Kazuo Imai
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Kazuo Imai
is a Tokyo-based guitarist who plays in a rigorous and original free improvisation idiom. His music joins the rigour and texture of contemporary classical with the passion of free jazz. He has played with many Western and Japanese improvisers, including Lee Konitz, Barre Phillips, Arthur Doyle, Han Bennink, Irene Schweizer, Shuichi Chino, Tetsu Saitoh and Kazue Sawai. In addition to playing solo and in collaborations, Imai is also a member of the important collective improvisation group Marginal Consort. As well as guitar, Imai also plays viola da gamba. History Born in Kawasaki in 1955, Imai studied with two of post-war Japan's leading musical iconoclasts, Takehisa Kosugi and Masayuki Takayanagi. Imai studied under Kosugi at the Bigakko art school from 1975, and as a graduation project he participated in the East Bionic Symphonia collective improvisation performance and recording. Kosugi invited Imai to play with his well-known mixed media In visual art, mixed media des ...
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Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 million residents ; the city proper has a population of 13.99 million people. Located at the head of Tokyo Bay, the prefecture forms part of the Kantō region on the central coast of Honshu, Japan's largest island. Tokyo serves as Japan's economic center and is the seat of both the Japanese government and the Emperor of Japan. Originally a fishing village named Edo, the city became politically prominent in 1603, when it became the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate. By the mid-18th century, Edo was one of the most populous cities in the world with a population of over one million people. Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the imperial capital in Kyoto was moved to Edo, which was renamed "Tokyo" (). Tokyo was devastate ...
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Viola Da Gamba
The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch of each of the strings. Frets on the viol are usually made of gut, tied on the fingerboard around the instrument's neck, to enable the performer to stop the strings more cleanly. Frets improve consistency of intonation and lend the stopped notes a tone that better matches the open strings. Viols first appeared in Spain in the mid-to-late 15th century, and were most popular in the Renaissance and Baroque (1600–1750) periods. Early ancestors include the Arabic ''rebab'' and the medieval European vielle,Otterstedt, Annette. ''The Viol: History of an Instrument. ''Kassel: Barenreiter;-Verlag Karl Votterle GmbH & Co; 2002. but later, more direct possible ancestors include the Venetian ''viole'' and the 15th- and 16th-century Spanish ''vihuel ...
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Living People
Related categories * :Year of birth missing (living people) / :Year of birth unknown * :Date of birth missing (living people) / :Date of birth unknown * :Place of birth missing (living people) / :Place of birth unknown * :Year of death missing / :Year of death unknown * :Date of death missing / :Date of death unknown * :Place of death missing / :Place of death unknown * :Missing middle or first names See also * :Dead people * :Template:L, which generates this category or death years, and birth year and sort keys. : {{DEFAULTSORT:Living people 21st-century people People by status ...
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1955 Births
Events January * January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama. * January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut. * January 18– 20 – Battle of Yijiangshan Islands: The Chinese Communist People's Liberation Army seizes the islands from the Republic of China (Taiwan). * January 22 – In the United States, The Pentagon announces a plan to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), armed with nuclear weapons. * January 23 – The Sutton Coldfield rail crash kills 17, near Birmingham, England. * January 25 – The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union announces the end of the war between the USSR and Germany, which began during World War II in 1941. * January 28 – The United States Congress authorizes President Dwight D. Eisenhower to use force to protect Formosa from the People's Republic of China. February * February 10 – The United States Sev ...
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Japanese Guitarists
Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspora, Japanese emigrants and their descendants around the world * Japanese citizens, nationals of Japan under Japanese nationality law ** Foreign-born Japanese, naturalized citizens of Japan * Japanese writing system, consisting of kanji and kana * Japanese cuisine, the food and food culture of Japan See also * List of Japanese people * * Japonica (other) * Japonicum * Japonicus * Japanese studies Japanese studies ( Japanese: ) or Japan studies (sometimes Japanology in Europe), is a sub-field of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on Japan. It incorporates fields such as the study of Japan ... {{disambiguation Language and nationality disambiguation pages ...
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Taj Mahal Travellers
The Taj Mahal Travellers (also given variously as Taj Mahal Travelers, Taj-Mahal Travellers, etc.) were a Japanese experimental music ensemble founded in 1969 by former Group Ongaku leader and Fluxus member Takehisa Kosugi. The rest of the group were several years younger than Kosugi, and were all inspired by the spirit of the day. They chose mainly to perform their music outdoors, often on beaches and hilltops, creating spontaneously improvised drones (compare with Dronology), often using standard musical instruments, albeit in unconventional ways (e.g., a bowed double bass placed flat on its back). The group's sound was heavily reliant on electronic processing, particularly delay effects. Personnel * Takehisa Kosugi: electric violin, harmonica, voice etc. * Ryo Koike: electric double bass, santur, voice, etc. * Yukio Tsuchiya: tuba, percussion, etc. * Seiji Nagai: trumpet, Mini-Korg synthesizer, tympani, etc. * Michihiro Kimura: voice, percussion, mandolin, etc. * Tokio H ...
