Eri Yamamoto’s Goshu Ondo Suite

It’s like writing for a small town. Composing for a fifty-piece chorale group and jazz trio is no small undertaking, especially when it is your first work incorporating vocals in any form, but that is the sort of daring jazz is supposed to represent. Eri Yamamoto lives up to that ethos all the time, but she takes it to a new level with the Goshu Ondo Suite, an extended composition produced and performed in collaboration with Choral Chameleon. If you want to hear the second-ever performance tonight you had better be prepared to wait-list for some improvised seating, because all tickets are sold out, just like last night’s premiere.

There have been attempts to fuse jazz and chorale music before, most notably some of Dave Brubeck’s sacred music. Yet, Goshu Ondo works particularly well, because it is all so well integrated and unified. This is not like other works attempting to fuse jazz with disparate styles that sounds distinctly sectional, wherein the jazz combo plays the head, the “special guests” play, the jazz musicians solo, the guests come back in, and then the combo restates the head. The musicianship could be great, but you could take them apart and listen to them separately without losing anything.

That is not the case here. You need both parts to make sense of what’s happening. It is all intimately married together right from the start and becomes even more so as the piece progresses. The final movement of the continuous suite might be the exception that proves the rule. The melody sounds like it could be adapted for Yamamoto’s trio more easily than the rest of the suite, but having chorale group layered on top more than doubles its power—and then its time to dance (don’t worry, the moves aren’t much more complicated than the Hokey Pokey, but it looks somewhat more elegant).

Goshu Ondo is inspired by the song and dance performed during traditional Japanese summer festivals, so it is fitting the performances have such a festive atmosphere—there will be green tea (supplied directly from Japan by Nishimura Banchaya Honten) and sake (from Brooklyn), as well as many visitors from Japan in attendance. Choral Chameleon was able to unlock Eri’s rhythms (which can be tricky), because they are clearly in the spirit, grooving to the music. Her regular trio-mates, Ikuo Takeuchi on drums and Dave Ambrosio on bass (two of the best in the business) are rock-solid and on-the-money, like they always are. Again, this is the world premiere of some ambitious music, but they sound like they have been playing it all their lives.

Eri Yamamoto and her trio are terrific musicians, who always sound great together, but this is an opportunity to hear them in a totally different setting. The acoustics of the Paul Taylor Dance Studio are also quite nice. It is the place to be tonight for jazz fans, but if you miss it, AUM Fidelity will be releasing a live recording.

Music and Textiles: A Weaverly Path

As a child, the Swiss-born Silvia Heyden shared meals with refugees from National Socialist Germany and would later cross over from East to West Berlin just as the wall was nearly completed. Yet, the greatest inspiration for her innovative tapestries has been the Eno River in peaceful Durham, North Carolina. Heyden’s life and work are profiled in Kenny Dalsheimer’s A Weaverly Path (trailer here), which screens this coming Tuesday at the Missouri History Museum.

Heyden might be the tapestry artist of her time, period. Never merely adapting pre-existing paintings from canvas to textile, Heyden conceives each piece specifically for her medium. Thread by thread, her kinetic forms takes shape on her loom. They do not always hang straight, but her use of color and form are always intriguing.

Though we do observe Heyden’s methodical work up-close, unlike Sophie Fienne’s slow-going Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow, Weaverly never assumes watching an artist quietly putter about their studio for long stretches of time is sufficiently explanatory or engrossing. In fact, we hear Heyden give her basic primer on tapestry as an art form, which should deepen viewers’ appreciation not just of her work, but of her medium in general.

Though rarely heard on-screen, Dalsheimer draws out the artist quite deftly. He clearly establishes her influences, including a supportive father (himself a frustrated artist) and a Bauhaus education, without driving each point into the ground. Rivers are also important touchstones in her life, with Rhone prefiguring the Eno as a source of inspiration. Yet, music is nearly as significant as nature in shaping her art. In fact, her two arguable masterworks, Passacaglia and Chaconne, directly reference the baroque music she still plays with her string ensemble.

