The Squid's Ear Magazine

Toyozumi / Countryman / Montes

Blue Incarnation (Improvisations for Kulintang)

Toyozumi / Countryman / Montes: Blue Incarnation (Improvisations for Kulintang) (ChapChap Records)

Also known as "Improvisations for Kulintang", this live album of energetic and informed free jazz occurred between legendary Japanese percussionist Sabu Toyozumi and Philippine-based saxophonist Rick Countryman in Dec 2018, with featured guest Tusa Montes performing on prepared Kulintang percussion, a set of horizontally laid gongs that add tympanic melody.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Rick Countryman-alto saxophone

Sabu Toyozumi-drums, Erhu

Tusa Montes-prepared Kulintang percussion


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UPC: 4534614501043

Label: ChapChap Records
Catalog ID: CPCD-015
Squidco Product Code: 27386

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2019
Country: Philippines
Packaging: Jewel Case
Recorded at Balete Event House, in the Philippines, on December 10th, 2018, by Alvin Cornista.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"This CD, aka "Improvisations for Kulintang", is a special trio collaboration in the Philippines that occurred between Sabu Toyozumi and Rick Countryman in Dec 2018, with featured guest artist Tusa Montes. Tusa is a session percussionist and university instructor in Manila, and a renown kulintang player through out Asia. Kulintang is a "modern term for an ancient instrumental form of music composed on a row of small, horizontally laid gongs that function melodically, accompanied by larger, suspended gongs and drums" (Wikipedia.) It has deep a cultural history in the Philippines, as well as its own personal musical language. For this "recorded live" performance, Tusa Montes is on "prepared kulintang", adding a small amount of electronic effects, and Sabu and Rick are on their usual drums and alto sax."-Rick Countryman


Artist Biographies

"Rick Countryman (January 31, 1957) is an American jazz saxophonist and flautist.

After years attracting little attention as a baritone saxophone player, including an extended sabbatical, Rick made a late-life change to alto sax, at the urging of bassist, Simon Tan. His first recorded session with Simon and Christian Bucher, avant garde drummer from Switzerland, attracted the attention of French label "Improvising Beings" and was released as "Acceptance - Resistance". The recordings received many positive reviews, both in the United States and Europe.

Rick currently now has 9 releases on 4 labels across Europe, Asia, and the United States, including multiple CDs with Japanese improvisational drummer, Sabu Toyozumi, who has made several trips to Manila to perform and record. The music continues to receive positive reviews and airplay. Two recordings were listed in "Gold Dolphy 2018".

Since 2011, Rick has been an active member of the Manila jazz scene. He leads and performs in ensembles on baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, alto flute and bass flute; performing original compositions, as well as free jazz/improvisation, in his own jazz quartets and trios. His style is heavily influenced by Eric Dolphy, Sonny Simmons and the 60s Free Jazz movement. He was a student of Bert Wilson, and considers Michael Bisio and Rick Mandyck early mentors."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Countryman)
3/13/2024

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

"Yoshisaburo "Sabu" Toyozumi (born Tsurumi, Yokohama, 1943) is one of the small group of musical pioneers who comprised the first generation playing free improvisation music in Japan. As an improvising drummer he played and recorded with many of the key figures in Japanese free music including the two principal figures in the first generation, Masayuki Takayanagi and Kaoru Abe from the late 1960s onwards. He is one of a very few of this circle who are still alive and engaged in playing this music today.

Toyozumi features on numerous commercially available recordings with many of the most notable Japanese and international improvising musicians including Derek Bailey, Mototeru Takagi, Misha Mengelberg, Peter Brötzmann, Keiji Haino, Otomo Yoshihide, Tom Cora and Fred Van Hove.

In 1971 he became the only non-American member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians(AACM)). He dedicated his first record as a leader, Sabu - Message to Chicago, to compositions by AACM members, and in 1992 toured and recorded with AACM trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith.

Toyozumi has been instrumental in bringing many European and American improvisers to Japan including Derek Bailey, Misha Mengelberg and Sunny Murray.

In 2005 British improvising guitarist and promoter John Russell arranged a two-day event dedicated to Toyozumi in which the drummer performed in different groupings with 14 musicians from the London improvised music scene including, most notably, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Phil Minton, John Edwards and Steve Beresford. The Wire described his playing at this time as follows: "He's busy, but there's always space between his notes, and he avoids the flashy technical solution to musical problems. His playing is crisp and dramatic, with a very occasional use of repetition to spark a climax. If it's possible for a drum kit to ask awkward questions, Toyozumi seems to be doing it".

In an interview with Cadence Magazine in 1988 Toyozumi makes clear the importance of his relationship with nature as an influence on his playing and Clive Bell writing in The Wire in 2005 notes "his devotion to the way of Watazumido, the late shakuhachi player and Zen master, whose performances mixed martial arts and music in a bizarre cocktail of discipline and craziness".

In 2009 he returned to London to feature as one of the players in Russell's improvisation festival Fete Quaqua which was recorded for broadcast by BBC Radio 3. He continues to tour widely and in the past year or so has performed in Belgium and France, Chile, Taiwan, England, Philippines and Greece. He also performs from time to time with the legendary Japanese noise group Hijokaidan. Currently he can be found performing on the erhu - a two-stringed Chinese violin - as often as playing the drums."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabu_Toyozumi)
3/13/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. Blue Incarnation ~ First Movement 3:29

2. Blue Incarnation ~ Second Movement 7:59

3. Remember Paradise ~ First Movement 2:50

4. Remember Paradise ~ Second Movement 5:46

5. Remember Paradise ~ Third Movement 5:17

6. Remember Paradise ~ Fourth Movement 4:55

7. Remember Paradise ~ Epilogue 5:10

8. Manila Variations ~ First Movement 5:26

9. Manila Variations ~ Second Movement 4:36

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
Asian Improvisation & Jazz
Trio Recordings
Percussion & Drums

Search for other titles on the label:
ChapChap Records.


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The Squid's Ear Magazine

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