Reviews that mention Kaoru Abe
August 3, 2021
By Philippe Robert and My Cat is an Alien
Lenka Lente
More than music reviews yet less than extended commentaries, Free Jazz Manifesto is a somewhat idiosyncratic list of 169 albums deemed essential to any Free Music collection created by one French and two Italian experts in the field. Each selection is described in one brief paragraph in French by veteran Gallic music journalist/author Philippe Robert and in another blurb crafted in dialect-inflected English prose by Italians Maurizio and Roberto Opalio who perform experimental music as the duo My Cat is an Alien. MORE
January 6, 2021
19770916@Ayler, Sapporo
DoubtMusic dmh 171
One of the Jimi Hendrix-like legends of Free Jazz, Japanese alto saxophonist Kaoru Abe epitomized the “live fast, die young” mindset. From the time in 1968 when he dropped out of high school and started playing obsessively until he overdosed 10 years later at 29, he was gigging nearly every day at concerts, clubs and kissas (coffee houses). Although associated with other pioneering Nipponese sound- shatterers, Abe’s habits, thorny personality and need for constant musical stimulation usually means he played alone. 19770916@Ayler, Sapporo is a newly discovered typically admirable instance of this recorded in 1977 at a long defunct kissa of the same name. MORE
December 2, 2018
Mannyoka
NoBusiness Records NBCD 107
Toyozumi/Countryman
JYA-NE
Manila Free Jazz No #
Almost 40 years separate these two live sessions, but the person providing the cultivated rhythmic connections is the same: Sabu Toyozumi, now 74. One of Japan’s Free Music pioneers along with Masayuki Takayanagi and Kaoru Abe, Toyozumi has also played with the likes of Derek Bailey and John Russell. Acknowledge today as an authoritative beat-maker in the class of fellow veterans Han Bennink and Milford Graves, he continues on the unconventional exploratory music path, sometimes working with Japanese noise bands and also soloing on the erhu. MORE