Appropriately enough, Weaverly has a beautiful soundtrack, consisting largely of music licensed from the Brooklyn-based AUM Fidelity label (in addition to Heyden’s own playing) that impeccably matches the film’s striking visuals and contemplative mood. Particularly effective are the selections from jazz pianist-composer Eri Yamamoto, including “Circular Movement,” a duo recording with Hamid Drake that perfectly evokes the rhythms of Heyden’s loom. Originally conceived as a part of a new soundtrack for Yasujirō Ozu’s silent classic I Was Born But . . ., the jaunty “A Little Escape” also helps propels the film along nicely, while the richly melodic “Thank You” (another duo track, with Federico Ughi) establishes a relaxed but sophisticated vibe.

Artfully crafted in its own right, Weaverly is one of the more accessible and engaging art documentaries currently on the festival circuit (featuring one of the best soundtracks). Recommended for its sights and sounds, as well as Heyden’s smart, likable presence, Weaverly screens Tuesday afternoon (9/13) as part of the Missouri History Museum’s History on the Side series, where its sixty-two minutes will be worth stretching St. Louisans’ lunch hours.

(Eri Yamamoto photo by Rita Cigolini)

Pianos: The Four Hands of Yves Leveille and Eri Yamamoto

It is a small world, but evidently Arthur’s Tavern is at the center of it. Japanese pianist-composer Eri Yamamoto has a regular Thursday-Friday-Saturday night feature spot there, where the Quebecois Yves Léveillé once subbed for her during one of her many tours. When Léveillé invited Yamamoto back up to Montreal to play with his working group, the two pianists found they clicked together, even in unorthodox combos, including a two-piano trio with multi-reed virtuoso Paul McCandless. Yet their first recording together is an intimate piano duet, simply titled Pianos, now available from finer Canadian music retailers.

Although two piano sessions are not unprecedented, they offer a distinct challenge to both players. However, Léveillé and Yamamoto prove to be quite stylistically compatible and amenable to the give-and-take of four-handed playing. Rather than showy one-upmanship, they segue into each other quite pleasingly, as with the cascading runs of Léveillé’s darkly lyrical “Pour Ainsi Dire” that opens the set.

Inspired by nature, Yamamoto’s “Redwoods,” has a transcendent elegance that perfectly suits the cooperative spirit of the project. As it is technically Léveillé’s session, he supplies the majority (five out of eight) of the compositions. Yet, the intriguing melody and evolving dynamics of his “Zone Indigéne,” the longest track on Pianos, are not unlike those of Yamamoto’s compositions.

The two shortest selections of the session are solo improvisations from each pianist. Yamamoto’s swinging “Montreal Dance” delivers the most muscular bluesy playing to be heard on Pianos, whereas Léveillé’s “Recontre” might be its most delicate, deepest dip into the Bill Evans bag.

While there is indeed a moody pensive quality to much of the music they create, there is still a strong rhythmic component, driving it all along quite effectively, as Léveillé’s “Pantomime” nicely illustrates. It dramatically concludes with the striking beauty of Yamamoto’s composition “Color,” which was first recorded on her album of nearly the same name, Colors.

There is quite an eloquent conversation going on in Pianos, filled with warm and witty phrases. I’ve come to know Eri Yamamoto, writing profiles of her and her richly rewarding music and hearing her live at Arthur’s. While I have not met Léveillé yet, I suppose that’s why you have to keep coming to that West Village landmark—you never know who might turn up. While Pianos might take some searching for here in the lower forty-eight, it is definitely worth importing. It is a great example of the creative rapport between two passionate yet disciplined artists.

Ozu’s I Was Born But . . .

