New Kaze Album Features a Guest Artist

courtesy of Braithwaite & Katz Communications

According to my archives, my first encounter with the Kaze quartet (not to be confused with the Trouble Kaze sextet) took place with the release of Atody Man during jazz pianist Satoko Fujii’s Kanreki Cycle, marking the year in which she reached the age of 60. Both the quartet and the sextet involve the meeting of Japanese and French personalities. The quartet thus has a “front line” combining the two nationalities in a pair of trumpeters, Natsuki Tamura from Japan and Christian Pruvost from France. Rhythm is divided between Fujii on piano and French drummer Peter Orins.

This Friday will see the release of the quartet’s latest recording. They are joined by guest artist Ikue Mori, who specializes in real-time performance on a laptop computer. The title of the new album is Sand Storm, and it has been jointly produced by the Japanese label Libra Records and the French Circum-Disc. As of this writing, the best Web site for ordering the recording is a Discogs Web page.

The album is organized into four extended compositions for the quintet, each conceived by a different member of the Kaze quartet. In “order of appearance,” these are “Rivodoza” (a Malagasy word for “Hurricane”) by Pruvost, “Kappa” (probably the Japanese for cucumber, rather than the Greek latter) by Tamura, “Noir Poplar” (black poplar tree) by Orins, and “Noir Soir” (black evening) by Fujii. These are interleaved with three short collective improvisations by the entire quintet. These are given the titles “Poco a Poco” (little by little), “Under the Feet,” and “Suna Arashi” (Japanese for sandstorm).

My own listening experience has guided me to pay less attention to the titles and more to the interplay among the four musicians mediated by Mori’s real-time processing. The latter is most recognizable for introducing sonorities that go beyond the affordances of Orins’ percussion gear. I was also particularly taken by the trumpet work, never quite sure whether a single trumpeter was playing against real-time samples of his performance or one of the trumpeters was being meticulously echoed by the other. In that context, the entire performance might almost be taken as a musical reflection on L’Homme Machine (usually translated as “machine man”), the eighteenth-century treatise by Julien Offray de La Mettrie. The five performers are, of course, human beings; but Mori basically “induces” his “machine” to contribute to the act of performance.

From a stylistic point of view, there is frequently a sense of assertiveness, if not untamed aggression. Those familiar with the more adventurous aspects of jazz improvisation may find themselves reflecting on past ensemble performances organized by Cecil Taylor or the achievements of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The listening experience is very much a journey into unknown territory, and it is to the credit of the personal relationships among the members of Kaze that the territory itself is not marked by any particularly “nationalist” landmarks.