ALBUM "Conception"
Released from Gut String Records and ITI Music
BUY NOW
|
|
Liner Notes
Music, the raw material of jazz, is not inherently jazzy. Textbooks slice it up, often describing jazz as “ornaments”. Stringing these ornaments, like jewels on a necklace, makes jazz. Well, you will not find any of that on this recording. Ai Murakami’s Conception is quite different. The musicians here do not select notes as pearls for stringing, and do not deal with preexisting ornaments as puzzle parts. Rather, they are real people in a concrete situation. Their notes are direct and immediate expressions of their hopes and wishes, doubts and hesitations, at the moment of playing. There is only this process, only this music, I know.
The essentials of this process have been completely internalized by each member of Ai Murakami's band. Each member feels free to alter, widen, or extend their sound, but when need be, snap it back in place. That snap keeps the form and the primary characteristics of this music intact.
Ai Murakami's conception is to concentrate the sound. The notes and phrases are injected with weight through power of reference. Once laid out, meaning is pursued by probing and searching, finally, and only then, comes the great "Ah Ha" attitude of discovery. Thus, a seemingly haphazard excursion, like a reverie drifting towards its goal, suddenly becomes crystal clear.
Smalls Jazz Club Founder, Mitchell Borden
The essentials of this process have been completely internalized by each member of Ai Murakami's band. Each member feels free to alter, widen, or extend their sound, but when need be, snap it back in place. That snap keeps the form and the primary characteristics of this music intact.
Ai Murakami's conception is to concentrate the sound. The notes and phrases are injected with weight through power of reference. Once laid out, meaning is pursued by probing and searching, finally, and only then, comes the great "Ah Ha" attitude of discovery. Thus, a seemingly haphazard excursion, like a reverie drifting towards its goal, suddenly becomes crystal clear.
Smalls Jazz Club Founder, Mitchell Borden
Recorded at Zeb's, New York City on May 19, 2014
Recording Engineer: Saul Rubin
Mixing and Mastering Engineer: Katsuhiko Naito
Designer: Zoe Matthiessen
Photo: Asuka Ichikawa
