Description
First time reissue of JP free jazz rarity, pre-Seikatsu K?jy? Iinkai group. Old-style Gatefold LP with rare photographs & liner notes by Alan Cummings. Limited edition of 500.
The single album self-released by the quartet Sh?dan Sokai in 1977 is one of the most vital documents of mid-seventies Japanese free jazz, documenting Tokyo?s free scene at the precise moment when it began to shift to a handful of tiny venues on the western fringes of the city. In Free Jazz in Japan, Teruto Soejima identifies the extant venue Aketa no Mise in Nishi-Ogikubo as the pioneer of this decamping from the centre: a cramped basement beneath a rice shop, seating just 20 people. Musician-run, operated on a shoestring, these spaces offered a vital site for community, creativity, and a small measure of financial independence ? ?even though it was in a basement, in spirit it was a loft.?
Among the most active of the new venues was Alone in Hachi?ji, nearly an hour from Shinjuku, in a district shaped by universities, lower rents, and a thriving counterculture. Originally opened in 1973 as a jazu kissa, Alone was unusually spacious and equipped with a stage, grand piano, and drum kit. Around 1974, Junji Mori and Yasuhiro Sakakibara began working there, booking free jazz players on weekends and establishing the venue as a crucial hub. Mori recalls early appearances by figures including Kazutoki Umezu, Toshinori Kondo, and others who would define the scene.
In early 1976, Umezu and pianist Yoriyuki Harada ? recently returned from New York?s loft jazz environment, where they had played with musicians such as David Murray and William Parker ? formed Sh?dan Sokai with Mori and drummer Takashi Kikuchi. The name, meaning ?mass evacuation,? pointed to their self-chosen exile in Hachi?ji. With Alone as their home base, the quartet developed a music characterized by an infectious sense of enjoyment and a willingness to integrate free jazz with elements of song structure. Harada switched between piano and bass; the group experimented with rap-like vocal pieces, jabbering nursery rhymes over bass rhythms.
