Japanese jazz, "j-jazz"

this is it! (satoko fujii, natsuki tamura, takashi itani) 1538 album. opens up with this absolutely smouldering maelstrom that I've repeated a couple of times now, without listening to the rest of the album yet.

public bath press has just put out a first-ever english translation of teruto soejima's landmark history of japanese free jazz:

https://image.jimcdn.com/app/cms/image/transf/dimension=1820x1280:format=jpg/path/sebbe8eddd3189d65/image/ifeb8f616fab5f063/version/1545123392/image.jpg

This book, the only history of free jazz in Japan, has been reprinted many times in Japan and is finally available to readers overseas in English translation. From its earliest stirrings in the 1960s until it reached international recognition in the 1970s and after, free jazz in Japan is a unique music that has found its perfect scribe. Soejima Teruto was a writer who fell in love with a music and devoted his life to it as promoter, critic, label owner, tour organizer, and much more. All new photos in this edition, none used from the original Japanese volume. Introduction by Otomo Yoshihide.

you can get it here:

https://www.publicbathpress.com/

this sounds soooo good right now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R62xjHtOi0

also i finally got my copy of the soejima teruto book i posted about above and boy is it great, just super interesting and full of great recommendations for music of course

i'll probably be posting some of those things here if i remember to, almost tempted to put together a discography or maybe just post a playlist online somewhere

There's a second volume of the BBE J-Jazz compilation coming in September - you're better off buying a physical copy than just getting it from Bandcamp, though, 'cause they only licensed I think 5 tracks for digital and the 2CD set has 15. I pre-ordered mine already.

https://bbemusic.bandcamp.com/album/j-jazz-volume-2-deep-modern-jazz-from-japan-1969-1983

did they do the thing again where there is vinyl-exclusive content ?

oh it's the other way around this time (14 vinyl tracks, 15 CD tracks)

This Hiroshi Suzuki album keeps coming up on my youtube recommendations - and according to this guy lots of other people's.

Few albums better illustrate the magic of YouTube as a music platform...

And it's pretty great, even more when I realised the fellow was playing the trobone.

There's one other album on discogs but seems to be very little else.

https://youtu.be/b8YLcVFmowY

nice!

I haven't seen Cat on my recs list for a while since I stopped doing J music deep dives, however, I still get Plastic Love by Mariya Takeuchi all the time, it's up to 12m hits, insanity.

27 million actually. Crazy.

Still loving the Takeo Moriyama

Listing to Japanese radio this afternoon and they were interviewing the leader of Soil and ‘Pimp’ sessions was jntroduing their new album recorded at roni Scott’s. He played ‘Space Drifter’ - well worth looking out for when it comes out on Tuesday.

https://www.jvcmusic.co.jp/-/Artist/A018653.html

Aspirations of Madness, Blank Forms' fifth collection of archival, unpublished, or newly translated texts, takes its title from a series of interviews with Japanese free jazz pioneer Masayuki Takayangi that were published in Japanese in 1975-76 and are published here in English for the first time. The interviews provide a rare look at Takayanagi's eccentric practice and personality, both long under-recognized by audiences outside (and often, inside) of Japan.

https://www.forcedexposure.com/App_Themes/Default/Images/product_images/product_page/B/BLANK005BK_PROD.jpg

https://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/blank-forms-blank-forms-vol-5-aspirations-of-madness-book/BLANK.005BK.html

Bought an LP from 1982 by an outfit called Jazz that's named 'Live Jazz.' I got it on a hunch because it's on the Better Days label and features Yasuaki Shimizu and other members of Mariah. It's a little experimental and has some really bizarre spoken-word bits. As you can gather, the release is pretty unsearchable... just wondering if anyone has heard it or knows anything more?

this ?

https://www.discogs.com/Jazz-Jazz-Live/release/7168074

Haha yep, and that's about all I saw on it.

https://img.cdandlp.com/2017/01/imgL/118515252.jpg

this rules

cooldix, did you ever find any more info about the "live jazz" LP ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhFvwKoWsyI

Yosuke Yamashita Trio ‎– Concert In New Jazz - ぐがん [Gugan] 1969

feat. thread favorite takeo moriyama on drums

Nice revive! Picked up a few of Yamashita's albums - really cool. Also, kinda hard to find English info for for some of his stuff.

On that subject, I never did find anything more about the Live Jazz album, budo jeru. All good,

Been into selected albums by Akira Sakata and Masahiko Togashi in a big way lately. The latter's "Spiritual Nature" is a good, cheap entry point if you're coming at things from a Japanese ambient/environmental music kinda angle (though it gets noisy in parts).

My copy of that "Free Jazz in Japan" book just arrived. Stoked! Thanks for the tip off from way back, budo jeru!

awesome, you're quite welcome !