This Friday...

 

 

On the turntable:  Junior Wells, "Calling All Blues"

 

Now Rest, Ya Weary Bedouin

 

 

Last weekend's performance at the Writers in Kyoto bonenkai, with Gary Tegler on soprano saxophone. Many thanks to Gary for indulging my spoken word "solo," and apologies for the errant drumming here and there. 

 

The original piece can be found here:

https://notesfromthenog.blogspot.com/.../life-imitates...

 

 

On the turntable: Combustible Edison, "The Impossible World"

On the nighttable:  Ted Morgan, "Maugham: A Biography"

Jazz & The Spoken Word, set two

 

 

With the Joshua Breakstone group, Bonds Rosary, July 01, 2022

 

On the turntable: Rolling Stones,  "Beggars Banquet"

Jazz & The Spoken Word, set one

 

  

With the Joshua Breakstone group, Bonds Rosary, July 1, 2022

 

On the turntable: Rahsaan Roland Kirk,  "Here Comes the Whistleman"

 

Jazz & The Spoken Word II

Jazz & The Spoken Word returns to Kyoto on July 1st. My own words (and the Rexroth intro) last time...

https://www.writersinkyoto.com/2022/06/jazz-and-the-spoken-word/

 

On the turntable:  Hasil Adkins, "Chicken Walk"

 

Poetry and Jazz revisited, set two

With the Joshua Breakstone group, Bonds Rosary, Dec. 10, 2021

 

On the turntable: Low, "Hey What"

 

Poetry and Jazz revisited, set one

With the Joshua Breakstone group, Bonds Rosary, Dec. 10, 2021

 

On the turntable: George Shearing Quintet - "When Lights Are Low" 

 

Poetry and Jazz...

  

This Friday...

 

 

On the turntable:  Paul Winter Consort, Crestone"

 

Stuff from an Old Notebook #8

There's a point in playing music where you stop concentrating and "it" clicks. It's as if the music finds you, shuts off your mind and starts to whirl you around like a waltz.  Everything else stops.


On the turntable:  Naked City w/ Mike Patton, "Live Torture Garden Tour"

Band Wit

Back in the days when I was playing live music in Yonago with Tim W, we would appear under a different band name at each gig. The following is a list of the names we used, or intended to use.  (Some may offend, so be forewarned.) Table of the Leg Damn Flies Spooky Temple Dudes Stony Curtis Obstinate Camel Nazi Pope Perceived Diss Sayu Gyaku （左右逆） Anal Mix Tape Psychological Sabotage The Knot in the Y Wood Moratorium Goethe's Werther Vanity Organ The Noble Source Mullah Fucka Grok the Koan Bovine Intervention Bovine Comedy Zulu Porn Reverse Vasectomy Veda's Dairy Androgynous Zone Acid Milk Truck Spank the Monarchy Puppy with Verbs High Brow Connotation Singed Fringe Glass Water Starfish Avalanche of Creme Tambourine Damage Transportation Misadventure Wiley on the Bridge Institutional Conformity Two-Dimensional Asshole 3D Lunch The Usual Inattention Roppongi Hillbillies Ovarian Sisters Casanova Hijinx Conquistador of the Useless The Gilligan Four Al Pachinko Phallus Cowboys Fudo Hanbaiki (不動販売機） Kill Gilligan Traveling Dingleberries Impenetrable Orpheus Ramadan Nachos Back-up Bellringer Genghis Karma Shakuson 5　（釈尊 5）　 Snooty Vegan Keisei and the Sunshine Band Infidel Castro Scott Baio Wolfe Guns 'n' Moses Felonious Punk Ozzy Gillespie   On the turntable:  Chet Baker, "Lullaby of the Leaves" On the nighttable:  Natsume Soseki, "The Gate"

Take this Brother, May It Serve You Well

A few weeks into my time at the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, I was sitting in my room, listening to The Beatles on my iPod.  The song "Revolution #9" came on, and my attention was immediately riveted.  I'd heard the song dozens of times over the previous 30 years or so, but for the first time I really got it, or at least got it in a way understandable to a mind currently undergoing a crash course in awareness and meditation.  The swirling elliptical loop of sounds and voices is of course 'monkey mind,' leaping here and there and everywhere.  The refrain, "Number 9, Number 9,' is the return to the breath, the attempt to cut through the nonsense of mental clutter.  

