The Squid's Ear Magazine


Uesaka, Yuma / Marilyn Crispell: Streams (Not Two)

A beautiful and authoritative set of duo performances by London-born, Japanese-raised and now residing in NYC, saxophonist & clarinetist Yuma Uesaka, and pianist Marilyn Crispell, performing a program of Uesaka compositions, each based around a poem by Rushi Vyas, realized in confident dialogs of powerful yet sensitive expression; a satisfying and lyrical collection.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Yuma Uesaka-saxophone, clarinet

Marilyn Crispell-piano

Chatori Shimizu-Sho


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UPC: 5906395187706

Label: Not Two
Catalog ID: MW 1010
Squidco Product Code: 29995

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2021
Country: Poland
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at Nevessa Production, in Woodstock, New York, on November 29th, 2018, by Kieran Kelly and Chris Andersen.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Reedman Yuma Uesaka enlists storied pianist Marilyn Crispell to realize a splendid program of his charts on Streams. Uesaka, who was born in London and spent his early childhood in Japan, before growing up in Michigan, is making a name for himself as part of a rising generation of New York-based improvisers. While not his leadership debut, (he issued an EP on graduating in 2015), this represents a serious statement of intent.

He can be heard in saxophonist Anna Webber's Large Ensemble and alongside her on drummer Colin Hinton's excellent Simulacra (Panoramic, 2019). A major presence on the avant scene since the late 1970s, Crispell needs no introduction, and it is a pleasure to hear her collaborating so whole-heartedly with someone at the opposite end of their career.

Uesaka's writing provides attractive frameworks within which the pair can interact. Whether or not inspired by Rushi Vyas' poems of the same names reprinted on the sleeve, the pieces vary from darkly mysterious on "Meditations" to a dashing flourish on "Torrent." Uesaka invokes the Japanese notion of ma (space) as the title for the elegiac final cut, but it is a trait which also manifests frequently elsewhere.

A case in point is the title track which is one of the highlights of the album, where Uesaka's pure-toned clarinet combines with Crispell's skeletal accompaniment to create a delicate pastoral. As they move into more open terrain, Crispell waxes positively hymnal, while Uesaka, now on alto saxophone, plays a sorrowful dirge. They slowly loose their moorings, drifting into a raggedy volatile exchange, until subsiding into a slightly more unsettled mirror of the opening.

Even on the most animated numbers, Crispell balances control and expression, to keep within the parameters of the composition. "Iterations I" begins with a bright alto and piano accord which recalls her tenure with Anthony Braxton, becoming staccato and percussive, before switching tack to a processional coda of stately piano and a subdued unison. The spiky piano and tenor saxophone squawk of "Torrent" presages a suitably irresistible surge. But in an indication of Uesaka's quirky ambition, and more reminders of Braxton, the work also includes a concluding passage for Crispell's treble-pecking, contrasting with Uesaka's elegant burbling on what sounds like a contrabass clarinet. All that in under four minutes.

Uesaka shows that he has arrived with a mature conception, and the tools to execute it, all promising more to savour in the future."-John Sharpe, All About Jazz


Get additional information at All About Jazz

Artist Biographies

"Yuma Uesaka (b. 1991) is a saxophonist, clarinetist, and improviser-composer mostly known for his work in jazz and creative music. Since his arrival to New York City in 2014, Yuma quickly built a reputation for his improvisational sensibilities and his powerful sound. As an advocate for music that celebrates modernity, hybridity, and rigor, Yuma works across diverse musical communities including jazz, creative music, and new classical music.

Yuma has performed at many of the notable venues in NYC such as National Sawdust, Roulette, The Jazz Gallery, Cornelia St Cafe, and Zinc Bar. He tours regularly both as a leader and as a sideman, and has performed across the US and beyond, making appearances in international festivals such as Detroit Jazz Festival (US), Lima ICPNA Jazz Festival (Peru), Otsu Jazz Festival (Japan), TU Jazz Festival (Canada), and Shanghai Jiao Tong University Festival (China).

He currently co-leads Ocelot, a collaborative trio consisting of Colin Hinton and Cat Toren. Ocelot recorded their debut album in 2019, which will be released on March 26th, on 577 Records. Yuma released his debut EP, Spear and Shield, in 2015. Dave Sumner (Bird is the Worm) praises the album as a "compelling debut from saxophonist Uesaka, who susses out some powerful moments from his gentle lyricism."

As a sideman, Yuma has performed and/or recorded with Anna Webber's New Large Ensemble, Jeff Lederer and The Brooklyn Blowhards; Lex Korten's Make/Believe; Colin Hinton's Simulacra; Gabriel Zucker; Lesley Mok's Living Collection, Peter Nelson's Ash, Dust, and Chalkboard Cinema; Ken Ychicawa's Thruworld; Pravin Thompson's A Thoughtful Collapse; Alec Goldfarb's Laughing Coffin. Through these projects, he had the pleasure of working with leading musical figures such as Jorge Roeder, Allison Miller, Eric Wubbels, and Kate Gentile, as well as rising young talents such as Nick Dunston, Adam O'Farrill, and Lex Korten. He was also a part of a world premier of Monteverdi Shapero by Alvin Lucier as a part of Ensemble Evolution at Banff Center for the Arts.

