Masayuki Takayanagi

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Masayuki Takayanagi

Masayuki "Jojo" Takayanagi ( Japanese 高 柳 昌 行 , Takayanagi Masayuki ; born December 22, 1932 in Tokyo Prefecture ; † June 23, 1991 ) was a Japanese jazz guitarist who advanced early into the field of free improvisation and noise music.

Live and act

Takayanagi has been a professional musician since 1951. As a cool jazz guitarist , he played in the Swing Journal All Star Orchestra as early as the mid-1950s . In 1957 he founded his first New Directions Quartet , which was expanded to a quintet in 1958. The Jazz Academy Quartet followed in 1959 . From 1963 he started independent musician workshops. With Hideto Kanai and Yosuke Yamashita, he formed the New Century Music Laboratory in 1965 ( English for 新 世紀 音 楽 研究所 , Shin-seiki ongaku kenkyūjo ). In parallel with Keith Rowe , he developed an unconventional use of the guitar by placing it on a table as a table-top instrument for playing. At the end of the 1960s he approached free jazz . For his album We Now Create in 1969 he recorded the track Variations On a Theme of Feedback with a quartet consisting of guitar, percussion, trumpet and cello / bass. In the same year he founded his New Directions Trio , initially with Motoharu Yoshizawa (bass, cello) and Yoshisaburo Toyozumi (percussion), which first emerged with the album Independence , which was released in 1970. In addition, he formed a duo with Kaoru Abe , who recorded several albums in the summer of 1970 (especially Mass Projection , Gradually Projection ). In the mid-1970s he formed his New Direction Unit , which existed for several years in hardly changed form and with which he performed at the Moers Festival in 1980 (live recording on TBM ). His solo album Lonely Woman (1982) dealt with the work of Lennie Tristano and Ornette Coleman . In addition to his own formations, he was also involved as a sideman on recordings for Sadao Watanabe , Kimiko Kasai , Gil Evans and Toshiyuki Miyama until the 1970s .

Since the beginning of the 1980s, he moved away from the formal language of jazz; he worked with John Zorn ( Experimental Performance , 1986), among others . In his work he influenced younger Japanese musicians such as Fumio Yasuda , who also worked with him, and Otomo Yoshihide very strongly.

Discographic notes

  • We Now Create (1969)
  • Independence: Tread on Sure Ground (Tiliqua / Union, 1969)
  • Free Form Suite (1972)
  • April Is the Cruellest Month (1975)
  • Axis: Another Revolable Thing, Vol. 1/2 (1975, published 2006)
  • Pulsation (with Masahiko Togashi , 1983)
  • Action Direct: Live at Zojoji Hall (1985)
  • El Pulso (1990)
  • Reason for Being (with Nobuyoshi Ino , 1990)
  • Inanimate Nature: Action Direct / Live at Jean Jean (1990, solo)
  • Three Improvised Variations on a Theme of Qadhafi (1990, solo)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Yoshihide: Leaving the Jazz Cafe
personal data
SURNAME Takayanagi, Masayuki
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 高 柳 昌 行 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese jazz and improvisation musician
DATE OF BIRTH December 22, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Tokyo prefecture
DATE OF DEATH June 23, 1991