Though the song has been for many an audio representation of the psychedelic experience (which of course is also true), it really is a meditation in itself.  


Revolution 9 from Eduardo Correia Pinto on Vimeo.




On the turntable:  Bill Laswell, "Final Oscillations" 

Under Crooked Pine

My stripped down interview with Mark Dodds is up and running.
(Super-sized version coming out in book form sometime in the future...)

http://kyotojournal.org/kyoto-interview/under-crooked-pine/


On the turntable:  Harold Budd & hector Zazou, "Glyph Remixes"
On the nighttable:  Yoshiro Tamura, "Japanese Buddhism"
 

Bob Dylan & Allen Ginsberg Poetry & Song Celebration

Thanks to Deep Kyoto for posting about last Friday's musician/poet night at Tadgs.  I like how my own performance came off though I'm not altogether happy with my voice.  It sounds weak and thin, a testament to not having sung live for about eight years.  Plus I'm not in a comfortable key.  Max however needs no excuses, with his usual subdued wonderfulness...

The videos can be found here.


On the turntable:  The Beatles, "Strawberry Fields Forever"

Musings on Kodo's "Mystery"

Yesterday I had the opportunity to see "Mystery,"  the newest performance by Kodo.  The experience was made doubly enjoyable since I went with a friend who was a former Kodo apprentice.  It has been five years since I last saw Kodo live,  and was quite looking forward to it. 

I had read that "Mystery" would be a counterpart of sorts to Kodo's previous "Amaterasu,"  which I saw back in 2006.   Besides my love of taiko, I was especially intrigued with the show since it would be dealing with themes that have long interested me, namely the ancient spirituality of Japan.  (That said, the next section is simply my own interpretation, and may be miles away from what Artistic Director Bando Tomasaburo had intended.) 

The show opens with a darkened stage, in the days before there was a "Japan."  A handful of figures come out with lights on their heads, bending occasionally to plant rice.  From this first piece, the female members of Kodo would be featured prominently throughout the first half, perhaps as a nod to a time when the archipelago consisted of little more than loosely connected clans, a time when shamanesses held a pivotal role.  This would become more explicit in the piece "Namahage," in which three women make reverent offerings to the wild deities whom they encounter in the wild.  Up until now the stage had been lit only by other performers carrying had-held lamps.  At some point, a spotlight begins to light the action, perhaps the coming of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu herself.  Then we get more conventional overhead lighting, as the Shinto cult brightens and comes to the fore.  Many of the pieces in this first act have tints of the music of Southeast Asian, a region which may have been the cultural source of these early shamanistic clans of that time. 

The second act begins a similar vein, in dim lighting, with a handful of women at the center of the action.  Suddenly, they encounter a Chinese lion, which begins to shake and dance.  At first, the lion chases the women, but then eventually they begin to run after it, perhaps a reference to the coming of culture from the Asian mainland, embraced to such an extreme that the older ways were eventually subsumed within.  From here, it is all a show of strength, the male Kodo members coming to the fore, blowing us away with their power.  And thus it builds into what my aforementioned friend laughingly refers to as "The Man Show." And due to this power,  Japan's championing of society and culture over darkness is complete. 

Musically, the show is incredible.  The speed on which the performers play Katsugi-Okedo, especially on the closing piece of the first act, is ridiculously fast.  (I've seen my share of taiko performances, but have never seen such rapid stick work.)  The movement and dance choreography has similar perfection.  The performers never cease moving.  Even on the more static numbers, there are a lot of flourishes, a lot of twirling sticks.  I was intrigued too by how much of a foreign element there were to the more recent compositions.  Some of the vocals in the first act sounds almost medieval European.        

