Improvised Music from Japan / Kazuo Imai

Liner Notes of the CD
Marginal Consort: Collective Improvisation

Kazuo Imai

Free improvised music is an expressive form that is both primitive, and honest enough to convey musicians' feelings and ideas with great immediacy. However, solo performances--which are meant to be comletely free and spontaneous--are formed like finished works or compositions, because solo performance is a self-sufficient, individual activity. On the other hand, in collective improvisation--in which it is a given that the musicians share a time and location--several separate improvisations occur at the same time. The sounds played by each musician swerve away from, overlap and repel one another so that a variety of accidents are produced. Thus, sound forms are created in group improvisation which cannot be created by an individual musician. In much of the improvised music that one hears, the players constantly react with and against one another's sounds. Our group improvisation is different: each musician simply exists, as a part of the coming-and-going sound flow, the end result being a total sound object. This CD is an excerpt of a live performance which lasted for four hours. Although it is best to experience the music live in the concert venue, I hope this recording will be appreciated and enjoyed as a document of our performance.