About

TAV ESSENTIAL LISTENING

Avant-garde / Expression / Highly Reccomended

Masayuki 'Jojo' Takayanagi (高柳昌行) (December 22, 1932 – June 23, 1991) 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. – Wiki

I've long suspected that there had to be a musician somewhere who'd been irrevocably changed by 'Free Form Guitar', that gristly slab of blaring soundmeat which sits smack in the middle of the (otherwise largely mom-safe) deluxe double platter Chicago Transit Authority. Terry Kath hardly invented atonal free improv, sure, but his contribution to the form is a damn sight easier to stumble across than Sonny Sharrock or Derek Bailey, and doubly so back then. Surely, someone must have been touched.

Well, cancel the search: word is, the late Japanese guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi is just the Kath-man I've had in mind. Previously a virtuosic Lennie Tristano devotee, ‘Free Form Guitar’ was the forceful hand that made Takayanagi turn his back on cool jazz in favour of high-lickin' freakout fires. – The Quietus