Perhaps the biggest surprise was how few of the performers I recognized. (The members of Kodo that I actually know personally were nowhere to be seen, with the exception of Uchida Eri, who happily has grown into a central role in the group.)    Perhaps Bando had hoped to utilize this youth as a means of accentuating a time when the culture and beliefs of this country were still developing.  But the young performers are beyond the development stage, and demonstrate already an air of mastery with every strike of the drum.  Which in itself cuts both ways.  This perfection of both playing and movement demonstrates the strength of Kodo's apprentice program, yet it is dangerously close to creating almost cookie-cutter performers.  Nearly everyone looks the same,  no one member is particularly distinctive.  While Kodo has always been an ensemble, a collective, right down to living communally,  previous members brought something individual to the performances.  Many of those older members are now teaching workshops, or are performing collectively with non-Kodo performers across various cultures and performance styles.  I feel somewhat doubtful that this young generation has the ability to exude enough unique and individual creativity that will help them stand out from the others, and hence go on to pass that creativity to others, as their elders are currently doing.  I hope time proves me wrong.

Kodo's magical "Mystery" tour with continue through the spring, including dates at Kyoto's Minamiza on May 30, 31, and June 1. 



On the turntable: Jefferson Airplane, "Ignition"

Nippon Extremities: Okinawa VI

February 28, 2003

Moving at slow motion on 5 hours sleep.  Keiko and I headed north again, stopping first at a Mexican restaurant.  Inside, two men were playing sanshin, and Keiko joined in, picking up some samba and singing.  An impromptu session.  I eventually took out my own samba and began to play.  Later Keiko said, "On Okinawa, no time is wasted.."  I said, "No, it is passed."  (How ironic then, all the GIs stationed nearby, living by the rules of the clock.)  We went to a nearby beach to look at a peace monument.  Sitting at some tables nearby was a group of young Americans.  At first I thought that they were high school students having a lesson, until I noticed that they were soldiers.  I felt old.

Next was Futenma Gongen Shrine.  A yuta was in training out front.  Many more were sitting inside.  We were given special permission to enter the cave, usually open only to those connected with the shrine.  It sat in the back of a small grove, with soft rounded dragon's teeth hanging from the roof, some dripping with water.  A couple of tunnels led off in either direction.  It felt peaceful here.  Strangely, as I walked, my feet felt incredibly heavy, as if rooted to the earth.  

We next went to a small shrine dedicated to Okinawan music.  Well off the tourist route, it was little more than a small platform on the hillside, but it was here that the sound of a culture was born.  On the way up, sounds from the nearby city sounded like music to me.  I'd come looking for two paths -- music and spirit -- and found that they were one.  
After picking up Eddie, Keiko's son, we went to Chichibu cave, site of many wartime killings. It too is set in a beautiful little grove fronted by a small stream, but within the grove was not the usual pleasant cool but real cold.  The air smelled and tasted stale.  There was an altar built next to the entrance, containing a few skulls, and apparently there are still a number of bones inside the cave.  I stepped inside to pray to a small Jizo, then quickly fled.          

Much more relaxing was Zakimi castle, sitting atop a hill which overlooked pine trees and groves of sugar cane.  It was much more contained than Nikijin, and the small, rounded courtyards were reminiscent of Olympic rings.  Inside was all blue above and green below, flanked by a grey perimeter.  A wonderful place to camp.

Keiko and Eddie bickered most of the way back to Naha, he being a typical 13 year old.  Yet it's obvious that he had a good head and a kind heart.  Back in town, I went to Grand Canyon steakhouse, where the guys (the women seemed to only serve the soup and salad) cook teppanyaki style at your table, doing dramatic and artistic moves.  Later, I found a hippie bar for a Chai and some conversation.  The bar was built with a multi-level loft and filled with cool art, heady books, and good music. 


On the turntable:  Keiko Matsui, "Under Northern Lights"

Groups

Drifting into Umeda by train, bluegrass in my ears, the rhythm of the picking moving us forward.  The banjo player on this old classic, 'Lonesome John,' picks as if playing a bodhrán, and is thus the engine of the piece, navigating along a line that extends back to the old country.  And the train is thus propelled into Hankyu Station, above a shrine squat and angular against all that towering glass.  A block away is the Toaster building, with its thin squinty windows.  

