Tetsu Saitō

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Tetsu Saitō ( Japanese 齋藤 徹 , Saitō Tetsu ; born October 27, 1955 in Tokyo Prefecture ; † May 18, 2019 ) was a Japanese double bass player who was active in the field of tango , jazz and new improvisational music.

Live and act

Tetsu Saitō by Schindelbeck

After self-taught beginnings, Saitoh studied double bass with Keizo Mizoiri and Nobuyoshi Ino in the late 1970s . At the same time, he performed in the Gaya Music Club with musicians such as the saxophonists Kazutoki Umezu and Shoji Ukaji and the pianists Yoriyuki Harada and Katsuyuki Itakura . After the club closed in 1984 he became a member of the band of the drummer Masahiko Togashi and six months later of the group of the guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi .

In 1986 Keiki Midorikawa piqued his interest in tango music, and Saitoh became bassist in a tango orchestra that performed with Osvaldo Pugliese during a tour of Argentina in Buenos Aires . In the same year he released his first solo album Tokyo Tango . With a group he founded in 1989, Saitoh recorded compositions by Astor Piazzolla on the album Tetsu Plays Piazzolla . In 1995 he founded the group Contrabajeando , which consists of two double basses, a bandoneon and a piano.

In 1986 Saitō became musical director of the theater group TAO , for whose first production Sahara (1986) he took over the composition, the arrangement and the musical direction. In the following years, the group performed under Saitoh's musical direction a piece based on Federico García Lorca (1987), the three-part production White-Whiskered Lear based on William Shakespeare (1989-93) and pieces by Heiner Müller (including Die Hamletmaschine ).

Saitoh also dealt with traditional Japanese and Korean music. In 1990 he founded the String Quartet of Tokyo with Hideaki Kuribayashi ( Koto ), Michihiro Satō ( Shamisen ) and Koichi Hiroki (guitar), with whom he recorded the album The String Quartet of Tokyo & Orchestra in the same year . For the performance of the TAO piece White-Whiskered Lear , he founded the group Blue Poles of Lear with seven koto players , with whom he recorded the album of the same name from 1991-92.

On a trip to Korea with the saxophonist Kazutoki Umezu , he met the Korean shamanic musician Kim Suk Chul in 1992 , whose musical style had a lasting influence on him and with whom he recorded several CDs. From the same year he organized the Eurasian Echoes concert series , which brought together Korean and Japanese musicians with European musicians. Live and studio recordings were made at the concerts in 2003 and 2004 (with Fumio Itabashi and Kazue Sawai, among others ).

In 1988 Saitoh appeared for the first time (with a free jazz group with saxophonist Shoji Ukaji and drummer Sabu Toyozumi ) on a US tour in a western country. In 1994 he played Japanese music with Kazue Sawai and other musicians at the University of Hawaii . In the same year he founded the group Fifth Season with Barre Phillips , Alain Joule and Michel Doneda , with which he toured France, Belgium and Switzerland and made studio recordings (with Martin Schütz and Hans Burgener, among others ). This year he was also invited to the Avignon International Contrabass Festival as solo bassist .

In 1995 Saitoh took part in a dance and music performance on the occasion of a retrospective of Magdalena Abakanowicz's work in Warsaw. In 2000 and 2001 he gave two double concerts with the Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra . In 2003 he participated in the International Society of Bassists Convention in Richmond, in 2004 and 2006 in the Hawaii International Double Bass Festival . In 2006 he was featured artist at the CrossSound Music Festival in Alaska, and in 2007 he was a guest at the Mosaic Festival in Singapore. In 2013 he performed in Germany with Sebastian Gramss ' double bass ensemble Bass Masse and in a duo. In 2019 he died of complications from cancer.

