MUSOH @SOMETHIN' Jazz Club, 11/09/2013

 

 

Dear music lovers,

Once again, my beautiful sonic children, my labor of love for music have been neglected for months... but I'm glad to announce that some of them get to be played live soon!

Please do come join us on November 9th as I proudly present this special set with these amazing musicians!...

*SOMETHIN' Jazz Club is a family friendly venue - feel free to bring your children!

Saturday, November 9th
5:00-7:00pm

MUSOH featuring:
Jostein Gulbrandsen (g)
George Dulin (key)
Trifon Dimitrov (b)
Yutaka Uchida - Composer/Drummer (comp/ds)

$10 Cover
*Kids under 13 - $5
*Kids under 2 - FREE

SOMETHIN' Jazz Club
212 E 52nd Street, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10022
(212) 371-7657
http://www.somethinjazz.com/ny/

Visit Yutaka/MUSOH's website:
http://yutakauchida.com/



MUSOH LIVE@SOMETHIN' Jazz Club, 6/23/2013

MUSOH is back! Mark your calendar!!

The concept of "Lead Improviser"

To me, one of the strangest tradition in jazz improvisation is that people don't usually accompany drum solos. In most cases, the drummer would still be playing over the form, so it's not logical to just abandon him just because it's a drum solo.

Years ago a friend of mine told me, "Well, I guess it's because we think it's time for you to shine."
My answer: "Well, why don't you accompany me and help me shine then? That's what I've been doing the whole tune after all - I accompany every one of you guys, providing you with grooves, dynamics, accents and ideas, responding to your ideas and help you shine along with other accompanists. I think it'd be only fair if you do the same for me!"

People like to compare a group improvisation to a conversation. According to this analogy, the situation can be described like this:
A group of people is having a conversation over a topic. Everyone expresses their opinion about it, everyone else chimes in, nods along, agrees/disagrees, etc. - in others words, they give the real time, spontaneous feedback to the speaker at the moment. Very lively, fun chit-chat. And then ...as the drummer starts to give his share of thoughts, everyone else just stops talking and it turns into a speech. God, I hate that feeling.

Actually, I think the term solo in jazz context is misleading - or plain false. In most cases, a soloist doesn't play alone. He might be the featured improviser at the moment, but everyone else is improvising with him, too.

I also think that, to really have a conversation with music (not that you have to, but if you want to), we need to forget this old "soloist-accompanists" mentality and start learning from our real life conversational patterns. When we talk among ourselves, we don't designate soloists or set length. Someone might be leading the conversation at one moment, but it could be someone else a few seconds later, not because he was given his turn, but because the conversation naturally led that way. It's more of a continuous, organic process.

So, instead of "soloist," I'd like to use the term "lead improviser" to describe the person who leads the musical conversation at any given moment. I think this concept might get us out of the haunted "head-solo-solo...solo-head" routine and open the door to the world of real collective improvisation, where all the talks are interactive, multidirectional and continuous, and even the drummer won't be left alone when he happens to lead the conversation in the process.

Music is only a half of a musical experience

You listened to a piece of music and it touched your soul so deeply it changed your life. Now you are his devoted fan, and can't wait to share this artist's masterpiece with someone. One night a friend comes over to your house and you play one of the artist's CD in excitement of blowing his mind...

The result was not what you expected.
Not only was your friend not impressed and didn't care for it, but he went on to explain how and why he didn't like it, and then thanked you for wasting his time.

In disbelief you accuse your friend for being such an ignorant and unsophisticated person.
Are you kidding me!?
How can you NOT love this music?
How can you NOT get this beauty?
You have no depth, no taste, no sensibility!

A while after your friend stormed out, you begin to wonder.
Could it be me...?
Could it be that I was the one with bad taste?
Could it be that I was the one who was ignorant and unsophisticated?
All of a sudden, you feel your love for this artist and his music fading away...

...The above is kind of an extreme example, but similar stories are happening everywhere in the world. Everyday, someone's wonderful musical experience gets dismissed, dimished and destroyed by someone else's opinion. I have certainly experienced such unpleasant moments.

Dear music lovers, don't get discouraged. Your friend can dislike your favorite artist all he wants, but no one can ever touch your experience of being exposed to the artist's music. It is yours and yours only, and no one could ever experience the same thing.

There is no such thing as universally great music that moves anyone, anytime, anywhere. Why? Because experiencing fine music cannot be determined by the music alone, just like experiencing fine dining cannot be determined by the food alone.

Even if the dish is prepared with the world's best ingredients, skills and presentation, it's still only about a half of the factors that decide the whole experience of having a great dinner. The other half is called circumstances. Is the atmosphere good? Is the server courteous and informative? Are you with someone you love? What stage of life are you in? Are you happy? Are people at the other tables nice? Is it reasonably priced? ...all these things can have great impact on your evening, good or bad.

So you see, your friend did not have the same experience as you'd had, when he listened to your favorite music. He couldn't have. Music was the same, but the circumstances were different. Different place, different time, different stereo, different volume, different company, different age, different state of mind, different person... what can you do?

Musicians need to be humble. We strive for excellence, we put a tremendous amount of effort and time into our "dishes," but we cannot control our listeners' musical experience after all. All we can control is our music. Everything else is circumstantial.

Aki Yamamoto and The Archi-tet

On "JAZZ... MAKE IT A DOUBLE" on October 22nd, MUSOH will share the bandstand with The Archi-tet, a wonderful mid-sized ensemble led by my good friend Akihiro "Aki" Yamamoto.

