"JAZZ JAPAN" - BBC R3 This Sunday (10/3/19)

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"Jazz Japan
Sunday Feature BBC R3

Musician and journalist Katherine Whatley explores the rich and surprising history of jazz in Japan. Surprising because the chaotic individualism of this American art form appears at first to go against the very grain of Japan’s communitarian sprit. More surprising still that, having been banned as ‘enemy music’ during the second world war, jazz music was wholeheartedly embraced in Japan during the immediate post war period and the US-led allied occupation. In fact the market for jazz within Japan was once so great that the country has variously been credited with having the highest proportion of jazz fans in the world, and with almost single handedly propping up the jazz record industry.

But the story of jazz in Japan goes deeper than the enthusiastic collecting (and extensive reissuing) of American jazz records. As an American growing up in Tokyo, a student of traditional Japanese music, and a huge jazz fan herself, it’s a subject that’s close to presenter Katherine Whatley’s heart. She looks at the unique contribution that Japanese musicians have made to the jazz scene, and finds that jazz has become an inextricable part of Japanese culture.

Produced by Laura Yogasundram.
Release date: 10 March 2019"

Should be good.

BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for spotting this Bluesie - saves me the trouble!

Jazz - is it an individualistic or communitarian form of music making? Both, I would have thought - sometimes edging more to the former, at other times the latter.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

http://youtu.be/b6K9Bzq0VDk "Cool Struttin'" - Sonny Clark Quintet, Bluenote. I was told on the old Bluenote website that this was the biggest selling jazz reissue in Japan, outselling Kind of Blue and Love Supreme etc. Played in all the jazz coffeehouses. Great record and it may have had something to do with the sleeve. Those ankles...

BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

http://youtu.be/b6K9Bzq0VDk "Cool Struttin'" - Sonny Clark Quintet, Bluenote. I was told on the old Bluenote website that this was the biggest selling jazz reissue in Japan, outselling Kind of Blue and Love Supreme etc. Played in all the jazz coffeehouses. Great record and it may have had something to do with the sleeve. Those ankles...

BN.

Very appealing to the well-heeled!

[Ian Thumwood]

"Cool struttin'" is an amazing record although it is quite odd to find Art Farmer on this label! I would have to say that I love Sonny Clark who seemed to have a knack of composing simple but extremely effective melodies. He is like a slightly more savvy and knowing Horace Silver.

Co-incidentally I have been trying to track down some old Toshiko Akiyoshi CD this week. It was only until relatively recently that I started to appreciate Japanese jazz a bit more. For ages, Toshiko was my only reference and it is a shame that her old RCA records from the 1970s are no longer available. I cut my teeth listening to big band jazz and the band she led with her husband Lew Tobackin was one of the few creative bands around at the time that I was aware of. I recall an excellent album called "Sumi-e" which was very creative. Back in the 70's and early 80's , she had a massive following when many had lost interest in jazz.

These days Japanese jazz seems to fall in to two categories. There are the Blue Note nuts who were instrumental in making a lot of the jazz from the 50s and 60s more fashionable again some 30 years later and then the more Hardcore stuff which seemed in thrall of the post-Punk elements in jazz favoured by the likes of John Zorn. Getting in to jazz in the 1980s. it was Nobuo Hara's "Sharps and flats" which got loads of airplay at one time on the local big band programme on Radio Solent that was hosted by my late friend, Gerry Didymus. He was a key influencer for me when I was about 14. I think they were pretty derivative but that always seemed to be the criticism levelled at all Japanese jazz at that time because they had so little originality with Toshiko being their most creative voice and she was resident in the US. You can find a variety of their music on YouTube. The same can be said of the saxophonist Watanabe.

I am a bit divided on how I feel about Japanese Jazz. There are pianists like Aki Takase who I very much like and the pianist / composer Satoko Fujii who is absolutely terrific but produces records which are a struggle to get hold of. Conversely, they also seem to produce a lot of jazz which just seems to be more akin to Rock or looks to go out of its way to shock. I think Fujii manages to use the Japanese influence in a way which does not compromise the jazz feeling of her music but I hear a trio of Japanese musicians perform in front of silent film era cartoons from Japan and he music was dreadful. The cartoons were grotesque which did not help and a far cry from the kind of stuff Ghibli do but it was pretty rank as a musical spectacle and the audience were too polite in their appreciation.