Discography (selection)

  • Tokyo Tango: Bass solo improvisations , 1986
  • Morio Agata : Bandoneon no Hyo , 1987
  • Joseph Jarman : Poem Song , 1990
  • Tetsu Plays Piazzolla , 1990
  • Coloring Heaven , 1990
  • Blue Poles of Lear , 1991-92
  • Kazutoki Umezu : Shin Myong , 1991-92
  • The String Quartet of Tokyo & Orchestra , 1992
  • Shunichiro Hisada : Shun , 1992
  • Fumio Itabashi : Tsuki no Tsubo: Mix Dynamite Live at Kuchu Sampo Kan , 1992
  • Shin Myong with An Sook-Sun , Kim Suk-Chul and Lee Kwang-Soo , 1992
  • Shin Myung (with An Sook-Sun, Kim Suk-Chul and Lee Kwang-Soo), 1992
  • Salp'uli , 1992-93
  • Session (with Lee Tae-Baek , Kim Sung-A and others), 1993
  • Unicorn , 1993
  • Stone Out , 1995
  • Solo: Contrabajeando , 1996
  • Joëlle et Tetsu: Live at Yokohama Jazz Promenade Festival 1996 (with Joëlle Léandre ), 1996
  • Yaeyama Yugyoh (with Kazue Sawai ), 1996
  • Tetsu Saitoh Tango Groove Collective: Ausencias , 1997
  • Tetsu Saitoh, Alain Joule & Michel Doneda: M'uoaz , 1997
  • Kimie Sakaki : Dragon Scales (with Tei Yano ), 1997–98
  • Invitation , 1998
  • Koh-Kan: Live at Seitan Ongakudo (with Michel Doneda), 1999
  • Tetsu Saitoh, Michel Doneda & Kazue Sawai : Three Day Moon: Live at Hall Egg Farm , 1999
  • Tetsu Saitoh, Michel Doneda, Chon Chul-Gi , Noriko Tsuboi & Zi Kuning : Pagan Hymn , 1999
  • Shota Koyama , Tetsu Saitoh and Eiichi Hayashi : Ohrai , 2000
  • Koyama Shōta, Tetsu Saitoh & Eiichi Hayashi: Clouds Move , 2000–01
  • Barre Phillips , Nobuyoshi Ino & Tetsu Saitoh: October Bass Tri-logue , 2001
  • Shota Koyama, Tetsu Saitoh & Eiichi Hayashi: Sakura: Ohrai Trio Live , 2001
  • Michel Doneda & Tetsu Saitoh: Spring Road: Duo Japan Tour 2003 , 2003
  • Michel Doneda, Lê Quan Ninh , Tetsu Saitoh, Kazuo Imai and Kazue Sawai: Une Chance pour l'Ombre , 2003
  • Barre Phillips, Joëlle Léandre, William Parker , Tetsu Saitoh: After You Gone , 2003
  • Eurasian Echoes , 2003
  • Bass Duet (with Nobuyoshi Ino), 2004
  • Aketa, Tetsu Saitoh and Midori Onaga : Percussive Roman , 2004
  • Eurasian Echoes , 2004
  • Tetsu Saitoh, Nobuyoshi Ino Sonaish Gut Bass Duo , 2005
  • Life Time (with Aketa ), 2005
  • Tetsu Saitoh, Kazuo Imai, Barre Phillips, Lauren Newton , Jacques Demierre and Urs Leimgruber : Orbit 2: Voyaging Antipodes , 2005
  • Tetsu Saitoh, Kazuo Imai & Michel Doneda: Orbit 1 , 2006
  • Tetsu Saitoh, Frederic Blondy and Michel Doneda: Carré Bleu: In Memory of Bernard Prouteau , 2007
  • Tetsu Saitoh Trio: Space for Vermillion , 2008
  • Strings & the Moon , 2013, with Lauren Newton
  • Travessia , 2016
  • Taiichi Kamimura, Tetsu Saitoh Choros & Improvisations Live , 2016

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Death news (Jazzpages)
  2. ^ William Minor Jazz Journeys to Japan: The Heart Within . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 2004, p. 287