Whew... I had no idea Lacy had this connection. He represents quite a
lineage: from Monk to Watazumi Doso!
Steve Lacy is one of the great improvisers in jazz history- a real artist
and someone for whom creative innovation IS the jazz tradition. Speaking
of jazz and improvisation Lacy once said, "It's a matter of life and death.
The only criterion is: Is this stuff alive or is it dead?" (From Derek
Bailey's book "Improvisation".)
Lacy gives me hope and inspiration in the face of the regressive
conservatism of Wynton Marsalis and friends. May he continue to move the
music forward!
Mark Miller
-----Original Message-----
From: shakuhachi [mailto:shakuhachi@communication.ucsd.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2002 9:12 AM
To: shakuhachi@communication.ucsd.edu
Subject: shakuhachi V1 #189
shakuhachi Tue, 5 Nov 2002 Volume 1 : Number
189
In this issue:
Lacy and Watasumi
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 07:58:58 -0800
From: Philip Gelb <phil@philipgelb.com>
To: shakuhachi@communication.ucsd.edu
Subject: Lacy and Watasumi
Message-ID: <a05100303b9ed9b3baa46@[209.182.131.19]>
Interesting comments from the great soprano sax player, Steve Lacy.
Kiku Day sent this to me and i thought i would forward it to this list.
In this month's Wire, Steve Lacy is doing the jukebox thing where
they make people listen to recordings and then they talk about it if
they can recognize it. At one point Yamagoe, played by Yokoyama (who
they keep on calling Yokohama) from his CD Zen is played. Steve Lacy
says: "Well it sounds like Watazumi Doso.
Close it's Katsuya Yokohama.
That's his student, his most famous student. Doso was a great master
for me. I took two lessons from him and studied his music a lot. I
still have seven or eight LPs of his. They're masterpieces all of
them. He's one of the greatest improvisors I've ever heard in my
life, maybe the greatest. He had an amazing life, full of colourful
stories, like real Zen food. I was lucky enough to meet him, go to
his house and have a lesson; and then ten years later I had another
lesson. they were very far out lessons, but they were very important
to me.
Were you playing shakuhachi?
No, no, just the soprano saxophone. I have a very cheap shakuhachi,
like Woolworths type of thing. I've had it for 25 years and can
hardly play it. It's a very difficult instrument. But Doso was an
extremely important influence on me, and I retain a great admiration
for him. He was the most modern improvisor I've ever heard in my
life. He surpassed anybody I could think of, including Braxton, or
Derek Bailey. Doso, to me, was just....whew, outside all of that,
really. Of course, he didn't even admit to being a musician. he said,
"Music? No, it's just practice".
Your playing has a certain affinity with classic Japanese aesthetics.
Yeah, Japanese culture is really large for me: Kabuki, Noh, the
literature, the poetry, the costumes, the painting, the woodblock
prints, and the food too. This music is really trying to get to the
heart of it, boiling it down. He (Yokohama) is good. But Doso was
better. Doso was like...whew, like Charlie Parker compared to all the
other alto sax players, you know?"
-- Philip Gelb phil@philipgelb.com http://www.philipgelb.com------------------------------
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