Label: Frasco – FS7014
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: Japan / Released: 1976
Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz
Recorded in live on July 9, 1976 at Casino de Montreux.
Manufactured By – Nippon Phonogram Co., Ltd.
Distributed By – Nippon Phonogram Co., Ltd.
Cover Design – Hideomi Ishikawa
Front Cover Photo – Takumi Ushida
Back Cover Photo – Yosuke Yamashita
Recording Engineering – Montreux Sounds
Re-mix Engineering – Tsuyoshi Miyasaka
Linor Notes – Hisamitsu Noguchi
Matrix / Runout (Side A, stamped): F S 7014 A I
Matrix / Runout (Side B, stamped): F S 7014 B II
side 1:
A - Ghosts ............................................................................................................... 21:30
Written-By – Albert Ayler
side 2:
B - Banslikana ......................................................................................................... 23:00
Written-By – Yosuke Yamashita
Personnel:
Yousuke Yamashita 山下洋輔– piano
Akira Sakata 坂田明– alto saxophone
Shota Koyama 小山彰太– drums, percussion
Possibly the most intense Yosuke Yamashita I've heard thus far. The cover of Ayler's Ghosts is... incredible. At one point Akira Sakata just starts screaming. The staggering expressive range of Yosuke Yamashita... an abstract landscape of geometrical disorder and rhythm whose arteries slowly congest and lead to a cacophonous fracture.
The B side, "Banslikana" quite as focused over its duration (the hugely underwhelming drum solo, particularly on the back of the rest of the album's monster drumming), the last five minutes have to be heard to be believed.
Good on Yamashita for being one of the few jazz cats to go into the second half of the 70s in a LESS accessible direction. Herbie Hancock and Weather Report and damn near everybody else had already sold their souls by this point. Yamashita kept busy on the sidelines playing shoji with demons.
Well worth finding.
If you find it, buy this album!