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Mixed Media
In visual art, mixed media describes artwork in which more than one medium or material has been employed. Assemblages, collages, and sculpture are three common examples of art using different media. Materials used to create mixed media art include, but are not limited to, paint, cloth, paper, wood and found objects. Mixed media art is distinguished from multimedia art which combines visual art with non-visual elements, such as recorded sound, literature, drama, dance, motion graphics, music, or interactivity. History of mixed media The first modern artwork to be considered mixed media is Pablo Picasso's 1912 collage ''Still Life with Chair Caning'', which used paper, cloth, paint and rope to create a pseudo-3D effect. The influence of movements like Cubism and Dada contributed to the mixed media's growth in popularity throughout the 20th century with artists like Henri Matisse, Joseph Cornell, Jean Dubuffet, and Ellsworth Kelly adopting it. This led to further innovations ...
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East Bionic Symphonia
East Bionic Symphonia were a group of improvisers and artists who studied together under Takehisa Kosugi at the Bigakko artschool in Tokyo in the mid-1970s. As a graduation project they recorded an album of free improvisation that was edited by Kosugi and released on the ALM Records label in 1976. Several of the members went on to have careers in underground music and the visual arts. The remnants of the group reconvened in 1997 under the name Marginal Consort and continue to play annually. The original members were Kazuo Imai, Kaoru Okabe, Yasushi Ozawa (1958February 2, 2008) was a Japanese musician and sound engineer, best known as the bassist in Keiji Haino's rock group Fushitsusha. He was also a member of the free improvisation group Marginal Consort, and in the past he played with East Bion ..., Tomonao Koshikawa, Hiroshi Shii, Masami Tada, Tatsuo Hattori, Kazuaki Hamada, Masaharu Minegishi, & Chie Mukai. Discography ''East Bionic Symphonia'' LP/cassette (ALM Record ...
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Masayuki Takayanagi
was a Japanese jazz / free improvisation / noise musician. He was active in the Japanese jazz scene from the late 1950s. In the 1960s he formed New Directions (later New Direction Unit), which recorded several albums throughout the 1970s. He also recorded several albums with saxophonist Kaoru Abe, including ''Kaitai Teki Kohkan'', ''Gradually Projection'' and ''Mass Projection''. For most of his career, Takayanagi played a 1963 Gibson ES-175. Discography As leader/co-leader * ' ( TBM, 1972) - live recorded 1963 * ''Flower Girl'' (Jinya Disc, 1968) * ''Independence: Tread On Sure Ground'' (Tiliqua, 1970) * ''Call In Question'' (PSF, 1994) - recorded 1970 * ''Live Independence'' (PSF, 1970) * ''A Jazzy Profile of Jojo'' (Victor,I1970) * ''Kaitai Teki Kohkan'' with Kaoru Abe (Sound Creators, 1970) * ''Mass Projection'' with Kaoru Abe (DIW, 1970) * ''Gradually Projection'' with Kaoru Abe (DIW, 1970) * ''Complete "La Grima"'' (1971) – live * ''Free Form Suite'' (TBM, 1972) * ''Ec ...
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Takehisa Kosugi
was a Japanese composer, violinist and artist associated with the Fluxus movement. Biography Kosugi studied musicology at the Tokyo University of the Arts and graduated in 1962. He first became drawn to music listening to his father play harmonica and listening to violin recordings of Mischa Elman and Joseph Szigeti while as a child in post-war Japan.https://ikon-gallery.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Takehisa-Kosugi-SPACINGS-Ikon-22-July-–-27-September-2015.pdf Later influences as a university student include 1950s musical experimentation occurring in Europe and the US. He was also influenced by jazz, citing Charlie Parker’s "spontaneity and freedom." Simultaneously, traditional Japanese music and Noh theater informed his music education, particularly the concept in Noh of "ma" which denotes the empty spaces between sounds. In 1963, he assisted on the soundtrack for the Japanese animation television show ''Tetsuwan Atomu'', or, ''Astro Boy''. Kosugi is probably best k ...
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Marginal Consort
Marginal Consort is a Japanese collective/ free improvisation group made of sound and visual artists, who have played one concert annually since 1997. The group originally grew out of the East Bionic Symphonia, who recorded one album in 1976. The members are Kazuo Imai (今井和雄), Yasushi Ozawa (小沢靖) (also a member of Fushitsusha Fushitsusha (不失者) is a Japanese rock band specialising in experimental and psychedelic rock genres. The band consists of electric guitarist and singer Keiji Haino, and a shifting cast of complementary musicians. The group released the majo ...), Tomonao Koshikawa (越川知尚), Kei Shii (椎啓), and Masami Tada (多田正美). Chie Mukai participated in the first two concerts, but no longer plays with the group. Discography *''East Bionic Symphonia'' (Kojima, 1976) *''Collective Improvisation'' (PSF, 1998) *''Marginal Consort'' 4CD (Improvised Music from Japan, 2007) * ''Glasgow 17th Feb 2008'' 4LP (PAN, 2013) References Kazuo ...
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