#5150, Western Musicians Playing Japanese Instruments
There’s shakuhachi music from London-based multi-instrumentalist Shabaka together with rapper and flutist André 3000; work for Finnish kantele and Japanese koto, and American jazz musician and composer Charles Lloyd.
There’s music from multi-instrumentalist Shabaka Hutchings, now Shabaka, who has been an essential London-based musician for years, leading arena dance-jazz band Sons of Kemet, cosmic psych-dub-funk trio The Comet Is Coming, and the collaborative band Shabaka & the Ancestors. He began incorporating flutes as a layer on the last Sons of Kemet record, and kept on picking up more and other woodwinds. Lately Shabaka plays flutes: the Slavic woodwind called svirel, Japanese shakuhachi, Andean quena, and even clarinet. Hear rapper and flutist André 3000 joining him on the skyward-swirling “To The Moon” from his EP Possession.
Also, listen to music by Charles Lloyd, a master of the sax and the jazz flute, from Lloyd’s late-70s release Pathless Path – a mix of improvisation, electronics, and sounds from Japan and India, which John Schaefer calls “A Zen-like, atmospheric collection” (Schaefer, 2011.) Then, hear bestselling jazz flutist Herbie Mann and band together with a Western-looking Japanese ensemble (shamisen, koto, biwa, kakko, shoko, shakuhachi, and big taiko drums), and a troupe of Zen Buddhist monks from the record, Gagaku & Beyond.
Listen to work by American composer Frances White, who works in the area of music for instruments and computer-generated sound; she’s also a student of the traditional Japanese flute, the shakuhachi. Sample some of her work “Centre Bridge” (one of the bridges that connects New Jersey and Pennsylvania) in which she takes the sounds of traffic and adapts them for two shakuhachi and electronics. The recording features shakuhachi master Elizabeth Brown. That, and more. - Caryn Havlik
#5150, Western Musicians Playing Japanese Instruments (First aired 6/5/26)
ARTIST: Minna Padilla & Helsinki Koto Ensemble
WORK: Kanjiki (Snow Shoe) [1:37]
RECORDING: Ilta Vuorella
SOURCE: Texicalli Records
INFO: Try Discogs.com or Amazon.com
ARTIST: Charles Lloyd
WORK: Pathless Path [11:37]
RECORDING: Pathless Path
SOURCE: Unity Records – UR 708
INFO: Try Discogs.com or Amazon.com
ARTIST: Minna Padilla & Helsinki Koto Ensemble
WORK: Kanjiki (Snow Shoe) [5:43]
RECORDING: Ilta Vuorella
SOURCE: Texicalli Records
INFO: Try Discogs.com or Amazon.com
ARTIST: David Bowie
WORK: Moss Garden [4:57]
RECORDING: Heroes
SOURCE: Virgin #21908
INFO: store.davidbowie.com
ARTIST: Herbie Mann/Minoru Muraoka
WORK: Kurodabushi [5:21]
RECORDING: Gagaku & Beyond
SOURCE: Finnadar #9014. 1976 LP, reissued in 2001.
INFO: Available at Amazon.com
ARTIST: Shabaka
WORK: To the Moon [7:36]
RECORDING: Possession
SOURCE: Impulse!
INFO: https://shabaka.lnk.to/Possession
ARTIST: Stephan Micus
WORK: Koan, Part 3 [6:18]
RECORDING: Koan
SOURCE: ECM Records
INFO: https://ecmrecords.com
ARTIST: Elizabeth Brown
WORK: Frances White: Centre Bridge [1:55]
RECORDING: CENTRE BRIDGE:ELECTROACUSTIC WORKS
SOURCE: Mode #184
INFO: moderecords.com
