More magic from the Salt Road. Hovering in between the space of other Awa Muse alumni comes another one from the East, from Osaka to be precise, Kosei Yamamoto’s East Ward. Hard to pinpoint, East Ward, focuses on a fourth world-esque blend of Japanese ambient New Age and jazz. And much like the works of Akira Sakata and Toshiyuki Honda, Kosei has very loose ties to what his role as a saxophonist should be, preferring to tread his own path, one that takes him further away from all its typical typecasting. It’s exactly that exploration of Kosei Yamamoto’s ties to Japan, nature, and experimentation (rather than any specific idea or instrument) that forms the spirit behind East Ward.
Kosei Yamamoto, was that rare bird, a Japanese New Age musician who had his releases crossover (and in fact) come into their own in the “Western” sphere. From his native Osaka, in post WWII Japan, Kosei transitioned from piano to sax, after growing up listening to American jazz radio. By the time he made his professional debut in 1968, Kosei had become involved in Japan’s more overtly experimental jazz scene.
In the years prior to signing with Germany’s Innovative Communication label, Kosei had started to shift his sound towards a more nebulous place. Performing with Japanese and Korean court music ensembles introduced him to other instruments and techniques he could apply to his own sax. Likewise, the introduction of other folk instruments into his vocabulary fleshed out the kind of music he thought he could create.
Oscillating between the traditional world and another world introduced to him, via his role as film composer, allowed Kosei to not think of traditional influences as separate from modernity. In time, Kosei would find himself performing with others like R. Carlos Nakai and Haruomi Hosono who were discovering that same Zen-like balance in their own music.
East Ward still sounds fascinating because it floats above a whole bunch of signifiers. In it I hear fusion jazz, krautrock, minimalism, and slippery ambient touches take on airs of Japanese-influenced melodicism. Rather than just stay completely smooth, as a lot of the Innovative Communication stuff gravitated to around this era, Kosei and his special band (made up of what would be future members of the Wind Travelin’ Band) bring some welcome complexity and heaviness to what some might on the face of it call a too weightless, Japanese New Age scene.
Tracks like “Fish” and “So-Fu-Ren” appear like kindred spirits to the music of Killing Time. “Pheasant” and “Rumbling Field” skirt the line of minimalist jazz, “ethno-jazz”, and Harmonia-like electronica. “Stream” and “Die Schneekönigin” are gorgeous meditations that are exactly that, unmoored ensemble ideas that speak to Kosei’s homeland but have enough shifts to welcome other audiences on different terms. Rather than just strike songs to solo his sax over, Kosei introduces all these other flavors — woodwinds, guitar, drums, sampler… — and does so in a way that feels and sounds natural.
Just wonderfully melodic, glossy, and textured just enough on the edges — Kosei Yamamoto’s debut, much like Hiroki Okano’s on the same label, remains this gorgeous, pastoral, mercurial masterpiece, that somehow (for a small German audience then) cracked opened a crease into this world we’re only now rediscovering.