Funny Rat

Improvised Music from Japan, IMJ-512
Released in October 2003
Purchase price in Japan: 2,000 yen (tax not included)
(For purchase outside of Japan, prices vary.)

• Recorded live by Tsutomu Suto (morgue-sha) at Aku Aku, Tsukuba, on October 10, 1991
• Mastered by Tsutomu Suto on June 21, 2003
• Produced by Shoji Hano
• Packaged in a cardboard jacket
• Design by Samm Bennett and Haruna Ito (Polarity Design)
• Originally released on cassette tape by EGG Records (EGG 89002) in 1992 (except track 4, released here for the first time)

1. Funny Rat 1 (24:42)
2. Snake and Sheep (11:16)
3. We All Like Mountain Rabbit (18:12)
4. Funny Rat 3 (5:47)
5. Funny Rat 2 (12:21)
   
   mp3 excerpt: track 3

Peter Brötzmann: tarogato, bass clarinet, tenor sax
Shoji Hano: drums, percussion

Free jazz drummer Shoji Hano and German saxophone giant/leading European free improviser Peter Brötzmann first met in Japan in the early eighties. In 1990 Hano went to Europe for the first time and played with Brötzmann; then he invited Brötzmann to Japan for a duo tour in fall '91. This album is the complete recording of a concert they gave during that tour, at Aku Aku in Tsukuba. In '92 Hano released (on his label EGG) a cassette tape of that performance, with the same title, omitting one of the pieces played in the concert. The omitted number is restored on this CD release (track four), making for a total of five pieces. Since that tour Hano and Brötzmann have continued to play together frequently. This valuable recording captures the powerful collaboration of that early period.

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