[Ian Thumwood]

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=nobu+hara+sharpts+and+flats&&view=detail&mid=3A137597AEA1C830CFD53A137597AEA1C830CFD5&rvsmid=0C8CC4CD829BA59F675E0C8CC4CD829BA59F675E&FORM=VDQVAP

Think I have done Mr Hara a disservice. This track is really good. Reminds me of Gerald Wilson.

[doversoul1]

These were the Japanese names I was familiar with when I spent hours in a jazz café in Japan back the 1970s. I don’t think (only my guess) these musicians ever thought their being Japanese had anything to do with their performance any more than Maestro Suzuki (my guess) does when he conducts Bach.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJkT7oSuSIw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDJO8wMp5Ek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XFEemUyQKs

BLUESNIK'S REVOX

communitarian sprit

This is an interesting expression. I'd say conformist society is closer to reality. Or were you being polite?

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Not my phrase, its from the R3 blurb within the quote marks. Me, I am extremely sceptical of claimed national stereotypes. Being Welsh!

[kernelbogey]

Here's the link to the programme itself, which seems so far to be missing from the thread.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003569

[Serial_Apologist]

Here's the link to the programme itself, which seems so far to be missing from the thread.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003569

Thanks, KB.

[doversoul1]

... jazz music was wholeheartedly embraced in Japan during the immediate post war period and the US-led allied occupation.

This rather puzzled me so I did a quick check. As I remembered, in the era referred above, the word Jazz meant all Western music apart from classical music. One of the biggest hits was Tennessee Waltz.

Also much the same can be said about British culture.
...and finds that jazz has become an inextricable part of Japanese culture.

Still I suppose history looks quite different after two* generations.

* three? How do you count generations?

[ed.] I found this in one ‘proper’ jazz sites which I thought tell a lot about the culture and how the music was perceived.

Don’t talk about Jazz if you want to attract girls (my translation).

[Jazzrook]

A fascinating programme on Japanese jazz which made me want to explore further:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_OPEqZ34JA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deS3bSFHFUs

JR

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Yes, it was very interesting. Difficult to cram everything thing in to the space and I would have liked a bit more of the history, surprised Toshiko Akiyoshi featured relatively little. That bit of piano at the end was one of the high spots. But to those on this board, Howard Riley's trio album as a collector's piece!

[Serial_Apologist]

Much of what the contributers said made it pretty clear to me that Japanese jazz has taken more from free jazz than has been generally the case, here or in America, where most free jazzers are from my generation and the one before. And the results speak for themselves, in the most positive sense. A brilliant programme.

[Ian Thumwood]

Quite surprised by the positive posts on this thread as this was a pretty wretched programme on all accounts. The first ten minutes were interesting if someone predictable. Setting aside the fact that the presenter was as annoying as her appearance would suggest, the music played seemed to me to have more to do with contemporary Classical music and Improv as opposed to jazz. The interview with Gary Peacock did not offer much other than philosophy but could apply to all types of music and not just jazz. As for the Japanese interviews, it was really hard to understand what was being said.

I was interested the social / cultural aspect concerning the audience but I did not think the music selected really shone any light on Japanese Jazz. The selections were not particularly inspiring but anyone with the mildest of interest could have mentioned the likes of Satoko Fujii , Toshiko, Takase , etc who are all very original but recognisably jazz. For me the programme failed because is seemed too focussed on non-jazz music. I do find it annoying that there is a bleeding through of Improv and Jazz in some of these selections and anything that features a Koto such as featured the selections featured seemed to do jazz a big disservice. It is something that I find really annoying because the pursuit of a Japanese "voice" in this programme seemed to be at the expense of jazz. I do not believe that this needs to be the case. The absence of Toshiko and the more contemporary Fujii was a disgrace - akin to missing Ellington and Evans if you wanted to consider American jazz writers.

I thought that the programme was terrible and did not give Japanese jazz the kind of credit it deserves. It would have been interesting to hear some more about the musicians from Japan who were producing under-rated jazz in the 60s and 70s but the programme was more about the unusual nature of the Japanese Jazz audience and perhaps unwittingly illustrated that a lot of the music was really derivative. It was hugely disappointing.