Yamashita Yoko

Yosuke Yamashita

Yamashita was born in Tokyo in 1942. He studied at Tokyo National University and began his jazz career in the late 1950s. At that time, he was not very avant-garde in style because he was influenced by billevans and Cecil Taylor. His music career was always influenced by Cecil Taylor and he grew up with him. Yamashita also changed in every stage of Taylor's evolution, and he became a musician In fact, the famous way of playing the piano with elbow stroke can be seen from Taylor's nearly spasmodic playing state. However, it is obvious that downhill is more Oriental. He applies the Japanese knife technique to playing the piano.

Character experience

The full face of Japanese jazz is not clear to us, although they have sent too many surprises to the international jazz world. Among these surprises, Yamashita is at least the biggest one, and if you remember correctly, it should be the first one. This jazz week, Yamashita's arrival, may allow us to make a perceptual understanding of the wonderful and forward-looking Japanese jazz. Today's Japan has entered an old age, but this group of people was once the most important force in the rise of Japan. The so-called group generation refers to the Japanese born around the end of World War II. Their youth was the period when the US Army was stationed in Japan as an occupying force. Their youth was in the turbulent 1960s, and their thinking and value orientation was better than that of traditional Japan People are more receptive to Western cultural judgments. Among them, a number of figures about today's Japanese culture have emerged. Haruki Murakami is a great representative, and yokuo Yamashita is also a great representative. In the 1960s and the following 20 years, Yamashita's playing style is famous for its fast and changeable performance. His speed and strength have entered the ranks of the world's top musicians. His grasp of improvisation and musical structure is also first-class. First, he was highly praised in Europe, and then he became the first modern jazz player in Japan. In the 1980s, Yamashita left Japan for New York, where he formed his own New York Trio, including the bass master Cecil McBee. Before that, he had tried to combine a variety of music styles with jazz, and bid farewell to his fame to go to the center of jazz development. For a person who has been considered a famous master, it takes courage, which does not prove that it is impossible To prove one's problems is to dare to subvert one's past and pursue a new artistic life. There is no doubt that Yamashita has done it and done it well. Many years later, verve reprinted the works of New York Trio. They may not be as free and avant-garde as Yamashita's early works, but their skillful skills and ways to get through the avant-garde and traditional joints all reflect that a generation of masters should be There's style.

Main performances

People often use "hot" to describe the success and popularity of the performance. Yamashita Yoko, a famous Japanese jazz pianist, put on a famous "hot performance" on March 8, 2008, playing in front of a burning piano in a fireproof suit. At about 5 p.m. that day, the 66 year old Yamashita started this amazing performance on the beach of Shiga Town, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. Soon after the piano was lit, the whole piano was surrounded by flames. in the crackling sound, although the piano's intonation is gradually out of shape, but still concentrate on pressing the keys down the mountain. More than 450 spectators were stunned by this "hot performance". After about 10 minutes, smoke began to smoke between the keys, and the performance ended. In fact, as early as 1973, Yamashita has been known as "the man playing the burning piano" with this performance. He said the reason why he took the risk again was that he always wanted to confirm what he was doing at that time.

Award winning record