L to r: Peter Brötzmann, Michiyo Yagi and Paal Nilssen-Love

You won’t see them on MTV or hear them in
a Toyota commercial, and they’re unlikely to be found on playlists alongside SMAP and Ayumi Hamasaki. But scratch underneath the commercial dreck of Japan’s mainstream music culture and there lurks a stunning diversity of musicians representing a marvelously vital welter of intriguing musical styles.

For cognoscenti of jazz, experimental and improvised music, Tokyo happens to be one of the best cities in the world. And over the next week, fans will be treated to a mini-festival bringing together some of the more notable players from the scene in the appropriately named Tokyo Conflux.

The event is the brainchild of veteran Tokyo music columnist and producer Mark Rappaport. Popular Scandinavian garage-jazz trio The Thing (Mats Gustafsson, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, Paal Nilssen-Love) had played a couple of raucous gigs in Tokyo last year, and asked Rappaport to book them in Tokyo with probing US reedman Ken Vandermark as guest. “Peter Brötzmann was also free around the same time and agreed to fly in,” explains the affable, bear-like Rappaport about the German free jazz sax player. “[Avant-garde koto player] Michiyo Yagi, whom I manage and produce, was happy to join up. To this core roster we added several wonderful friends and—voilà!—we had a mini-festival.”

Filling out the bill on the domestic end are storied Tokyo experimental rock and improv figure Keiji Haino; Chicago post-rock producer, guitarist, onetime member of Sonic Youth (and current Tokyo resident) Jim O’Rourke; and powerhouse drummer Nori Tanaka, himself just returned from a decade in Chicago.

Ken Vandermark

Juan Carlos Hernandez

The program sprawls over three venues: the intimate Koen Dori Classics basement hall in Shibuya, legendary jazz club Pit Inn in Shinjuku, and hip Roppongi events space SuperDeluxe. The nine musicians will form groups (mostly trios) and then split off into yet different arrangements, making for five nights of unpredictable musical results. “It wasn’t a conscious decision to mostly feature trios,” Rappaport says. “But perhaps in improvised music, ‘Three’s company, four can be a crowd.’”
Today’s improv styles aren’t for the faint of heart, but for those willing to push their ears beyond the comfort zone, the festival should prove rewarding.

“I hope that won’t scare off some of our more composition-oriented listeners,” Rappaport offers. “It goes without saying that each of these musicians have a unique sound and ‘play their own music,’ but it’s also true that the existing trios have very distinct personalities. There’ll be plenty of energetic music, but there’ll also be lots of grooving and melodic playing, abstract ambience, astounding displays of extended techniques—you name it!”

The Thing

Tokyo Conflux looks to provide a distinct counterpoint to the recent Tokyo Jazz festival, which with its outstanding but predictable lineup catered to the mainstream jazz orthodoxy. “This city desperately needs a stylistically diverse, truly inclusive, international jazz festival based on the European model,” Rappaport says. “Whatever NHK’s Tokyo Jazz may be, it ain’t that.”
“There are many fine improvising musicians in Tokyo—not just jazz musicians, but idiomatic improvisers in rock and other music too,” he notes, pointing to the marginalization of the nonmainstream scene. “But few of them can make a living without doing other stuff: session work, accompanying pop musicians, teaching, etc.”

To make Tokyo Conflux as accessible as possible, Rappaport is offering tickets at prices that are roughly half what one might pay at the Blue Note or Billboard Live. “We have no corporate or government sponsors, and all of our overseas participants are coming to Japan on their own money, mileage or whatever support they may have been able to scrounge up in their respective countries,” he explains. “Food and hotel costs, as well as expenses for flyers and local transport, come out of tickets and door fees, which, if I may say so, are pretty cheap by current Japanese standards. We wanted to make sure that these shows would be affordable for younger fans, and many of them can’t afford to pay ¥7,000-¥8,000 per show several nights running.”

“So, why are we doing this?” he asks rhetorically. “I can only answer for myself: because it’s fun, and because the music is going to be great.”

Koen Dori Classics, Pit Inn and SuperDeluxe, Sep 21-25. See concert listings (jazz/world) for details.

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