Kazuo Imai
Go Home and Go to Bed!!!
*250 copies limited edition* Tenor saxophone player Junji Hirose and guitarist Kazuo Imai, both Tokyo residents born in 1955, are two of Japan’s representative improvisers. Revered musicians who have long been leading Japan’s improvised music scene, they continue to carry out a wide range of performance activities with tireless energy. Their collaborative recording "Be Quiet!!!," a trio CD with drummer Darren Moore, was released on the Meenna label in April 2023. One year later, their new duo al…
Be Quiet!!!
Sax player Junji Hirose and guitarist Kazuo Imai, both Tokyo residents born in 1955, are renowned Japanese improvisers who have long propelled the country’s improvised music scene. Australian drummer Darren Moore, who is currently based in Singapore, carries on his performance activity while also teaching at Lasalle College of the Arts.
Darren Moore lived in Tokyo for several years in the mid-2010s. Since then he has often visited the country and performed with Japanese musicians. In 2022 he cam…
Far And Wee
Black Editions present a reissue of Kazuo Imai's far and wee, originally released in 2004. Kazuo Imai is one of the few artists to traverse both Japan's early avant-garde and free jazz movements. Though he began performing in the 1970s, his 2004 P.S.F. album far and wee was only the second under his name. In a series of thrilling acoustic guitar improvisations -- Imai's playing crackles with dynamic tension and physicality as well as a subtlety and nuance that reveals him as one of the instrumen…
Molecules
Limited edition of 400. This masterful performance was born of the meeting of two master improvisers, Kazuo Imai from Japan and Roger Turner from the UK. Imai, who studied with Masayuki Takayanagi and Takehisa Kosugi, is one of Japan's leading improvisers and guitarists. Turner is a drummer and percussionist who has been actively performing throughout the world since the beginning of the 1970s. His Japan tour in October 2017 included concerts with Japanese musicians in various locations, includi…
For Tentou Mishima
Kazuo Imai (born in 1955) studied with Masayuki Takayanagi and Takehisa Kosugi, and has been performing improvised music since the 1970s. While his principal instrument is the guitar, he also makes extensive use of viola da gamba, electronics, everyday items and natural objects, freely performing music born of myriad sounds. This album is comprised of five pieces from Imai’s live performance on the final day of a solo exhibition by graphic artist Tentou Mishima (who died in 2012), held at the ga…