Masayuki Takayanagi - Station '70: Call in Question / Live Independence (April 18, 2022 Black Editions)

In August 1969, Masayuki Takayanagi formed his first New Direction group and embarked on an unparalleled musical journey that over the final 22 years of his life would define him as an uncompromising artist who would forge a visionary new musical language. Comprised of himself on acoustic and electric guitar and joined by Motoharu Yoshizawa on bass and Yoshisaburo 'Sabu' Toyozumi on drums, Takayanagi's group created a new unconstrained form of music; It expanded on the most radical, fiery elements of American and European Free Jazz, while refracting them through an avant garde prism. Harmonic and melodic development were rejected in favor of feedback and complete spontaneity. With New Direction, Takayanagi had achieved a "decisive break" from the past and created his own revolutionary music - a ferocious, often violent sound that paradoxically took both musical movement and stillness to their extremes.

Takayanagi's New Direction soon recorded one of the landmark albums of free jazz and the avant garde, Independence: Tread on Sure Ground (1970). It was Takayanagi's first album as a group leader and nothing short of groundbreaking. However, it would be 25 years before a wider audience would finally able to hear Takayanagi's vision with the group in its most explosive and unmitigated realization; Japan's P.S.F. records released two CD's, Call in Question (1994) and Live Independence (1995) which featured unearthed, previously unheard 1970 recordings made by the group at the legendary Shibuya Tokyo venue, Station '70. The recordings were revelatory; They presented nascent, jarring versions of Takayanagi's "Gradually Projection" and "Mass Projection" modalities in uncut, unvarnished long form. Joined on some tracks by renowned saxophonist Mototeru Takagi, the performances are intensely physical and visceral - each player creating a vivid self contained sound that at the same time merges with the overall group imperative to create something entirely new and beautiful.  Yoshizawa, Toyozumi as well as Takagi would, in their own right, go on to join Takayanagi as iconic players in the world of Japanese free jazz and avant garde. It is these performances, in a crucial moment of societal and cultural upheaval, that would help lay the groundwork for the rich world of free improvisation, free jazz and, to a large degree, underground music in Japan for decades to come.

Later Takayanagi would write "It is improvisation alone that transcends genre and academicism to become music as raw, independent existence, the most unique living organism within a yet-to-be unknown". It is in these recordings that that "yet-to-be unknown" can begin to be heard.

Black Editions is proud to present the entirety of the recordings presented on both P.S.F. albums as well as a previously unreleased side-long Mass Projection in a deluxe, remastered 3LP box set. The set features the stark photography of the late Yuji Itsumi and presents the original liner notes by key Japanese music critics and historians Yoshiyuki Kitazato and Toshihiko Shimizu newly translated into English as well as in the original Japanese. 

1. Extraction

2. Excavation

3. Mass Projection, March 1970

4. Intermittent

5. Herdsman's Pipe of Spain

6. Mass Projection, February 1970 (previously unreleased)

Masayuki Takayanagi - Guitar

Motoharu Yoshizawa - Bass

Sabu Toyozumi - Drums

Mototeru Takagi - Saxophone (D2)

Recorded at Station ’70, Tokyo

A1-E1 recorded by Jin Ishitani, March 11 and 12, 1970

F1 recorded February 19, 1970

Mastering by JJ Golden, Golden Mastering 2020

All photos by Yūji Itsumi except back cover photo of Masayuki Takayanagi, 1968, photographer unknown.

Graphic design by Rob Carmichael, SEEN, with typographic assistance from Takuya Kitamura

Notes by Yoshiyuki Kitazato and Toshihiko Shimizu

Timeline by Yasunori Saito

English Translation by Yuko Zama and Alan Cummings

Black Edition supervised and produced by Peter Kolovos

Released under license from Jinya Disc, Japan

A1-E1 originally released on CD by P.S.F. Japan as"Call in Question"

(PSFD-41, 1994) and "Live Independence" (PSFD-57, 1995)

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Masayuki Takayanagi - ECLIPSE (April 18, 2022 Black Editions)

Masayuki Takayanagi was one of the truly iconoclastic musicians to emerge from Japan, or anywhere else, in the 20th Century. Though he won acclaim in the 1950’s and 60’s as a master of the electric guitar and jazz improvisation, Takayanagi was a restless spirit, deeply engaged with the era's new movements in contemporary art, music, literature and philosophy. His work, beginning in the late 1960’s placed him on the leading edge of these developments; he began expanding on the most radical elements of American and European free jazz, infusing them with the raw feedback and dissonance of electronic and avant-garde music. With his various “New Direction” groups, Takayanagi broke free of traditional structures and developed a new theory of music that embraced an aggressive and unrelenting style of playing that has remained almost completely unparalleled in its ferocity.

