Steve Lacy, born Steven Norman Lackritz in New York City, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer recognized as one of the important players of soprano saxophone. Coming to prominence in the 1950s as a progressive dixieland musician, Lacy went on to a long and prolific career. He worked extensively in experimental jazz and to a lesser extent in free improvisation, but Lacy's music was typically melodic and tightly-structured. Lacy also became a highly distinctive composer, with compositions often built out of little more than a single questioning phrase, repeated several times.
Derek Bailey was an English avant-garde guitarist and figure in the free improvisation movement. Bailey abandoned conventional ideas and techniques of jazz and music. He emphasized atonality, noise, and whatever unusual sounds he could produce with an electric guitar. Much of his work was released by Incus, a record label he owned.
David Sylvian is an English singer-songwriter and musician who came to prominence in the late 1970s as frontman of the band Japan. The band's androgynous look and increasingly electronic sound made them an important influence on the UK's early-1980s New Romantic scene. Following their breakup, Sylvian embarked on a solo career with his debut album Brilliant Trees (1984). His solo work has been described by AllMusic as "far-ranging and esoteric," and has included collaborations with artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Robert Fripp, Holger Czukay, and Fennesz.
Otomo Yoshihide is a Japanese composer and multi-instrumentalist. He plays guitar, turntables, and electronics.
Improvised Music from Japan is a website and record label.
Han Bennink is a Dutch jazz drummer and percussionist. On occasion his recordings have featured him playing clarinet, violin, banjo and piano.
Albert Mangelsdorff was a German jazz trombonist. Working mainly in free jazz, he was recognized as an innovator who became famous for his use of multiphonics.
Barre Phillips is a jazz bassist. A professional musician since 1960, he migrated to New York City in 1962, then to Europe in 1967. Since 1972 he has been based in southern France where in 2014 he founded the European Improvisation Center.
Michiyo Yagi, a Japanese musician, studied koto under Tadao Sawai, Kazue Sawai and Satomi Kurauchi, and graduated from the NHK Professional Training School for Traditional Musicians. Between 1989 and 1990, during her tenure as Visiting Professor of Music at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, U.S.A., she premiered numerous modern compositions for koto and came under the influence of maverick American composers such as John Cage, Conlon Nancarrow, and John Zorn. Her solo koto CD Shizuku was produced by Zorn and released on the Tzadik label in 1999. In 2001 she recorded "Yural" with her koto ensemble Paulownia Crush for the East Works label. Under the auspices of the Japan Foundation, Yagi toured Russia with this ensemble in the fall of 2004.
Joëlle Léandre is a double bassist, vocalist, and composer active in new music and free improvisation.
Chie Mukai is a female Japanese composer and musician, best known for her underground improv-folk group Ché-SHIZU. She has been involved in improvised performance since 1975, when she participated in the East Bionic Symphonia group, a graduation project for students of Takehisa Kosugi at the Bigakko art school in Tokyo. Her primary instrument is the bowed Chinese er-hu, although she is also a vocalist, and plays piano and percussion. Every year she organizes the Perspective Emotion mixed media arts festival in Tokyo. She has been frequently collaborating with Kenya Kawaguchi, Masayoshi Urabe, Seiichi Yamamoto since 2010.
Motoharu Yoshizawa (吉沢元治) was an influential Japanese bassist known for playing in a distinctive free jazz and free improvisation style, sometimes deploying electronics and using the unusual self-designed five-string bass he referred to as the "Tiritack".
Yoshizawa collaborated with innumerable musicians over his long career; some of the better known include Masayuki Takayanagi, Masahiko Togashi, Takehisa Kosugi, Mototeru Takagi, Kaoru Abe, Steve Lacy, Dave Burrell, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Barre Phillips, Butch Morris, Elliott Sharp, Ikue Mori, Keiji Haino, Kan Mikami, Kazuki Tomokawa, Christopher Yohmei Blasdel & Tenko.
Marginal Consort is a Japanese collective/free improvisation group made of sound and visual artists, who have played one concert annually since 1997. The group originally grew out of the East Bionic Symphonia, who recorded one album in 1976. The members are Kazuo Imai (今井和雄), Yasushi Ozawa (小沢靖), Tomonao Koshikawa (越川知尚), Kei Shii (椎啓), and Masami Tada (多田正美). Chie Mukai participated in the first two concerts, but no longer plays with the group.
Yasushi Ozawa (1958–2008) was a Japanese musician and sound engineer, best known as the bassist in Keiji Haino's rock group Fushitsusha. He was also a member of the free improvisation group Marginal Consort, and in the past he played with East Bionic Symphonia and Machine-Gun Tango.
Roger Turner is an English jazz percussionist. He plays the drumset, drums, and various percussion, and was brought up into the jazz and visual art cultures inhabited by his older brothers, playing drums from childhood in informal jazz contexts.
Ayuo Takahashi is a Japanese-American composer, poet, lyricist, singer and performer of plucked string instruments including guitar, bouzouki, Irish harp, Chinese zheng, Japanese koto,and medieval European psaltery. He is adept at adapting the ancient music of Japan, China, Persia, Greece and medieval Europe to create a new and original music without abandoning their strict forms, while simultaneously making them relevant to contemporary music styles. He has composed for classical ensembles including string quartets, piano, various chamber ensembles and orchestra, as well as composed, produced and performed with rock, jazz and musicians of various traditional music from around the world. He has also composed many music theater pieces, some of which has been released on CD in the United States and Japan.
Yoshisaburo "Sabu" Toyozumi is one of the small group of musical pioneers who comprised the first generation playing free improvisation music in Japan. As an improvising drummer he played and recorded with many of the key figures in Japanese free music including the two principal figures in the first generation, Masayuki Takayanagi and Kaoru Abe from the late 1960s onwards. He is one of a very few of this circle who are still alive and engaged in playing this music today.
Gallery MORYTA is a gallery located in Fukuoka, Japan. Established in 1991, its focus lies on contemporary art. Numerous exhibitions are held every year, with works by artists like Tatsuo Ikeda, Ryosuke Yasumoto, Season Lao and Aki Mitsugi. The gallery is a cultural hub, hosting events such as live music shows and artist' talks. The ART FAIR ASIA FUKUOKA, held yearly, is one of its initiatives. The gallery participates in fairs in both Japan and overseas.
