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Tokyosphere

Tokyosphere

"This group is composed of masters of traditional Japanese instruments. Music ranges from "shibui" moments of mellow to jazz with pizazz."

John Kaizan Neptune
Victor - JD-3316
1988

Track Title Kanji Length Artist
1 Yamato Dawn 07'11 Shakuhachi: John Kaizan Neptune
This piece was written to be the opening number for a modern dance performance by Keiko Fujii. Yamato is the word for ancient Japan. For most of the piece, the koto players use a pizzicato technique, plucking the strings with fingers instead of the "tsume" finger picks, which gives the koto a mellow harp-like sound to go with the deep sound of the 24 "bass" shakuhachi. A five-tone Japanese scale is used.
2 Seventh Avenue 06'20 Shakuhachi: John Kaizan Neptune
There are many rhythmic roads a piece can take, and as the title suggests, this one is paved with a meter of seven (4 + 3). When TOKYOSPHERE first rehearsed this piece, the result was so full of potholes that I did not think we would be able to use it for the recording. It is a great credit to these fine Japanese musicians that through a lot of hard work, they were able to patch up the rough spots and we were able to cruise through the piece and enjoy the scenery along the way.
3 Tokyo Blues 06'30 Shakuhachi: John Kaizan Neptune
About six months before starting this recording I got an interesting telephone call. "Hello, my name is Erik Golub and I play and improvise on viola and violin I like your music and I'd like to meet you sometime" Turned out that we like a lot of the same kind of music and Erik even jammed with me and my regular jazz group at a club in Tokyo We thought it would be great to do a recording project together but I was already planning to use only traditional Japanese instruments for TOKYOSPHERE. That eliminated the viola and violin but Erik also has experience playing the Chinese erh-hu, a bowed fiddle similar to the Japanese kokyu Erik borrowed a kokyu from kind musicologist Yukitoshi Morishige, and a few months later was letting the blues licks fly I made a long 2.8 shakuhachi especially to record this piece.
4 Jungle Trail 06'23 Shakuhachi: John Kaizan Neptune
No doubt with this instrumentation, this jungle is in the East. However, some of the voice-shakuhachi sounds used during the improvisation are influenced by African pygmy yodeling The strings on the two koto are muted with rubber tubing to give them a more percussive tone color The 20 shakuhachi (fundamental is middle C) is used here.
5 Hear the Light 07'14 Shakuhachi: John Kaizan Neptune
"Light" here means both "illumination" and "not heavy". For traditional Japanese instruments, this piece is difficult because the melody and harmony have a lot of changes that require a lot of pitch material. The koto has only 13 strings, but by pressing the string on the far side of the bridge, the basic pitch can be raised a half or whole step.
6 Time Design 08'16 Shakuhachi: John Kaizan Neptune
As the title implies, time, or more precisely, the division of time, was one of the key organizing factors for this piece. There is time divided freely, in threes, in fours, and in various simultaneous combinations. "Trying Times" was a working title for this piece that the members of TOKYOSPHERE could relate to as they had a lot of "fun" with the different rhythms and changes. It is interesting to note that, in traditional Japanese music, divisions of three are not used.
7 Flow 06'20 Shakuhachi: John Kaizan Neptune
"Flow", "Sway" and "Stream Dance" are a set of three tunes that can be heard in sequence as one large piece or separately. They all use a five-tone scale which is found in Okinawa and Indonesia. "Flow" shows influences from gamelan and minimal music. The two koto and the bass koto use harmonics in the introduction to create a "light rain" background for the shakuhachi solo.
8 Sway 03'30 Shakuhachi: John Kaizan Neptune
As with "Yamato Dawn", the koto players use a pizzicato technique that gives the plucked sound a softer attack. If "Flow" is a gathering of the rain into many small streams, then "Sway" is a large, calm river.
9 Stream Dance 05'19 Shakuhachi: John Kaizan Neptune
The "river" takes a joyous turn on its trip to the ocean. A couple of interesting things can be mentioned here: all of the music on this recording can be played live as It is heard; no "overdubbing" is necessary. Also, things that sound like Western instruments may be heard (an okedo sounds like a bass drum, shimedaiko played with the hands sounds like conga drums), but everyone is a traditional Japanese instrument.
10 In The Air 08'59 Shakuhachi: John Kaizan Neptune
Like air, music is difficult to grab a hold of. We create handles of appropriate response, but music still retains an illusive beauty which allows each one of us to discover a wholly personal connection. What do your hear "In The Air"?