Featuring: Sabu Toyozumi
Masahiko Satoh - piano
Sabu Toyozumi - drums
| 1. The Move for the Quiet | 37:21 |
| 2. The Quiet for the Move | 19:50 |
Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg - ORYNX
From an archive of recordings made by Takeo Suetomi and which he intended for his Chap Chap label, this formidable duo between pianist Masahiko Satoh and percussionist Yoshisaburo " Sabu " Toyozumi is brought to us by No Business in the Chap Chap Series of name of Suetomi's label. Three recordings of superb duets with Sabu Toyozumi have already been published in this series and I recommend them: The Conscience with the unforgettable trombonist Paul Rutherford, Burning with the brilliant chicagoan trumpeter Leo Smith and Mannyokawith Kaoru Abe, the shooting star of extreme free Japanese. Masahiko Satoh is the first Japanese free jazz musician to have performed and recorded in Europe. Spontaneous with Albert Mangelsdorff, Peter Warren and Allen Blairman and Trinitywith Peter Warren and Pierre Favre were published by the Enja label in 1972. You read correctly: Mangelsdorff and Pierre Favre, two essential artists of “free” euro-jazz. Disappeared from European radars since the blessed era when labels like Enja, Moers Music, MPS Saba engaged in "avant-garde" musical subversion, it is time that we throw an ear to this formidable free pianist whose daring then were solidly supported by a talent for pianist and connoisseur of contemporary music. There is a great double album by Joelle Léandre, Signature live at the Egg Farm(Red Toucan), in duet with two Japanese pianists, Masahiko Satoh and Yuji Takahashi. It is often in unexpected albums that the profound talent of the Lady of the Double Bass is revealed and this means that these two refined pianists inspire her. With Sabu Toyozumi, Masahiko Satoh creates a dialogue on everything the drummer offers, rhythms, scansions, distant memories of an Africa that he crossed right through backpack from Cairo to Accra. Mastery of unstoppable rhythms and musical modes, contemporary language of remarkable logic and clarity, cutting of sentences on moving tempos, development of ideas over the seconds and minutes, sequences and interlockings drawn up with a cord in all spontaneity. Immanent swing… In this joint manhunt, we are swept away by the time that fades, the tension which gradually rises in a crescendo of energies and volatile strikes played with unparalleled safety…. In this flight forward which ends up spinning indefinitely, an unstable, ephemeral balance is created, but of a solidity to any test, until Sabu gratifies us with a solo where the rhythmic cells dissolve in an air of samba… And the duo picks up again until the pianist turns alone around a few notes, continuously altering a pulse, an interval, a note, a saccade in the same spirit. A beautiful story that looks like eternity, questions, subtle interactions and majestic flights. Well placed hyphenations, intense sharing and a fountain of ideas, images, fingering pass at high speed with readability and flawless assurance, without downtime. The drummer comes straight out of the school of life of the AACM (of which he was a part a long time ago) and of incessant tours affirming an un feigned Africanity. With such a distinguished pianist, the pair is explosive. A great success of March 9, 1997 in Yamaguchi City which I highly recommend.
John Sharpe - Point Of Departure
The Lithuanian NoBusiness label’s licensing deal with the Japanese Chap Chap imprint has mined a rich seam of 1990s Japanese free music, and in The Aiki, has unearthed another glistening nugget. It presents an exciting encounter between pianist Masahiko Satoh and drummer Sabu Toyozumi, two improvisers of the first rank. Although both have been active exponents of the scene since its inception, their tandem appearances remain limited, and never before available on record. This unissued recording in crystal clear fidelity of a 1997 concert in Yamaguchi now sits alongside several other contemporaneous performances from each man made accessible through the project in recent years. Through the light and shade of two epic improvs, both principals unleash the tools of their trade: unfettered imagination; an innate sense of form; and playful animation. Part of the success surely derives from the fact that they draw on such wide hinterlands. Satoh’s untethered playing is informed by both his classical composition and swing and modern jazz exploits. His stylistically promiscuous flow periodically encompasses a bluesy right-hand embroidery, galloping classical formalism, and torrents of clipped notes which recall Cecil Taylor, all distilled into a unique personal amalgam. Only a brief pentatonic melody suggests any remotely Japanese flavor. Toyozumi calls upon his experience with like-minded spirits across the globe, and his notable sojourn in Chicago where he became the only non-American member of the AACM, to forge unusual textures into a dynamic and vibrant contrapuntal stream. Through a shifting focus on distinct elements of his kit he demarcates and orders. Even when he co-opts march cadences into a solo, it convinces as integral rather than intrusive, while in another feature he evokes the tuneful percussiveness of a Roach or Blackwell. Each feeds off the other in spontaneous syncopation. There’s an electrifying moment early on when Toyozumi suddenly accentuates a Satoh flourish on his rims. Later delicate piano prompts Toyozumi to accompany with hollow slaps on his body. Although “The Move For The Quiet” begins with unhurried quiet toms, inducing a ritual feel, it continues full of dramatic gushing rhythmically aligned unisons. “The Quiet For The Move” seems more conversational, with a stately character, at least to start, but quickly becomes wayward. Though there are tinkling and tapping downtimes in both cuts, it’s the thrill of the flailing full spate dash which proves irresistible. Happily rescued from the vaults, for those in the know this session will affirm the significance of its two sparring partners, while for those unfamiliar it argues a forceful case.
