Video: Henry Kaiser presents a lesson in MASAYUKI TAKAYANAGI's MASS PROJECTION style of improvisation
Cuneiform Records Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@CuneiformRecords
Henry Kaiser presents a simple lesson in Takayanagi's unique MASS PROJECTION style of group improvisation.
Followed by a MASS PROJECTION demonstration with Scott Amendola on drums and HK on guitar.
Masayuki “Jojo” Takayanagi (1932 – 1991) was a maverick Japanese guitarist, a revolutionary spirit whose oeuvre embodied the radical political movements of late ‘60s Japan. Having cut his teeth as an accomplished Lennie Tristano disciple playing cool jazz in the late ‘50s, Takayanagi had his mind blown by Terry Kath on the Chicago Transit Authority’s “Free Form Guitar” in 1969 and promptly turned his back on the jazz scene by which he was beloved, going as far as to call his former peers and admirers “a bunch of losers” in the press. Takayanagi had found a new direction, an annihilation of jazz and its associated idolatry of hegemonic American culture. Aiming his virtuoso chops towards the stratosphere, Takayanagi dedicated himself to the art of the freakout, laying waste to tradition left and right, most notably via the all-out assault of his aptly-named New Direction for the Arts (later New Direction Unit) and collaborations with like-minded outsider saxophonist Kaoru Abe. His innovations on the instrument parallel those of Sonny Sharrock and Derek Bailey and paved the way for the Japanese necromancy of Keiji Haino and Otomo Yoshihide, but even at its most limitless hurdling Takayanagi’s playing is propelled by the dexterous grasp of his foundations, to which he paid tribute with elegant takes on flamenco and Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman.” In the autumn of his life, Takayanagi’s solo Action Direct performances made him one of the first guitarists, alongside but independent of Keith Rowe and Fred Frith, to use tabletop guitar for pure noise and anti-tonal improvisation. New Direction (a trio with Motoharu Yoshizawa and Yoshisaburo Toyozumi) started to perform in 1969. The absence of melody and rhythm in their playing, together with their volume, meant that their early performance opportunities were largely limited to the jazz coffee shop Nagisa in Tokyo. One attendee wrote: "The sound was so loud that the paint on the ceiling, shaken by the vibration, would flake off and fall like snow on the heads of the audience.” Takayanagi's instructions to the rest of the trio were: "Play forte at all times. Don't repeat any phrases. Listening to what the others are playing and trying to play along is strictly forbidden.”
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