Born in London, Yuma spent his early childhood in Nagoya, Japan. He moved to West Bloomfield, Michigan at the age of 8 and started playing the saxophone at the age of 10 and clarinet at age 12. He holds two bachelor's degrees from University of Michigan, where he majored in Jazz Studies and Computer Science Engineering. He studied with Geri Allen, Robert Hurst, Andrew Bishop, and Erik Santos. An alumnus of Banff Jazz and Creative Music Workshop and Ensemble Evolution, Yuma worked and studied with cutting edge luminaries such as Vijay Iyer, Tyshawn Sorey, Nicole Mitchell, Amir ElSaffar, Claire Chase, and Steve Schick. Since relocating to NYC, he has studied clarinet with Vasko Dukovski and composition with Eric Wubbels.

Yuma is a member of Polyfold Musical Arts Collective. Polyfold is a grassroots, artist-led non-profit organization that helps create opportunities for improvising musicians to present creative works."

-Yuma Uesaka Website (https://yumasax.com/wordpress/about/)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Marilyn Crispell is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music where she studied classical piano and composition, and has been a resident of Woodstock, New York since 1977 when she came to study and teach at the Creative Music Studio. She discovered jazz through the music of John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor and other contemporary jazz players and composers. For ten years she was a member of the Anthony Braxton Quartet and the Reggie Workman Ensemble and has been a member of the Barry Guy New Orchestra and guest with his London Jazz Composers Orchestra, as well as a member of the Henry Grimes Trio, Quartet Noir (with Urs Leimgruber, Fritz Hauser and Joelle Leandre), and Anders Jormin's Bortom Quintet. In 2005 she performed and recorded with the NOW Orchestra in Vancouver, Canada and in 2006 she was co-director of the Vancouver Creative Music Institute and a faculty member at the Banff Centre International Workshop in Jazz. In 2014 she led a three-week music residency at the Atlantic Center For the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida, and in 2016 led a one-week residency at the Conservatory Manuel de Falla in Buenos Aires.

Besides working as a soloist and leader of her own groups, Crispell has performed and recorded extensively with well-known players on the American and international jazz scene. She's also performed and recorded music by contemporary composers Robert Cogan, Pozzi Escot, John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Manfred Niehaus and Anthony Davis (including four performances of his opera "X" with the New York City Opera).

In addition to playing, she has taught improvisation workshops and given lecture/demonstrations at universities and art centers in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and has collaborated with videographers, filmmakers, dancers and poets.

Crispell has been the recipient of three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship grants (1988-1989, 1994-1995 and 2006-2007), a Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust composition commission (1988-1989), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2005-2006). In 1996 she was given an Outstanding Alumni Award by the New England Conservatory, and in 2004, was cited as being one of their 100 most outstanding alumni of the past 100 years."

-Marilyn Crispell Website (http://marilyncrispell.com/bio.htm)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Chatori Shimizu (b. 1990) is a Dresden based composer, shō performer, and sound artist, who constructs his works for a wide range of mediums concerning the time identity in sound. Ranging from orchestral works to sound installations, all of his works "engage in repetitive patterns of sound motifs, which aims for the slightest change in the pattern to act as an accent" (New York Seikatsu), and is described as "a flared infotainment playground" (Mehrlicht Dresden).

As the First Prize Winner of the 2016 Malta International Composition Competition, Shimizu's works have been performed and exhibited throughout Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Poland, Serbia, Thailand, United Kingdom, and the United States, by acclaimed ensembles and musicians such as AuditivVokal, Hidejiro Honjoh, Linea, Multilatérale, Mayumi Miyata, mise-en, Mivos, S.E.M, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, Sound Factory Orchestra, among others. Shimizu has been awarded fellowships from the Asian Cultural Council, Columbia University School of the Arts, Institute of Medieval Japanese Studies, the Mitsubishi Foundation, Omi International Arts Center, Soundstreams, Toshiba Foundation, and Yaddo. His music scores are published from United Music & Media Publishing (Belgium), and his album "O" released from Elektramusic (France).

As an active researcher in the compositional approaches of the shō, he has conducted numerous lectures and demonstrations regarding the notation and the extended techniques of Japanese instruments in universities worldwide, such as Baruch College, Cornell University, The Graduate Center at CUNY, Manhattan School of Music, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico, Tamagawa University, among others. He is a co-founder of SEED: Virtual Composition Academy, a tuition-free, online-based platform connecting composers with the top musicians of East Asian heritage instruments.

Shimizu was born in Osaka, Japan, and spent his formative years in Singapore. Upon receiving the Professional Diploma in Piano Performance with High Honors at age twelve, he studied computer music and composition with Shintaro Imai and Motoharu Kawashima at Kunitachi College of Music, Tokyo, graduating with the Arima Prize - the highest recognition for the graduating class. He received his MFA from Columbia University, New York City, where he studied at the Computer Music Center with Brad Garton and Zosha Di Castri, and at Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber (MM), under the tutelage of Mark Andre, Stefan Prins, and Jörn Peter Hiekel. He serves as Co-Artistic Director of Composers' Collective Tesselat."

-Chatori Shimizu Website (https://www.chatorishimizu.com/biography)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Meditation 2:49

2. Iterations 6:20

3. Streams 11:11

4. Capillarity 8:00

5. Torrent 3:54

6. Ma / Space 8:59

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Piano & Keyboards
Duo Recordings
Melodic and Lyrical Jazz
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