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<P>Hi everybody.</P>
<P>I'm again writing about the CD that the ji-nashi player Okuda Atsuya has released in August. I just thought I would send you guys the review that is going to be published in the Wire soon. And also telling you that his CD was chosen by the Minestry of Cultural Affairs in Japan among ca. 30 CDs, representing music released in 2002 at a National Culture Festival. This is apparantly quite an honour. The CD is, by the way, for sale on Monty's web site.</P>
<P>Kiku</P>
<P>ATSUYA OKUDA </P>
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<DIV></DIV>THE SOUND OF ZEN
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<DIV></DIV>S.2 D00EM04802 CD
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<DIV></DIV>In 1985 Atsuya Okuda turned his back on a twenty year career playing jazz trumpet, and dedicated himself to teaching shakuhachi in Tokyo. Okuda subscribes to a purist, Zen-oriented approach to the instrument. As shown in the sleeve photos, he cuts bamboo in the hills and crafts his own flutes, which remain as natural and unworked as possible - no lacquered bore, no inlaid mouthpiece. This type of shakuhachi is called hocchiku, and the sound is fragile and intimate, a world away from the full, projected sound of the concert hall performer. In fact Okuda was apparently reluctant to make a recording at all, but we should be glad he has, for he is probably the finest player of his type since the death in 1992 of the Zen monk Watazumi (acclaimed by Steve Lacy as his favourite improviser in Wire 225). Okuda's sound may be quiet, but his playing has terrific subtlety and a patience of almost geological dimensions - if a rock in a Zen garden could play music, this is what!
it would sound like. His delicate phrasing on the ancient piece "Shin-kyorei", tinged with multiphonic chords, is a joy to hear. The concluding 17 minute version of "Koku", the ultimate hymn to Zen emptiness, is performed on a longer flute, and here Okuda reaches in deep, both in terms of pitch and spirituality.
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