Masahiko Togashi

 

Here's a pretty recent discovery of mine. Masahiko Togashi was one of the most singular Japanese Free Jazz musicians. Drummers/Composers/Band Leaders are quite rare to come by. At a certain point of his carrer, having lost his legs mobility, instead of giving up, he adapted a new playing style, one that I haven't really heard like before. You'd imagine that, as part of the rhythm section, the drums should mostly be the backbone of the song and occasionally, given the space, show off a little, right? Well, Togashi didn't think so. His playing style is pretty percurssive (adding many different/unusual pieces to his kit) but it's always filling up the empty spaces left by the main rhythm (usually played by the bass or the other percussionists in the group). It's really all over the place, but with a sense of structure. Here's a couple of his 70's albums that I really vibe with:

Guild for Human Music

The Guild is quite the large group, with 9 members, including Togashi himself and another Masahiko, Satoh, also an important player in the Japanese Free Jazz scene. All the song follow a similar pattern: The bass plays a near constant loop/phrase (or "vamp" if you're one of the cool cats), the winds play some theme, some solo, repeat. All the while, the percussion is just going wild, following everybody, playing all kinds of fills and rolls, and with 3 percussionists, it's kinda hard to tell who is playing exactly what. 6 songs titled "Expression" (First Expression, Second Expression, etc.), the only one that goes against this pattern is the fifth, which falls into a more traditional Bop/Free territory, with fewer players, where you can here Togashi really shinning on his own behind the kit. Yes, it's Free, many freak-out moments, but it's well structured, meticulously crafted, each instrument/player comes in their right time, when they're supposed to.

Canto of Aries

This one is with an even larger group. Togashi plays a piece composed and arranged by himself with Toshiyuki Miyama & The New Herd, a Big Band that played all different sorts of Jazz. More sparse (and with Classical influences, I feel) than Guild [...], but not free of freak-outs. Some recognizable, recurrent structure too: some build-up, theme, the group doing the typical Big Band hits, some collective improv, then an unaccompanied solo. It's divided in 5 "Cantos", but it all plays as a whole thing. The very last "Canto" features the unaccompanied percussion solo by the man himself, just a great euphoric finale for this piece that just sounds as temperamental as an actual aries.

Enter the guild, hear the cantos