Barre Phillips / Motoharu Yoshizawa: Oh My, Those Boys!

Avant Jazz / Free Improvisation / Avant-Garde
premiera polska: 2018-09-17
opakowanie: Jewelcaseowe etui
opis:
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Blisko 80 minut emocjonującej improwizowanej muzyki, autorstwa mistrzów gatunku!

Barre Phillips to mistrz kontrabasu, improwizator i oryginalny, wszechstronny kompozytor. Jego nagrana w londyńskim kościele (Parish Church of St. James' Norlands) płyta "Journal Violine" (Opus One, 1968), uważana jest za pierwszą solową płytę na kontrabas w jazzie. Z kolei "Music From Two Basses" (ECM, 1971), nagrana z Dave'm Hollandem to prawdopodobnie pierwszy improwizowany duet jazzowych kontrabasistów w historii jazzowej fonografii. Album składający się z siedmiu części, ukazuje doskonały warsztat muzyków, którzy w swej improwizacji stosują najrozmaitsze techniki, nie zapominając przy tym o melodycznej narracji. Phillips to żyjąca legenda kreatywnego jazzu, jak inaczej nazwać muzyka, który współpracował z Erikiem Dolphym, George'm Russellem, Cecilem Taylorem, Donem Ellisem, Archie'm Sheppem, Marionem Brownem, Ornette'm Colemanem, Evanem Parkerem, Peterem Brötzmannem, czy Derekiem Bailey'em.

Zmarły w 1998 roku Motoharu Yoshizawa to jeden z filarów sceny japońskiego free jazzu i free improvisation. Od połowy lat 60-tych, grając w grupach Yosuke Yamashity i Kazunoriego Takedy jest w oku free-jazzowego cyklonu. Podczas japońskiego tournee Johna Coltrane'a w 1966 poznaje Elvina Jonesa, z którym jammuje. Współpracował zarówno z czołówką japońskiego free jak Masayuki Takayanagi, Masahiko Togashi, Toshinori Kondo, Takehisa Kosugi, Mototeru Takagi, Kaoru Abe, Ikue Mori, Kikuchi Masaaki, Keiji Haino, Kan Mikami, Kazuki Tomokawa, Tenko, i z luminarzami światowego free jazzu jak Steve Lacy, Dave Burrell, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Butch Morris, Elliott Sharp i Henry Kaiser.

"Oh My, Those Boys!" to dwie sążniste części (55 minut, 20 minut) koncertu zarejestrowanego w 1994 roku w Café Amores, Hofu, Yamaguchi. Barre Phillips na klasycznym kontrabasie, Motoharu Yoshizawa na hybrydzie elektrycznego i akustycznego, pięciostrunowego kontrabasu.

Muzyka, jaką proponuje duet to rzecz jasna wolna improwizacja, zadanych tematów ani szkieletów harmonicznych. Całość rozgrywa się jedynie w oparciu o artystyczną wrażliwość i improwizatorski kunszt obu artystów. Dlatego też nie sposób przewidzieć, jakimi drogami potoczy się ich muzyka, jakie powstaną współbrzmienia i gdzie zaprowadzi ich bieg zdarzeń. Z jednej strony mamy niepokojące i tajemnicze brzmienie akustycznego instrumentu Phillipsa, z drugiej mistrza elektroakustycznej ceremonii - Motoharu Yoshizawe, preparującego dźwięk swojego instrumentu z wyczuciem, świetnie wgryzając się w pracę partnera. Wiele tu subtelności i niuansów, nie zagłuszają się nawzajem, ich dialog można by określić, jako ceremonię kontrastów, które są podglebiem porywających improwizacji.
autor: Mad
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All About Jazz * * * * 1/2:
Expatriate American bassist Barre Phillips is the banner name on another in the Chap Chap series of improvised encounters from Japan issued by the NoBusiness imprint. He boasts an illustrious back-story. His Journal Violone (Opus One,1968) is reputed to be the first solo bass album, while Music From Two Basses (ECM, 1971) with Dave Holland was probably the first record of improvised double bass duets. So it's no surprise that the veteran bassist demonstrates such mastery of the form on this 75-minute 1994 live date which pairs him with Japanese fellow practitioner Motoharu Yoshizawa.

