Ganryu Island (1984)
This time around, John Zorn teams up with Japanese musician Sato Michihiro for another improv album. Sato is a well renowned Tsugaru-jamisen musician, a style of Japanese music focused around the shamisen.
The shamisen, which translates to "three strings", is a three stringed (no way?) traditional Japanese instrument, which is played with a pick in a somewhat percussive fashion.
So I guess this album has a lot of Tsugaru-jamisen influence, which is pretty evident. These two make an interesting pair. Zorn, as usual, brings his free-jazz sax mastery to the table, but when coupled with Sato's shamisen shredding, we're left with a different sound and feel entirely, not that you can't hear the jazz influence. It's a very Japanese sounding album... I guess. Is that a good way to describe it? Like, if you just put this on for anyone without them knowing who or what it was, they'd probably call it some sort of Asian music.
I'm not familiar with Sato's other work, but apparently he left the traditional Tsugaru-jamisen style right before this to pursue shamisen improvisation. He's the highlight of this album, in my opinion. He displays a great deal of technicality and talent on his instrument, and keeps a steady rhythm of plucking throughout. Though he's also not afraid to mix it up with some off-kilter melodies and tempos. I'm also not familiar with how this instrument is played, but there are some moments on this album that make me interested to learn more. It seems like there's a lot of pinch harmonics and stretching and scratching, even some percussion on the body of the instrument. Zorn's brass is great, using all the techniques we've come to recognize from him, distinct squealing and chirps and the like. Vocals are incredibly sparse, a grunt or quick shout on occasion, but it accents the music just as well. I believe it is Sato doing these? Zorn performs some game calls as well.
This almost doesn't sound improvised to me, as the shamisen keeps such a perfect flow through the whole album, and also blends very well with the brass. These two were in sync no doubt about it. There's no absolute high or low points of the album, but it functions very well as a whole. Another highly enjoyable release. Can Zorn do no wrong? Okay, "Mikhail Zoetrope" was a little much, but even he admits that it was just a lot failed musical attempts thrown together.