Dancer In Nirvana
Release: March 19, 2020
Label: Fresh Sound New Talent
- Kazuki Yamanaka– alto & soprano saxophones
- Russ Lossing– piano
- Cameron Brown– bass
- Gerald Cleaver– drums
- Dancer in Nirvana
- Elusive Mood
- John’s Green Waltz
- The Life of a Mushroom
- Stella’s Fancy
- Lady Peacock
- The Lost Sheep
- Reminiscence
- Epilogue (Yamanaka, Lossing, Brown & Cleaver)
All music composed by Kazuki Yamanaka except where noted
Recorded at The Bunker Studio in Brooklyn, NYC on March 24 & 25, 2019
Artist’s Notes
About two years ago I visited Sanjusangendo, a great Buddhist temple in Kyoto, and it was one of the most shocking experiences of my life. There were a thousand Kannon statues standing in the main hall. Obviously, they were quiet and physically unmoving, but I still felt enormous movement from them. Being in front of their upright, golden bodies with their palms together in prayer and watching their calm faces with closed eyes takes you somewhere marvelous. In all that silence, you hear something you could not hear before. The title of the album and its first track, “Dancer in Nirvana”, came from this spiritual experience of mine. I hope you are able to hear something unheard in this album. Just close your eyes and listen, embrace the unknown.
Thanks,
Liner Notes
The idea of a sound. Long has been the journey that brought Kazuki Yamanaka from Saitama, a city at the periphery of Greater Tokyo Area, to New York City via the SUNY Conservatory of Music at Purchase College and, finally, the Brooklyn avant-garde jazz scene in the quest for his sound. Eventually, chance brought Kazuki and his partners to Brooklyn’s Ibeam in December 2018: and there it was, the sound. Thanks to the inner energy and openness to what the city has offer to those who can grab it in terms of diversity, these four musicians came together as a sound, each contributing independently, respecting each other, waiting patiently for what each has to say, note after note, sound after sound, until beauty is reached. This requires openness and acceptance to uncertainty, a sense of innocent surprise to capture the full benefit of what good and fresh the city has to offer and make it your own.
(Full text available in the album booklet.)
Press
Jazz Journal (UK)
When the music moves towards abstraction, Yamanaka doesn’t lose his way or the beauty of his tone. There are moments when one feels he might be playing the wrong horn, needing either a soprano (he deploys it only on the title track) or a baritone to convey a line most effectively, but it’s when he shows utmost control at both ends of his range that Yamanaka is most impressive.
JazzTrail (US)
Statues of Buddhism in Kyoto served as an inspiration for the memorable title cut, which opens the record with impeccably synchronized movements and the exact amount of thrill needed for us to understand that this quartet lives somewhere between tradition and modernity. Contrasting moments are found when the improvisers have the spotlight – Lossing is pretty inventive in his speech, interspersing chordal work with single-note phrasing to achieve splendid colors; in turn, Yamanaka unhurriedly builds a narrative rich in emphatic melodicism and sporadic rhythmic figures, having Brown and Cleaver shaping the backbones with their known rhythmic robustness.
Jazz Japan (Japan)
山中一毅５年ぶりの第２作はFresh Sound New Talentから
ブルックリンのアヴァンギャルド・シーンで活躍中の山中一毅が、ラス・ロッシング、ジェラルド・クリーバー、そして大ベテランのキャメロン・ブラウンを従えて放ったリーダー第２作。２年前に訪れた三十三間堂で得た衝撃を音にしたというタイトル曲をはじめ、アトーナルな曲をもメロディックに感じさせる鮮やかなプレイを聴かせてくれる。亡きジョン・アバークロンビーに捧げた③、”Lady Bird”のチェンジを用いた⑥などで示す作曲の才も非凡だ。
Credits