Out on the city streets, I have a Ferris Bueller moment when The Smiths enter my ears.  "Good times for a change."  I'm not alone in finding refuge behind the music.  One girl is singing as she strolls up the street.  Here is another difference I've noted upon my return.  Two years ago, young women were criticized for putting on makeup on the train, the current generation's means of blurring the lines between public and private, lines that give definition to this particular culture.  These days, already dolled up like their favorite pop stars, they've taken to singing their songs in front of everyone, the "i" in iPod threatening the wa. 

I too feel a desire to perform, to whip my furled umbrella out like a sword, using some of my finest iaido moves to knock the cigarettes from the mouths of those smokers who walk past.  And the lines again undergo a further blurring, as iai (居合) means literally to, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, "fit in" to your surroundings. 

On the turntable:  Brendan Perry, "Eye of the Hunter"

On the nighttable:  "Forty Stories of Japan"

Earache My Eye

I think the size of my earlobes are changing.  (Is this common with age?)  For a long time I've used those in-ear rubber earbuds, but lately, when I take the earbuds out, the rubber piece stays in the ear.

Last week as the subway pulled into Shijo Station, the cord snagged on a piece of clothing and again pulled the earbud out of my ear.  As I reached up to remove it, I found that the rubber bit had entered the ear canal completely.  I didn't want to miss my connecting train, so I walked up to a couple of workers manning the Hankyu wickets.  Asking them to help me remove it, they merely looked at me with horror, one of them going so far as to say,  "いやだ、いやだ!" a couple of times.  So I asked them for the pliers lying on the desk, after a few tries, pulled it out myself, careful not to get my elbow knocked by the steady flow of people walking behind me. 

Made the train, and didn't miss a note!

On the turntable:  Elysian Fields, "Queen of the Meadow"

On the nighttable:  Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods"

Nakasendo, (Taylor, Cozy, DK)

On the first day of my third Nakasendo tour, I found myself with the classic "King of the Road" playing in my head.  As the train moved toward Hikone, I came up with a verse and posted it on Facebook.   Mr. Cozy posted his own adjoining verse, and DK came up with a coda.  I followed up, in a bizarre Facebook call-and-response jam session.  Below is an updated version.

My verse:

Shogun, a message he sent,

Social unrest, can not ferment.

Tie up the zori, I got to go,

Walk Nakasendo to Edo.

Ah, but all this constant up and back,

Means extra koku in the coffers I lack.

A Daimyo of means by no means,

Nakasendo.

Third carriage, express train

Destination...Hikone.

Old worn out backpack, hiking shoes,

A few SoyJoys, a can of Qoo.

Chain smoking old fogies all around,

Never fails to make me frown.

I'm a man of means by no means, 

Nakasendo.

Cozy's verse:

I know every combini in every town
All their o-nigiri, all of their beer,
Every yaki-tori stand, every ramen stall,
every manga kissa
and all night Dotour.

My verse: 

 

Taylor's gotta pay the rent,

Relocated, savings spent.

New babe, new car, new debts

I ain't got no real regrets

Ah, but, two weeks conjugatin' verbs

Rents an eight mat room out in the 'burbs
I'm a man of means by no means
Nakasendo.

Deep's coda:

Ted Taylor's told his ode
Of the old Nakasendo
Tours and weddings pay his bills
And he's got some yoga skills!
Ah but - the two years he was away,
We missed his silly dajare
King of gags! Glad to have him -
Back in Kyoto!

On the turntable:  Jody Miller, "Queen of the House"

Nakasendo Waypoint #17

Footfalls shuffle across Ena's petals;

Percussive compliment to Levon Helm

Singing soulfully in my head.

On the turntable:

Disjunct

Driving through industrial urban Hiroshima, Robert Earl Keen singing through the speakers. Just doesn't fit somehow...


On the turntable: Frank Black, "Los Angeles, 1993"