Guy Sitruk - Citizen Jazz
Another Sabu Toyozumi , you might say! Yes, it's true, you can't change your ways. Produced by Takeo Suetomi , once again. What do you want, the latter participated in this great adventure of the emergence of a free original in Japan; he had invested his money in it and today, he publishes or republishes, for our greatest pleasure. He has collected many treasures, which he slowly distils for us, business obliges. On the other hand, the space left until now to the pianist Masahiko Satoh is reduced, including on Citizen Jazz, while he is an important figure. Today, I invite you to rediscover these three adventurers (the musicians and the producer), with an album of only two tracks with mirrored names: "The Move for the Quiet" and "The Quiet for the Move", recorded in 1997. As the pieces are reproduced in their entirety, unlike some videos available online, it is possible to grasp the trajectory of this concert, of each of the pieces. Thus, the first opens with rhythmic phrases on the skins, and if it dances, it is not because of repeated figures. Here, everything changes, everything surprises during this space where Sabu is all alone. Then a flash of brilliance on the keyboard announces the entrance of Masahiko Satoh. The name of the piece - "The Move for the Quiet" - can be misleading. Sabu Toyozumi launches, in fact, into a wild, pagan, wild party. We feel the ardor of youth, with a play on all the reminiscences, a semblance of a military march joining Art Blakey to then follow his own path. Masahiko Sato imposes his breaks, his silences, his feline paw strokes, on the lookout. A repeated clicking on the drums finds its echo on the keyboard. There is thus a whole series of back-and-forth rhythmic figures between the two artists with a few melodic lines on the left, big shocks, collapses, rolls, almost abstract passages on the right. Two thirds of the way through the piece, a form of calm appears, made of fragments on the keyboard, in a sort of purity. But Sabu makes his drums sing and it starts again for a new party. The piano chops up its phrases, the drums let loose in a virtuoso out-of-control. A curious figure develops on the piano, like a hesitant bass on the left hand, a right hand on the other hand expressive, spaced shocks on the drums, then a right hand alone on the keyboard, with a speech in gaps, the drummer's hands serving as percussion before the return of the drums, magic wands, whistles. Another surge of pure happiness.
This game made of pieces of sentences, bursts, segments of whirlwinds, sometimes connected by melodic passages, or even by nursery rhymes from yesteryear, such is the pleasure taken by Masahiko Satoh on this album, leaving a vast space to Sabu Toyozumi. The latter does not stop making his drums, his sticks sing, exchanging scansions, bursts, machine guns with the piano, in striking back and forths. This is how the second piece unfolds, with a curious mixture of blues and European echoes on the piano, with a dizzying play on the sonorities of the drums, and a striking interweaving of scansions between the keyboard and the skins.
From movement to stillness, from stillness to movement, this illustrates the title of the album The Aiki , known to us as aikido. This martial art advocates shifting, changing balance, using the movement of the other, their strength, without real combat, in a kind of harmony. I don't know if the musicians had chosen this theme before playing. Probably not. So it was a posteriori that this title was found, like a summary of the chronicles to come. This recording of a concert from the last century sparkles like a distant star, whose light can take time to reach us. And when space-time is contracted, it astounds us.
