Michael Snow + Aki Onda + Alan Licht
The unparalleled experimental filmmaker’s new and vigorous improvisation trio
Michael Snow, known as an experimental filmmaker for his masterpieces ranging from Wavelength (1967) or La Région centrale (1971) to The Living Room (2000), is also a painter, sculptor, visual artist, and on top of that, a jazz pianist who professionally debuted in the 1950s. Influenced by Jelly Roll Morton and Jimmy Yancey, he started from Dixieland and in New York, where his career as a filmmaker and visual artist flourished, he offered his studio to musicians including Paul Bley, Carla Bley, Milford Graves and Cecil Taylor for their sessions. The soundtrack of his film New York Eye and Ear Control (1964), in which he involved such musicians as Albert Ayler and Don Cherry, significantly contributed to the creation of the current of free improvisation. Thereafter, based in Toronto, Snow continued with his musical activity, which is distinguished from American and European free jazz scenes in its intelligence, humor and intuition, as a founding member of CCMC (The Canadian Creative Music Collective) and with Artists’ Jazz Band that comprised painters, sculptors and artists from any backgrounds except musicians. Although he describes his works, “My paintings are done by a filmmaker, sculpture by a musician, films by a painter, music by a filmmaker, paintings by a sculptor, sculpture by a filmmaker, films by a musician, music by a sculptor,” he never fuses genres but exposes the intrinsic quality and contradiction in each genre and has been reinvigorating our perceptions through numerous works. The musician, who has traversed the history of jazz and is at the forefront of music at the age of 85, plays in Japan for the first time in 25 years, with his trio — Snow (piano, CAT synthesizer), Aki Onda (casette recorder, electronics) and Alan Licht (guitar) — that was formed in 2005 and released Five A’s, Two C’s, One D, One E, Two H’s, Three I’s, One K, Three L’s, One M, Three N’s, Two O’s, One S, One T, One W in 2008. He performs solo piano on the 5th of November, and the duo of Onda and Licht, who have released their own work Everydays (2008), perform on the 6th as well. The solo, duo and trio performances shall exhibit totally different musical qualities — experience both nights!
Michael Snow, Aki Onda, Alan Licht
Special Talk “Beyond Music, Sound and Art”
Moderator: Minoru Hatanaka (ICC)
Date: November 3 (Mon/Holiday) 14:00
Venue: NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC) 4F special stage
Capacity: 200 persons (first-come basis)
Admission free, with Japanese-English interpretation
Organizer: NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC)
Artwork by Michael Snow and original photo by Kotaro Okada
Michael Snow (piano, CAT synthesizer), Aki Onda (casette recorder, electronics), Alan Licht (guitar) | Piano cooperation: Takagi Klavier Inc. | Sound: Toshihiko Kasai, Akiko Kondo | Lighting: Yoko Takematsu | Stage: Kanako Shibata (WWW) | Documentation: Ryosuke Hayasaka (video), Masato Hara (sound), Hideto Maezawa (photo)
Michael Snow
Starting as a professional jazz pianist in the 1950s, Canadian Michael Snow has since achieved fame as a visual artist, creating the iconic “Walking Woman” image in the 60s as well as the genre-defining structural film Wavelength. He has continued to pursue music as a free improvisor, after arguably mid-wifing the form in the sessions for the soundtrack to his 1964 film New York Eye and Ear Control with Albert Ayler and others. Snow has performed with Evan Parker, Roswell Rudd, Derek Bailey and Tony Conrad as well as being a founding member of the CCMC (Snow, Paul Dutton and John Oswald) and playing frequent solo concerts. His photography, videos, films, paintings, and sculpture continue to be exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide.
Aki Onda is an electronic musician, composer, and visual artist. Onda was born in Nara, Japan and currently resides in New York. He is particularly known for his “Cassette Memories” project — works compiled from a “sound diary” of field-recordings collected by Onda over a span of more than two decades. Onda’s musical instrument of choice is the cassette Walkman. Not only does he capture field recordings with the Walkman, he also physically manipulates multiple Walkmans with electronics in his performances. In recent years, Onda often works in interdisciplinary fields and collaborates with filmmakers and visual artists. His on-going collaborations include “Nervous Magic Lantern” with Ken Jacobs, site-specific happening with Akio Suzuki, and audio-visual installation/performance with Raha Raissnia.
Alan Licht
Alan Licht has appeared on over 75 recordings that range from minimalist composition to indie rock to free improvisation. He is currently guitarist in Lee Ranaldo and the Dust and one-third of “talk rock” band Title TK with Cory Archangel and Howie Chen. He is also the author of Sound Art: Beyond Music, Between Categories (Rizzoli, 2007) and the editor of Will Oldham on Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (Faber & Faber / W.W. Norton, 2012). A long-time fan of Michael Snow, he interviewed him in the late 1990s and subsequently performed with him at festivals in Canada and Chicago. Around the same time, he began playing duos with Aki Onda (an album, Everydays, was released by Family Vineyard in 2008) and was reminded of Snow’s filmmaking when he heard Onda’s 2003 album Bon Voyage!.
Photo by Kotaro Okada