Phillips, who occupies the left channel on the recording, makes glorious and musical use of the whole of the instrument's resources. He loads his poetic lines with an austere beauty, but also supplements almost every note with a litany of tiny gestures -strums, harmonics or vibrato -which amplify the expressive possibilities. At other times he fosters a more percussive approach -tapping, twanging and sharp. koto-like plucking -in response to the moment's demands. Overall his playing is distinguished by an astonishing stream of sustained invention in which he rarely resorts to repetition.

It would be a generalization to say that Phillips follows a western melodic sensibility while Yoshizawa possesses a more textural style, but it gives an impression of how matters pan out. Yoshizawa, in the right channel, plays a homemade electric vertical five-string bass, which allows him to enhance the physical sounds with electronic effects. Fortunately he uses the facility sensitively, creating eerie yelping arco cries, or synthesized echoes at the peak of his phrases, setting challenges for Phillips rather than overwhelming him.

Their dialogue often proceeds by way of contrasts, but not by rote. As an example Phillips adopts a skittering pizzicato as a rejoinder to Yoshizawa's panoramic bowed sweeps at 23' in the lengthy "Oh My!" and then later at 25' when both are wielding the bow, he pitches high against Yoshizawa's low. Such illustrations also reveal how both men switch between fingers and horsehair at will in their exploration of the extended techniques possible on the bass. Yoshizawa's simple electronic manipulations become more prevalent on the 20-minute "Those Boys!" leaving Phillips' imagination center stage as he essays pure drama against a backdrop of washes, rumbling and rattling.

Bass aficionados will surely get a strong hit from this deep dive into the soundworld of the bull fiddle.
By JOHN SHARPE


freejazzblog.org:
‘Oh My, Those Boys!’ is an epic monster of double double bass, well a double bass, played by the mighty Barre Phillips, and a homemade electric five string vertical bass (as its described), played by Motoharu Yoshizawa. Recorded live at Cafe Amores, Hofu, Yamaguchi, Japan, the seventy-five minutes of Oh My, Those Boys! represents only part of that evening’s nearly three hours of music. A previous forty minute chunk from this evening was released in 1998 on Live “Okidoki” through the Chap Chap label. Oh, My Those Boys! is part of an ongoing dive into the Chap Chap vault of unreleased recordings.

From the opening pizzicato section through moments of beautiful arco playing to moments of noise and the occasional vocalization, Oh My! covers an unimaginable amount of ground in it’s fifty-five minute runtime. The second track, Those Boys!, runs just over twenty minutes, but is even more extreme and haunting. Yoshizawa’s use of electronics mixed with Phillips’ more lyric bow work is inspired. The constant variation between two masters, and between electric and acoustic timbres, is delightful. The end of Those Boys! alone is worth the journey.
‘Oh My, Those Boys!’ is as fine an example of duet playing as you’re likely to hear. The work is as constantly shifting as a hike in a desert slot canyon. You don’t know how narrow or wide the path may be, you don’t know what’s lurking around the corner, you don’t know if you’ll be swept away in a flash flood or cooked to death under a blazing hot sun, but if you make it through to the end, you’re sure to have enjoyed the journey.
by Davis Menestres

muzycy:
Barre Phillips - bass
Motoharu Yoshizawa - homemade electric vertical five-strings bass

utwory:
1. Oh My! 54:59
2. Those Boys! 20:19

wydano: 2018-02
nagrano: Recorded live on the 5th April 1994 at Café Amores, Hofu, Yamaguchi, Japan by Takeo Suetomi / Concert produced by Takeo Suetomi

more info: www.nobusinessrecords.com