Of all the albums to be released during Takayanagi's lifetime, 1975’s Eclipse was perhaps the most enigmatic and sought after. Released in an edition of only 100, it almost immediately disappeared and became a Holy Grail for Japanese connoisseurs of adventurous music, and rightly so. It’s first side contained a two part realization of Takayanagi’s “Gradually Projection” modality – a searching interplay between instruments- slowly emerging from a sparse open field and building with the tension of a looming thunder storm. The second side contains an epic performance of a “Mass Projection”, a high energy, densely layered barrage of sound that in its 25 minutes, never once slackens in intensity. It would be another 31 years before this key album in Takayangi’s oeuvre would finally have a (slightly) wider audience through a CD release by Japan's P.S.F. Records.

Black Editions is proud to present a deluxe vinyl edition of this masterwork, revealingly remastered from the original tapes by Elysian Masters. The album is packaged in a heavy double tip-on gatefold jacket that pays tribute to the original handmade packaging and features a previously unseen studio photograph of Takayanagi by Tatsuo Minami. 

1. First Session 1 (Gradually Projection)

2. First Session 2 (Gradually Projection)

3. Second Session (Mass Projection)

Masayuki Takayanagi: Electric Guitar

Kenji Mori: Alto Saxophone, Flute, Recorder

Nobuyoshi Ino: Electric Bass

Hiroshi Yamazaki: Drums, Percussion

Recorded in Tokyo, March 14, 1975

Engineer: Mikio Aoki

Cover Photographs and Design by Kazuharu Fujitani

Gatefold Photograph by Tatsuo Minami

Insert Notes by Yasunori Saito

Produced by Satoru Obara, Yoshiaki Kamei, Nihon Gendai Jazz Ongaku Kenkyukai

Originally released in an edition of 100 by ISKRA Records, Japan in 1975.

Black Edition remastered from the original master tapes by Dave Cooley, Elysian Masters and produced by Peter Kolovos.

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Keiji Haino - My lord Music​.​.​. (March 14, 2022 Black Editions)

Full title: My lord Music, I most humbly beg your indulgence in the hope that you will do me the honour of permitting this seed called Keiji Haino to be planted within you.

For over 25 years, Keiji Haino has used the hurdy gurdy to channel dark dimensions—creating music that bridges the centuries between distant medieval eras and a future awash in densely layered sounds that grind and float in an otherworldly atmosphere. “My lord Music…” is a suite of nine pieces that reveals the startlingly distinctive and wide range of Haino’s approach to the instrument. The music is at once dissonant and hypnotic, rich with unfurling drones that dynamically ebb and flow—Haino’s musical sensibility and physicality, always present and unmistakable.

“My lord Music…” is the first release in Haino’s newly relaunched Purple Trap imprint, produced in collaboration with Black Editions and personally supervised by the artist himself. Purple Trap will present the full breadth of Keiji Haino’s works through both archival recordings and newly recorded pieces, all made available in small one-time physical editions as well as on digital platforms.

1. A1

2. A2

3. A3

4. B1

5. B2

6. C1

7. C2

8. D1

9. D2

Keiji Haino — Hurdy Gurdy

Recorded April 7, 2019 at Zebulon, Los Angeles, California

Recorded and mixed by Toshi Kasai

Mastering by Elysian Masters

Photographs by Kazuyuki Funaki

Design by Takuya Kitamura

Translation by Alan Cummings

Performance produced by Black Editions and Blum & Poe Gallery as part of Parergon: Japanese Art of the 1980's and 1990's curated by Mika Yoshitake

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Peter Brötzmann, Milford Graves, William Parker - Historic Music Past Tense Future (January 31, 2022 Black Editions)

Black Editions presents “Historic Music Past Tense Future,” the first ever album to feature the meeting of Peter Brötzmann, Milford Graves and William Parker. Three of the towering figures in the history of Free Jazz forge an incredibly vital free music born from lifetimes of uncompromising, ceaseless artistry. “Historic Music Past Tense Future” is the inaugural release by Black Editions Archive and the first in a series of records that will present previously unreleased works featuring Milford Graves.

“In the end, the music expresses what it means to be alive, to act on behalf of life. It struts and rails, sings and screams. It confronts fear and anger and transcends them through beauty, sound, and honesty. It ́s not about false comfort, it ́s about truth—a knotty, complicated thing that calls for a knotty, complicated, and sometimes comfortless art..” —Ed Hazell, liner notes

“It ́s not easy, it ́s not a little Sunday ride. It ́s heavy.” 

