Yamashita Trio - Clay

Life's full of coincidence, isn't it? Yesterday I downloaded this album from the blog and listened through it. Today I dropped by a second-hand store and found it to my great surprise. If that wasn't enough, discovering that there was a scanner at work that could accommodate lp size covers was reason enough to make a post out of it. This was slipped into the comments section of the previous Yamashita trio post by pablo who digitised his own copy of the lp. No point in me replicating those worthy efforts.

Basic facts:

Side 1:
Mina's Second Theme (Yosuke Yamashita) 21:15

Side II
Mina's Second Theme (cont.)(Yosuke Yamashita) 7:35
Clay (Dedicated to Muhammad Ali) (Takeo Moriyama) 15:15

Akira Sakata - Clarinet & Altosax
Yosuke Yamashita - Piano
Takeo Moriyama - drums

Recorded June 2, 1974, live at the open-air III. New Jazz Festival in Moers, Germany

Released as Enja 2052.

Listening to this, I'm amazed at the sheer energy and stamina of these three musicians. Keeping it going at full throttle for well over 40 minutes is no mean feat and there is an intensity and an underlying sense of violence which is scenically captured in this You Tube film excerpt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD3Q060KI28

Heady stuff in other words and a source of inspiration for a younger generation mixing the in your face attitude of punk and rock with the abandonment of free impro. Perhaps no wonder that Sakata has recently played with the Scandinavian power trio The Thing. Mads Gustafson is a huge admirer, which shouldn't surprise anybody listening to these tracks.