Arashi with Takeo Moriyama Tokuzo 2LP

The trio of Japanese saxophone legend Akira Sakata with the Scandinavian rhythm section presents its fifth album! While the trio was on a Japan tour in 2019, Sakata arranged for a handful of special collaborations with some of Japan's most important artistic figures, including the avant-garde dancer Min Tanaka, the pianist Yuji Takahashi and a heavyweight veteran of Japanese experimental music, drummer Takeo Moriyama. Moriyama was playing with Sakata in the Yosuke Yamashita Trio and is his unflinching sparring partner on the explosive 2022 Trost duo recording Mitochondria.

Japanese saxophonist and improviser Akira Sakata turned 79 in February of 2024, but this singular musician shows no sign of age. Over the last 15 years or so, as he neared the typical retirement age, he formed a couple of searing working bands that finally earned him a devoted international following despite his crucial role in establishing his homeland as a key center for free jazz as a member of the Yosuke Yamashita Trio in the 1970s. Arashi, with Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love and Swedish bassist Johan Berthling, has become his primary touring group, a fiery unit operating with a collective improvisational drive that lifts his white-hot alto saxophone and clarinet playing to new heights and provides the ideal platform for his over-the-top vocal exhortations.

While the trio was on a short Japanese tour in 2019, Sakata arranged for a handful of special collaborations, bringing his two younger Scandinavian colleagues face-to-face with some of Japan's most important artistic figures. They performed with Min Tanaka, the singular experimental dancer, who famously improvised with guitarist Derek Bailey and pianist Cecil Taylor, as well as the legendary new music pianist Yuji Takahashi. The concert documented on this phenomenal recording features the third veteran of Japanese experimental music Arashi worked with on that tour, drummer Takeo Moriyama, the third member of the Yamashita trio.

As the present recording makes patently clear, Moriyama fit right in. The percussionists melded beautifully, driving the music but also clearing space for one another and forging astonishing feats of interactivity. Rather than canceling one another out or laying it on too thick, they quickly find a method to coexist, tapping into history without the slightest hint of nostalgia. The trio nonchalantly becomes a quartet, absorbing more history, more ideas, and more energy, spitting it back out with greater concentration and focus than ever.