— Peter Brötzmann

2002-03-29, in the front room of CBGBs, fourteen years after their last performance together, three of the defining musicians in Free Jazz history convened for a third & final time. Peter Brötzmann had once again successfully talked his way into the U.S. without a visa to play this concert (organized by Arts for Art) & concerts with a historic drummer of a different era, Walter Perkins (organized by eremite). On March 31 & April 1, Brötzmann & Perkins recorded their duo album -The Ink Is Gone-.

William Parker had just returned from concerts in Italy with the David S. Ware Quartet. On April 2 & 3 he debuted his “Curtis Mayfield Inside Songs” project in Boston & Amherst. & he still found time to sit-in for the entire March 30 Brötzmann/Perkins Amherst Meetinghouse gig.

Scarcely to be found on bandstands & an even rarer presence on record, Milford Graves was a different story, a state of affairs that in 1995 prompted Thurston Moore to proclaim Graves “a living myth.” Between 1999 & 2015, Graves appears on just six recordings, two of those solo; Brötzmann & Parker combined made half as many records the same week as this gig. It would be another sixteen years before Jake Meginsky’s documentary -Full Mantis- introduced the world outside to the Graves’ multiverse of music, natural science, herbal medicine & acupuncture, martial arts, & visionary cardiology.

The eremite Mobile Unit happened to be in the house March 29. The trio performed on a small riser facing the front door of CBGBs, with Graves’ hand-painted, Orisha-adorned double bass drum kit, captured in its full thunderous glory on this recording, occupying most of the available space.

Peter Brötzmann was steamrolling in the early 2000s. Decades into having earned his soldier-of-the-road title, he was indomitable everywhere with nearly everybody, yet the full expression of his musicality reached even higher planes in the company of equals. While his famous Mount Olympus power is in no way absent here, Brötzmann’s sensitivity & lyricism, attributes that appear throughout his work as a visual artist, were on this special occasion beautifully alive.

The case is just beginning to be sufficiently made for the magnitude of William Parker’s role in Free Jazz at the turn of the century. In 2002 he was already the prime mover of his New York community; as a bandleader & composer he was taking his music in newly expansive directions. As an instrumentalist & improvisor Parker had been playing in the Big Leagues since the 1970s. From the mid-sixties on Graves very rarely played with bassists, he had the low-end covered. From the time the two connected in the mid-1980s Parker was a near constant presence in Graves’ —albeit rather infrequent— ensemble concert appearances. That he found expressive spaces for himself in Graves’ avalanche of rhythm & sound is extraordinary testimony to Parker’s wide-open ears & skills. For this rather hastily set-up recording, Parker’s small amp was placed on a barstool behind Graves’ kit, yet you still clearly feel & hear Parker’s vivid contributions.

By 2002 Milford Graves was four decades into developing & refining his radical approach to drumming. Graves’ unique & unbounded creativity across multiple mediums is only recently entering the early stages of wider discovery & appreciation. -Historic Music Past Tense Future- is the first in a series of records on Black Editions Archive that will feature Milford Graves. Through previously unheard recordings & freshly engaged scholarship, Black Editions Archive aims to significantly enlarge Graves’ body of available recorded work & create new opportunities & contexts to experience his maverick genius.

The music here comes from a moment of relative high visibility for the Free Jazz continuum. Brötzmann & Parker, among others, were taking it to the people through relentless touring. DIY presenters & labels were endeavoring heroically to stand-in for the lack of support from more established entities. The post-CD era that would decimate this little environment was still some years away. Cheaper production methods & more accessible recording technology meant some musicians & bands of this time were rather heavily “documented”, as we used to say. This is no such band. This is a stand-alone recording of three of the greatest to ever do it, seen & heard together for the last time, until the end of time, on this night. — Michael Ehlers 

1. Side A

2. Side B

3. Side C

4. Side D

Peter Brötzmann - Reeds

Milford Graves - Drums, Vocals, Dancing

William Parker - Bass, Doussn'Gouni

All music by Brötzmann / Graves / Parker

Artwork - Broetzmann

Recorded 2002.03.29, CB's 313 Gallery, New York

by Eremite Mobile Unit

Mastering Engineer - Joe Lizzi

Lacquers - Kevin Gray

Design - Broetzmann / Untiet

Back Cover Photo - Andrey Henkin

Inside Photo - Matias Corral, The Su Bundu from Orani

Produced by Peter Kolovos & Michael Ehlers

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