Though the talky era was well underway internationally, the Japanese film industry still produced silent films well into the 1930’s. Director Yasujiro Ozu was particularly slow to embrace synchronized sound, yet he would eventually be hailed as Japan’s great auteur. In fact, his reputation partly rests on his late silent films, including 1932’s I Was Born But . . ., which opens in New York at the IFC Center this Friday.

On the surface, life is good for the Yoshi family. Kennosuke has bought a home out in the Tokyo suburbs, where his two mischievous sons, Ryoichi and Keiji, will have more room to run wild. It will also be more convenient for sucking up to his boss, Iwasaki, who lives nearby. At first, the headstrong brothers have trouble adapting to their new school, landing themselves in big trouble when they play hooky one day.

Nevertheless, they quickly rise to their rightful place as top dogs of the neighborhood boys. Yet, all their social assumptions are challenged one night when they get an uncomfortably candid look at their father currying favor with his boss. Feeling publically humiliated, they rebel against Yoshi’s parental authority. While their father resents their resentment, he also partly shares their contempt, but such are the realities of life, as seen through Ozu’s gently subversive lens.

Pulling off a delicate balancing act, Ozu never lets the scenes with the boys get too slap-sticky, nor his social commentary become too pointed. Essentially, he presents an early step in the Yoshi brothers’ maturation, but not a shattering end to their innocence.

Indeed, Ozu brought a highly sensitive eye to bear on Born, coaxing charming performances his young actors. Often unfairly overlooked in discussions of the film, Tatsuo Saito and Mitsuko Yoshikawa also bring a genuine sense of humanity to the family drama as the boys’ ever-patient parents.

Even if his visuals are not exactly arresting, it is a very welcome event to have Ozu’s closely observed masterwork digitally restored. However, while the accompanying soundtrack may well be perfectly fine and respectable, it is not the best music available for Born. Eri Yamamoto’s latest release In Every Day Something Good includes her original alternate soundtrack to the silent classic that is far more expressive of the characters’ personalities and the film’s overall spirit. Happily, she will be playing her regular sets at Arthur’s, practically right around the corner from the IFC Center on Grove Street this Friday and Saturday, so theater patrons can hear the difference for themselves.

Wistful rather than cute, the subtly winning Born is one of the last classics of the silent era. A fitting introduction to Ozu’s canon, it opens this Friday (6/25) at IFC’s Waverly outpost.

Eri Yamamoto Finds the Good Everyday

Patrons weaving their way around us at Arthur’s Tavern would hardly be surprised to hear Eri Yamamoto and her trio discussing music. The occasional Italian might have thrown them. Following her Sunday night “Thank You 2009” performance at Cornelia Street Café (a two year tradition for hip New Yorkers ringing out the old), I was able to catch the busy pianist-composer after her usual Saturday night set at Arthur’s Tavern to discuss her new CD, In Each Day, Something Good, which releases today. Her longtime drummer Ikuo Takeuchi and frequent bassist Arthur Kell sat-in to provide their typical rock-solid support (or perhaps to mock my skills as interviewer) and also add a few words of their own (usually in English for my benefit).

On and off the bandstand, the rapport between Yamamoto and the regular members of her trio is immediately evident. She and Takeuchi have been playing together for fourteen years and the much in-demand bassist Dave Ambrosio has been recording and touring with Yamamoto’s trio for the last five years (Kevin Tkacz completes the battery of bassists that regularly join her at Arthur’s three nights a week, when she is not touring). “We don’t have to say anything,” Yamamoto said, describing her relationship with Takeuchi and Ambrosio. “It is like we share the same musical mind.”

As a result, Yamamoto’s trio has an instantly recognizable sound all their own, yet certainly reflective of her own aesthetic sensibilities. As she explains: “In music or any art-form, I prefer work that uses space—things that are not 100% complete, but have something identifiably missing. That makes them more interesting.”

