#4091: Jazz Meets Japan
Hear music that blends jazz and traditional music of Japan for this New Sounds episode, from the likes of California-based flutist Nicole Mitchell, New York drummer Jaimeo Brown, the string quartet Brooklyn Rider and shakuhachi player Kojiro Umezaki.
Listen to music by composer, flutist, and bandleader Nicole Mitchell, from her recrord, Mandorla Awakening II Emerging Worlds. The music is inspired by the sci-fi writings of Afrofuturist author Octavia E. Butler, and what might happen in a society where technology and nature are in-sync. Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Ensemble features a mixture of jazz and traditional Japanese instruments: shakuhachi flute, and Japanese shamisen.
Then listen to Jazz and Japanese music from New York drummer Jaimeo Brown. From the recent record, "Work Songs," the second installment in the Jaimeo Brown Transcendence series, hear pieces built around samples of old recordings of road gangs, churches, and quilters. On this particular track, he bases “Safflower” around the recording of a Japanese folk song.
Hear a tune from Herbie Mann’s 1976 record“Gagaku and Beyond,” which is a pairing of a traditional Japanese ensemble (shamisen, koto, biwa, kakko, shoko, shakuhachi, and big taiko drums, occasionally with chanting Zen monks) together with Mann’s band. A cyclic piece for string quartet and shakuhachi from Brooklyn Rider and shakuhachi player, Kojiro Umezaki, (also in Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Ensemble), rounds out the show.
PROGRAM #4091: Jazz meets Japan (First Aired: 3/15/2018)
ARTIST: Nicole Mitchell
WORK: Nicole Mitchell: Sub-Mission [5:36]
RECORDING: Mandorla Awakening II Emerging Worlds
SOURCE: FPE Records
INFO: fperecs.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Herbie Mann & Minoru Muraoka
WORK: Mauve Over Blues [12:56]
RECORDING: Gagaku & Beyond
SOURCE: Finnadar #9014, 1976 LP, reissued in 2001.
INFO:Available at Amazon.com
ARTIST: Jaimeo Brown Transcendence
WORK: Safflower [5:01]
RECORDING: Work Songs
SOURCE: Motema Music
INFO: motema.com
ARTIST: Nicole Mitchell
WORK: Nicole Mitchell: Mandorla Island [10:23]
RECORDING: Mandorla Awakening II Emerging Worlds
SOURCE: FPE Records
INFO: fperecs.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Kojiro Umezaki, Brooklyn Rider
WORK: Kojiro Umezaki: (Cycles) what falls must rise [12:59]
RECORDING: Dominant Curve
SOURCE: In a Circle Records 003
INFO: Available on Amazon and iTunes
ARTIST: Jaimeo Brown Transcendence
WORK: Stonemason [:54]
RECORDING: Work Songs
SOURCE: Motema Music
INFO: motema.com
