Akira Sakata & Takeo Moriyama - Mitochondria / 2CD set

Recorded at Kashiwa Church Chiba Pref., Japan on 24 May 1986 by Yukio Tezuka on stereo cassette recorder.

Mitochondria is a spectacular, historic live recording of two forefathers of the Japanese free jazz and free music scene - clarinet and alto sax player Akira Sakata (known from the Arashi Trio with Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love and Swedish bassist Johan Berthling) and drummer Takeo Moriyama, who like, Sakata, collaborated, among many others, with Peter Brötzmann. This double album was recorded at Kashiwa Church in Chiba Prefecture in May 1986 on Sony stereo cassette recorder, and for its release was mixed by Jim O’Rourke (who collaborated with Sakata as a duo and as a quartet with Chikamorachi), mastered by Martin Siewert (of Radian), designed by Lasse Marhaug, and features the insightful liner notes were written by Kazue Yokoi from Jazz Tokyo, who saw them playing live in many occasions.

Sakata and Moriyama played together in the singular, influential trio of pianist Yosuke Yamashita, one of the pioneers of Japanese free jazz, from 1972 to 1975, when this trio took Europe by storm. The Yamashita Trio stressed its own original sensibility of free music, characterized by eruptive, overwhelming energy spiced with a strong political vibe that reflected the student movement era, quite different from the American or European free jazz or free music of this time (check, for example, the Yamashita Trio’s Clay, Enja, 1974, recorded at Moers Festival in Germany). This period of the Yamashita Trio is considered as its golden age, and an important step in the development of Sakata and Moriyama’s careers and musicianship. Moriyama left the trio in 1975 and Sakata in 1979.

The reunion performance of Sakata and Moriyama, now as a piano-less duo, unconstrained by chords, allowed these two young masters greater degrees of freedom. Moriyama has perfected his distinctive style of drumming, which involved the random strike of the 2 and 3, in quintuplets, and together with the velocity with which these hits were rendered, offered him a freeform impression, still grounded by a sense of powerful groove. Sakata was a devotee of free jazz, known for his energetic drive. Both Sakata and Moriyama knew how to draw the essential elements of each other to benefit this ecstatic performance.

https://www.freejazzblog.org/2022/02/akira-sakata-takeo-moriyama.html