My first experience of playing jazz was to join a college big band, so I have always enjoyed and appreciated playing in large ensembles, although as a composer I tend to write for small groups more often. The Archi-tet boasts gorgeous harmony of three horns for which Aki carefully and tastefully prepares his charts. It is a very flexible setting where you can have the well structured arrangements as well as the room for spontaneous improvisations, so the listeners can really enjoy the best of both large and small ensembles.

When you listen to our works, it may seem that Aki and I take entirely different approaches on creating music. But the differences are only stylistic and superficial. I actually find his philosophy and attitude towards writing and shaping ensemble very similar to mine. We compose and arrange from producer's perspective and believe in compositions drawing big pictures rather than being mere vehicles for individual expressions. We write, arrange and direct according to the messages, tales or visions that we would like to convey, and it is our job as band leaders to present those in every step of the way. This type of approach, when done properly, makes every solo relevant, every tune coherent, every set thematic and ultimately, every show memorable and meaningful - so I believe.

As a drummer, I also enjoy being a part of this machinery that translates Aki's visions into sounds. Sometimes he requests something that's challenging, more so on conceptual level than technical, but usually once you hear it, you get it, and it's beautiful. You see, Aki the composer is the architect and we, including Aki the bassist, are the craftsmen who actually make his dream reality through our own skills and creativity.

I'm very glad and proud to have Aki and The Archi-tet on this show and I know I will have a blast. And I know that you will enjoy his fantastic tunes, too!

MUSOH and its concept

As I have been announcing everywhere, we are throwing a double-bill show entitled "JAZZ... MAKE IT A DOUBLE" on October 22nd at The Triad.

On this show, I am reintroducing my "electro-acoustic" quartet format of guitar, keyboards, bass and drums, which I originally formed in 2005 and wrote a bunch of pieces for. Soon after I started playing with completely acoustic quartet featuring a saxophone in front, mainly because the owner of the club that I used to play gigs insisted that he wanted a horn in the band.

It actually worked out pretty well and made some solid musical statements. Some tunes that I originally wrote for the "electro-acoustic" quartet ended up being recorded with the acoustic quartet for my album Living Together. And I've written some more tunes specifically for the format that I would like to record some time in the future. My gratitude to all the horn players who have played my music and made a lot of contribution, especially saxophonist Sean Nowell.

But now, I would like to go back to my original concept, a fine blend of electric and acoustic, symbolically representing civilization and nature, and give it some time to develop. It has cultural and conceptual significance to me, perhaps because I am a Japanese native and it is an important theme for me to seek a well-balanced way of living in today's world that is losing its balance. I am not a lohas guru who would preach you how to live a sustainable life, and I am not that disciplined myself. But still, the idea of living in harmony with nature, rather than against it, is something I naturally cherish and would like to promote.

With this new project MUSOH, I would like to further explore the band sound that carries the best of both worlds. Color, texture and power of electric meet airiness, directness and warmth of acoustic. They all are going to live together, breathe together and make music together. I look forward to delivering this beauty to you.

I don't think when I listen

It was summer of 1996 and during my first semester at Berklee College of Music.
Some of my friends and I went to see an outdoor concert, I don't really remember which one, I saw many, many concerts that summer.
After the show, on our way back to the dorm, one guy asked me something which struck me as a really odd question.

He asked me, "so, what did you think?"

"Think?" I replied. "Think about what?"

"You know, what they were doing on stage... I'm not sure if I understood them... did you get it? I want to know what was going on."

"You were just there, weren't you? You experienced the whole thing as I did. You know what was going on."

Of course, being a music student, he wanted to be able to analyze the music to pieces and that's what the question was all about, but since I wasn't listening to the music that way, I couldn't satisfy his academic curiosity. Well, being a first semester student, I couldn't have been much of help for him anyway, but that's not really important. The point is, I would still answer him the same way today.

I think that was the first time someone asked me to share my analysis of a concert that I'd just seen. Over the years, I've learned that it is something a lot of musicians do - analyze what they hear and put it into words as they listen. And I believe they are missing so much by doing that.

It's not that I can't analyze it, just for the record, and I do when I have to - when I sit down and study music, I do. But definitely not when I'm enjoying music in the audience.

It is especially disturbing when someone whispers to me while a tune is being played and goes, "hey, what time signature is this?" Truth is, I don't count when I listen to music. I don't try to figure out the scale the saxophonist is playing. I don't care what kind of voicing the pianist is using. And I don't want to describe or explain what's going on. I just want to absorb the entire event as it is. When you allow yourself to take it in as a whole, you know what's going on. And the whole experience leaves something in you. A feeling, an emotion, something you cannot put into words. That's the gem, that's the magic.

I don't think while I listen to music. When you listen to music, you don't have to describe anything with words (unless that's your job). In fact, even a million words won't add up to that beautiful single note you just heard, so why bother?

About This Blog

Welcome to the MUSOH BLOG!

Here’s my dilemma. My native language is Japanese and it is certainly easier for me to write things in Japanese. The deeper and more complicated the subjects are, the harder it gets to put them down in English. However, Japanese writings would become nothing but noises to non-Japanese readers and that could be annoying.

On the other hand, English texts might alienate some Japanese readers, including my family, relatives and friends and that’s not good either. So I guess I’ll write some entries in English and some entries in Japanese. I’m not going to write every entry in both languages, for I simply don’t have time. You might miss out some stories and my hilarious jokes (yeah…), but I’ll try to write enough materials to entertain you. We’ll see.

I’m excited about my new project and the upcoming show, so I’ll be writing about that for the next month and a half or so for sure.
Stay tuned!