling where their deliriously free-spirited set will go from one moment to another. Sometimes it's a dialog of contrasts, at other times they soar together in jagged, high-energy outbursts or quiet jazz-inflected musings. Most of the wide-ranging performance is built of short episodes that are fully developed, but sometime they simply discard an idea and leap to a new one. Yet the discontinuity somehow makes sense. Each applies their vast tool kits of extended techniques on their main instruments to pack the music with unusual timbres and textures. Haino adds urgent, even panicky, vocals and Tamura augments his performance with his own vocalizing and an array of kitchen utensil percussion like woks and eggbeaters, and squeaky toys. There's a moment when Tamura answers Haino's agitated guitar skronk by squeezing a rubber ducky. It's an exquisitely absurd gesture, but somehow a musically appropriate one, too. "I use things like banging on a wok or a toy, but I use them because I want that sound in that moment." Tamura said. "It's not silly, it's very serious. The music would be boring if it wasn't serious." Japanese trumpeter and composer Natsuki Tamura is internationally recognized for a unique musical vocabulary that blends jazz lyricism with extended techniques in a wide variety of settings. 2003 was a breakout year for Tamura as a bandleader, with the release of Hada Hada (Libra), featuring his free jazz-avant rock quartet with Fujii on synthesizer. In 2005, he made a 180-degree turn with the debut of his acoustic Gato Libre quartet, focusing on the intersection of European folk music and sound abstraction. Now a trio, their most recent CD is Koneko (Libra), released in 2020. Writing in the New York City Jazz Record, Tyran Grillo said, "By turns mysterious and whimsical." In 1998, Tamura released the first of his unaccompanied trumpet albums, A Song for Jyaki (Leo Lab). He followed it up in 2003 with KoKoKoKe (Polystar/NatSat and in 2021 he celebrated his 70th birthday with Koki Solo (Libra), which Karl Ackermann in All About Jazz described as "quirky fun in an age of uncertainty." He also regularly appears on many of Fujii's ensembles, including both small groups and big bands. In 1997, he and Fujii released their first duo album, How Many? (Leo Lab). They have now recorded ten CDs together. Kurt Gottschalk writes in the New York City Jazz Record that their rapport "feels like a secret language … It's rare to sense this level of intuition between musicians." In addition, Tamura has worked with collaborative groups. Most recently, he joined Fujii and master French composer-improvisers, trumpeter Christian Pruvost and drummer Peter Orins, to form the collective quartet, Kaze. With five CDs to their credit since 2011, Kaze "redefines listening to music, redefines genres, redefines playing music, " according to Stef Gjissels of Free Jazz Blog. Tamura's category-defying abilities make him "unquestionably one of the most adventurous trumpet players on the scene today, " said Marc Chenard in Coda. Guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Keiji Haino is a force in several areas of music, including free jazz, noise rock, and free improvisation. Inspired by Antonin Artaud, he initially aimed to work in theater, but an encounter with The Doors changed his direction to music. He has studied and absorbed a wide range of forms from early blues, especially Blind Lemon Jefferson, to European medieval music, to popular songs throughout the world. In 1970 he joined the free jazz group Lost Aaraaf, named after an Edgar Allan Poe poem, as vocalist. Meanwhile, he started to work on home recordings and taught himself guitar and percussion. In 1978 he formed the rock band Fushitsusha. Since 1988, after a recuperation period from 1983 to 1987, he has been internationally active in various formats including solo, in groups, and as a DJ under the name "experimental mixture." He has also collaborated in free improvisations with artists including saxophonists Peter Brötzmann and John Zorn, guitarists Derek Bailey, Jim O'Rourke, and Fred Frith, and many others. In whatever setting he appears he takes the possibilities of guitar and the many other instruments he plays to the extreme through his idiosyncratic techniques. He has released more than 200 recordings and performed live more than 2, 000 times. Natsuki Tamura & Keiji Haino – What happened there? Libra Records – 102-078 – Recorded January 2024 Release date January 24, 2025 write your comments about the article :: © 2025 Jazz News :: home page |