In their time together, Yamamoto’s trio has toured extensively, racking up many war stories on the road. One telling anecdote occurred when Yamamoto returned to her native Japan. As she recalled: “To make our next gig, we had to transfer from the bullet train to a local train that only left every two hours. The problem was the platforms were very far apart and Ikuo was loaded down with his drums. I ran ahead to ask the conductor to hold the train for us, but instead he came out and carried Ikuo’s drum cases by himself. We could still hear he was short of breath when he announced the next two station stops.”

No matter how friendly Japanese train conductors might generally be, I cannot imagine anyone but Eri Yamamoto convincing one to disregard his timetables in order to lug a bunch of drums on-board. She has that ability to win people over wherever she goes, including the often rambunctious crowd at Arthur’s. In particular, she seems to have forged a special relationship with Italian audiences, which is why she has been learning Italian (evidently Takeuchi has picked up a fair amount as well).

“In the last three years, I went to Italy over ten times, she explained. “I’ve been seriously studying the language for the last two months because I want to be able to show my appreciation. Often people will come not necessarily knowing who we are, yet they come anyway. That means a lot, so it is nice to be able to thank them in their language.”

In fact, many of the compositions on In Each Day were inspired by her frequent travels, like “Sheep Song,” the product of a tour through Wales, and “Blue in Tunisia,” whose origin is self-explanatory. However, the new CD includes something new for her, a suite of compositions constituting an original soundtrack to the classic 1932Yasujiro Ozu silent film, I Was Born, But… According to Yamamoto, it started with a casual observation:

“A friend of mine happened to mention that some of my music reminded him of a movie soundtrack and suggested I compose my own. I didn’t want to write something for a film that already had a score, so I started considering silent movies . . . When I thought of Ozu’s I Was Born, it seemed perfect. I liked the fact that it was Japanese and the story appealed to me. I don’t really like special effect movies. I prefer films about ordinary people.” Indeed, Ozu’s blend of slapstick comedy and shrewd social commentary would be perfectly complimented by Yamamoto’s music, which is both playful and contemplative in equal measure. (And just for the record, her favorite film is Cinema Paradiso—another Italian connection.)

In Each Day also marks a milestone: her fifteenth year performing in New York. “Of course,” she readily conceded, “being a musician here can be challenging, but you have to remember to look for the good in every day.” Like her previous trio CD, it was released on the Brooklyn-based Aum Fidelity label and features a cover painting by her nephew, Leo Yamamoto (“I still owe him a trip to the Japanese barbeque,” she confessed.).

While she would like to tour less this year in order to “focus, think, and write,” Yamamoto still has plenty of international gigs already booked, including an unusual trio concert in Montreal with fellow pianist Yves Léveillé and oboe player Paul McCandless on March 4th. A duo CD with Léveillé is also forthcoming sometime in the future.

In Each Day is another fresh and intriguing musical statement from one of the busiest and most original jazz composers and improvisers on the scene today. As always, you can always hear the compositions that will eventually comprise her next CD as she hones them in live performance at Arthur’s every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights—at least when she is in town. To check her busy schedule or for more information about her CDs go to Yamamoto’s website at: http://www.eriyamamoto.com/.

(CD Cover art: Leo Yamamoto
Eri Yamoto photo: Rita Cigolini
Trio photo: Agnieszka Kubeczko)

2 X Eri Yamamoto

Redwoods & Duologue
By Eri Yamamoto
AUM Fidelity

It is quite an accomplishment for a jazz artist these days to record on a legitimate label, be they even the smallest of independents, as opposed to essentially self-producing. To have two label releases within the span of about three months time is really getting someplace. That is the enviable position Eri Yamamoto is in, following up the early summer release of Duologue, with her new trio release, Redwoods.

Yamamoto has a regular Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night gig with her trio at Arthur’s Tavern in New York, when she is not touring (which she probably does at least one week out of the month). However, she seems to take inspiration from the road, frequently returning to home base with new compositions. Dropping by Arthur’s is a great way to hear her abundant new material taking shape.

