What do you think?
Rate this book
Free Jazz in Japan: A Personal History
Soejima Teruto was a film critic and jazz fan who moved from the front row to backstage in the 1960s and continued to support progressive jazz for the next forty years as promoter, label owner, critic, filmmaker, tour organizer, and more. He was present at and integral to the free jazz scene and his memoir has all of the info. All new photos not in the original Japanese edition! Introduction by Otomo Yoshihide. Public Bath Press is very proud to add this book to out catalog.
367 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2018
6 people are currently reading
193 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 25, 2020
A bit of a specialist topic but if you're interested at all in listening to jazz while you read, this is a great opportunity.
Soejima was really at the center of the scene (or "a" scene), and isn't afraid to lay out some broad narratives on the history of free jazz in Japan. First you've got the iconoclasts of the late 1960s and early 70s who weren't interested in being "listenable" (although their albums do sound great) so much as being uncompromisingly dedicated to breaking new ground. The players of the mid and late 70s moved on in the direction of what the author calls the "pop avant-garde", which tended toward a more playful approach to rhythm and melody, and included theatrical stagings and actual comedy. The free jazz in the 1980s (if it still made sense to call it that) brought an ever greater sense of "stateless" and "borderless" expression, in that no sounds were ruled out, and influences from all over the world found their way into a fourth-world avant-jazz played in multi-national ensembles.
The book ends its journey at the end of the twentieth century with some of the musicians I was drawn to as a youth (Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M), though I knew almost nothing at all of the history they were building on and responding to. It's a compelling history full interesting characters and amusing anecdotes. And Soejima was an impressively dedicated listener, promoter, and writer.
Soejima was really at the center of the scene (or "a" scene), and isn't afraid to lay out some broad narratives on the history of free jazz in Japan. First you've got the iconoclasts of the late 1960s and early 70s who weren't interested in being "listenable" (although their albums do sound great) so much as being uncompromisingly dedicated to breaking new ground. The players of the mid and late 70s moved on in the direction of what the author calls the "pop avant-garde", which tended toward a more playful approach to rhythm and melody, and included theatrical stagings and actual comedy. The free jazz in the 1980s (if it still made sense to call it that) brought an ever greater sense of "stateless" and "borderless" expression, in that no sounds were ruled out, and influences from all over the world found their way into a fourth-world avant-jazz played in multi-national ensembles.
The book ends its journey at the end of the twentieth century with some of the musicians I was drawn to as a youth (Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M), though I knew almost nothing at all of the history they were building on and responding to. It's a compelling history full interesting characters and amusing anecdotes. And Soejima was an impressively dedicated listener, promoter, and writer.
January 25, 2020
A very interesting firsthand story of the development of avant-garde jazz in Japan. Perhaps the most important aspect of this book is not just its discussion of the passion of its participants - who were playing for a dozen people or so at times - but the exploration of the philosophical question of how to create a free jazz in Japan that was uniquely Japanese, and not just an imitation of the American players who had inspired them. Absolutely worth reading, and will inspire a lot of record shopping.
January 16, 2019
I absolutely love Free jazz! Most people that know me personally know that I just love free jazz/free improvisational music and this book helped fill that craving for free jazz history.
Soejima-san originally wrote this book back in 2002 in Japanese and finally got a proper English translation in 2018, which is gladly welcome for us freaks that dig free jazz and underground Japanese music.
Soejima-san originally wrote this book back in 2002 in Japanese and finally got a proper English translation in 2018, which is gladly welcome for us freaks that dig free jazz and underground Japanese music.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews