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Masabumi Kikuchi – Black Orpheus | Noch ein Nachzügler, das letzte Solokonzert von Masabumi Kikuchi, 26. Oktober 2012 in Tokyo, veröffentlicht im April 2016, ein Dreivierteljahr nach seinem Tod.
Soon enough Masabumi would distance himself from all previous influences. At this point something truly personal and unquestionably Japanese seemed to manifest in his art: Distant, sublte, precise, opaque.
He kept on this path, mostly with Paul [Motian], who was just about the only major leader who hired him. Motian’s imprimatur eventually led to Masabumi’s first superb ECM record Sunrise with Motian and Thomas Morgan.
After Motian died, it was probably only a matter of time before Masabumi left as well. He was unsuited to contemporary musical life in New York City without a protector. Masabumi was a troubled, combative personality. A real old-school egocentrical 20th-century artist of the highest order. I was one of several who that tried to help out, but he was determined to be his own man, even if it meant burning bridge after bridge after bridge. He once told me, „I’ve offended everybody and I’m completely broke. It’s very interesting to be an artist.
(aus den Liner Notes von Ethan Iverson)
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #165: 9.9., 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba