This
Parisian based free jazz trio features Lucien Johnson on tenor saxophone,
Alan Silva on double bass and Makoto Sato on drums. Their debut CD
is to be released on Hat Hut in 2009.
By clicking
on these links you can watch footage of a recent concert at Atelier
Tampon in Paris.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTKQWOZBeZA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX-HyKbQojs&feature=channel_page
The following passages come from William Meyer’s liner notes
to the Hat Hut album:
“ this is one group where no one enables another’s weak
playing. Consider Sato’s stuttering snare-beats and contrarian
bass drum bombs on “A Devil’s Fugue.” His energy
stokes Johnson’s, just as his accomplishment of forward motion
whilst playing interrupted figures mirrors the saxophonist’s
staccato thematic statements, which he renders with a reticence redolent
of Henry Threadgill’s in Air. He feels Johnson’s intent,
but he doesn’t make things easy. And Silva? Unmoved by the activity
around him, his double bass is the line in the sand that denies the
devil passage. Silva then sets up a myriad of possibilities on “Family
Silva,” sketches a few possible lines of inquiry and issues
a challenge through shape and tone; can you match this sound in power
and dignity? Sato, who has played in Silva’s quartet and tasted
a few fine dishes, seasons sparingly, playing just enough to make
you hear the bass in every broad space where he doesn’t play.
Johnson chooses another path, winding a contrasting melody until the
last moment when his tone and Silva’s melt together…”
“In the late 50s Silva, then a Bermuda-born, Harlem-raised teenager,
hung up the horn that he had been studying under Blue Note recording
star Donald Byrd after his mentor told him that he didn’t have
what it took to be a great trumpet player. His technique was all right,
but his ideas just didn’t flow. So he got a job and went to
college, where one night at a party he picked up somebody else’s
bass and joined in at a jam. The music flowed, and the next day he
went out to buy his own bass. Before the decade was out he’d
played with Cecil Taylor, Sunny Murray, and Bill Dixon, and had recorded
several key documents of large group improvisation with Sun Ra and
his own Celestrial Communication Orchestra.
Likewise Makoto Sato couldn’t have known how one act would redirect
his life. Says Johnson, “He loved Don Cherry’s music,
so he wrote a letter to his record label. He didn’t hear anything
for two years and presumed the letter hadn’t got through, but
one day out of the blue he had a knock on the door of his Tokyo apartment
and it was Don Cherry. Some years later Makoto was visiting Don Cherry
in Sweden, where he had an enormous collection of instruments. Makoto
began to have a go at some of them and when he sat down at the drums
Don Cherry raced out from another room and said, “That’s
your instrument.”” Sato later moved to France, where he
has played his drums with Joe McPhee, Michael Zerang, Raymond Boni,
and Alan Silva, and is a member of the electric improvising trio Marteau
Rouge…
I asked Makoto what kind of music they played. He said it’s
not free jazz, because even if we loved jazz we didn’t come
from the same place and our roots are different. It’s not free
improvisation because that’s such an ugly and non-descriptive
term. He said he played “musique folklorique a moi.” –
William Meyer, 2008
Press
review from Jazz a Paris by jazz critic Claude Parle, 2008:
Alan Silva - Le 7e jour
Le septième jour …Dieu descendit …(Galerie Tampon
, le 30 novembre 08, avec Alan Sylva, Lucien Johnson, Makoto Sato)
Or donc, c'était bien dimanche, vers 19h45 qu'Il vint pour
contempler son ouvrage ....
Et, décidant qu'il manquait quand même quelque chose,
juste après l'excellente performance de Nicklaus Barnö
(trompette), Joël Grip (contrebasse) et Didier Lassere ...Il
pris la basse de Joël et, d'un archet désinvolte, fit
surgir à la place de Nicklaus, Lucien Johnson ainsi qu'un sax
en lieu de trompette, et Makoto matérialisé sur le siége
où fut Didier ...
Il posa délicatement ses longs doigts sur le manche et .................
Il ne convient pas à un humain de parler de la musique des
sphères ni de la création du monde .... Mais ce soir
là, je puis attester que j'ai assisté à la naissance
de l'émotion ...
Alan à la basse, c'est comprendre la théorie des super
cordes ! ...(quand le LHC sera opérationnel, on en saura sans
doute plus ? ! ...)
C'est voir fondre et se recréer les galaxies, c'est aimer l'air
que l'on respire et mourir par les oreilles, c'est entendre pousser
les arbres et mettre ses poumons dans l'écorce tandis que les
cordes vibrent et claquent sur leurs alvéoles ...c'est pleurer
des nuages ...
Parlons plutôt de Lucien Johnson, dont l'excellent jeu s'est
sans cesse marié avec la basse d'Alan finement ciselé
par le beau travail de Makoto à la batterie. Il est aussi lyrique
que Trane et aussi solide que Rollins ! ...
Fer de la musique, voila l'impression que ce trio d'exception a laissé
ce soir à la galerie, la marquant sans doute à jamais
de sa cosmique empreinte.
Après quelques discussions (et quelques verres de l'excellent
vin de Marc ! ) j'ai préféré quitter ce creuset
où les Dieux agirent pour aller me saouler à mort et
oublier Çà ! ! ...
L'homme dans sa faiblesse n'est pas de dimension à sonder les
limites du cosmos ! ! ...
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
The seventh day…God descended…(Atelier Tampon, 30th of
November with Alan Silva, Lucien Johnson, Makoto Sato)
Well actually it was Sunday, about 7:45 pm that he came to contemplate
his work…
And deciding that something was missing after the excellent performance
of Nicklaus Barnö (trumpet), Joël Grip (double bass) et
Didier Lassere ...He took Joel’s bass and with a casual flick
of his bow, appearing suddenly in the place of Nicklaus was Lucien
Johnson with his sax instead of a trumpet and Makoto materialised
on the seat where before him had been Didier…
He delicately placed his long fingers on the bass neck and………..
A human being is not worthy of talking about the music of the spheres,
nor of the creation of the world…But that evening I can testify
that I witnessed the birth of an emotion.
Alan on bass is to understand the theory of super chords!…(when
the LHC is operational we’ll know a lot more about it?!…)
It’s to watch galaxies melt and recreate themselves, it’s
to love the air which we breathe and to die through our ears, it’s
to hear trees grow and to place one’s lungs in the bark while
the strings vibrate and crack on the hollows…it is to cry clouds…
Let’s talk about Lucien Johnson, whose excellent playing constantly
intertwined with Alan’s bass, finely chiselled by the beautiful
work of Makoto on drums. He is as lyrical as Trane and as solid as
Rollins!
Iron of music, that is my impression of this exceptional trio which
left the gallery that evening marking without a doubt its cosmic footprint
forever more.
After several discussios (and a few glasses of Marc’s excellent
wine!) I prefered to leave this smelter where the Gods react to go
and drink myself to death and forget That!!…
Man with all his weaknesses is not of the dimension to probe the limits
of the cosmos!!…