Indeed, Redwoods had its genesis in the Muir Woods of Northern California. The title track is an elegant meditation on nature, featuring the sensitive brush work of Arthur’s stalwart Ikuo Takeuchi. Reverence for natural beauty is a theme for the session, also inspiring the stately but sensitive “Magnolia.”

The opening “This is an Apple,” referring to her initial English lessons (she is now picking up Italian too), nicely illustrates her talent for composing strong melodic hooks, as well as her mastery of dynamics though her powerful attack on the keys. It is followed by a spritely groover, “Wonder Land,” that nicely captures her strong rhythmic drive and sense of humor. It is the sort of tune jazz D.J.’s used to choose as their theme songs, back in the day when there were such creatures.

Of her now six CDs, Duologue is the first to break from the trio format, featuring two duo performances a piece with guest artists reedman Daniel Carter, percussionists Federico Ughi and Hamid Drake, as well as bassist William Parker, with whom Yamamoto has worked as a sideman. Starting with the beauty and graceful simplicity of “Thank You” and concluding with the wit and verve of “You are Welcome,” Duologue is a series of friendly, but eloquent conversations between the leader and her guests.

With the rock solid support of Parker, she brings a certain Monkish charm to “Subway Song,” whereas “Violet Street,” featuring Carter on tenor, is both simultaneously soothing and searching. Throughout Duologue Yamamoto takes us through a variety of moods, but the most dramatic might be the trance-inducing “Circular Motion,” featuring Drake’s gently hypnotic frame drum.

Both are thoroughly entertaining releases, but if you want to start with just one, Redwoods probably gets the nod, capturing the highly tuned empathy of Yamamoto’s working trio. There are plenty of talented jazz pianists in the City, but while they sound quite nice, I could never recognize them blindfolded. However, I am pretty confident I would know Eri Yamamoto’s playing by ear. She really has honed an individual sound all her own, which is why I have recommended her recordings here before, and do so again with Redwoods and Duologue.

All-Star Duologue

Last night witnessed the final All-Star game to be played in Yankee Stadium, which made the full house that turned out for Eri Yamamoto at the Cornelia Street Café all the more impressive. As it turns out, even those of us who stayed for both thoroughly impressive sets were still able to be home in time to see more than enough baseball. Celebrating the release of her new CD Duologues, Yamamoto and her duo partners for the evening, Daniel Carter and William Parker, put on the better show, by far.

There are plenty of talented jazz pianists in the City, but while they might sound quite nice, I could never recognize them blindfolded. However, I am pretty certain I would know Eri Yamamoto’s playing by ear. She really has honed an individual sound all her own, which is why I frequently hear her with her regular trio at Arthur’s Tavern. While it is almost impossible to describe the intangibles of style, Eri’s strong rhythmic drive and shrewd sense of humor are certainly important elements of her distinctive sound.

Starting with the beauty and elegant simplicity of “Thank You” and concluding with the wit and verve of “You are Welcome,” Duologue is an eloquent series of friendly conversations between the leader, Carter, Parker, and percussionists Hamid Drake and Federico Ughi. In between, she takes us through a variety of moods, with the hypnotic “Circular Motion,” the sensitive meditation “Muse,” and the rambunctious, slightly Monkish “Subway Song,” which she and Parker reprised at Cornelia Street.

Duologue is an excellent new release, showcasing both Yamamoto’s continually inventive playing and her intriguing compositions. It seems like she writes constantly, often inspired by her international tours, with new songs frequently making their debut at Arthur’s.

I recommend picking-up Duologue and when in the City, checking out Eri Yamamoto in her usual trio format at Arthur’s, every Thursday through Saturday, when she is in town. Also note, for those bold enough to venture into BKLN, her regular bassist Kevin Tkacz will lead his own group at Barbès on July 29th to mark the release of his own forthcoming CD.