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Akira Sakata

Japanese alto saxophonist, born February 21, 1945 in Hiroshima, Japan. Akira Sakata impresses as a skilled saxophonist, a marine biologist and with his vocals from a far away time and place... Since the late 60s, Sakata has been a constant figure in jazz and creative music scenes as an adventurous multi-instrumentalist

Japanese alto saxophonist, born February 21, 1945 in Hiroshima, Japan. Akira Sakata impresses as a skilled saxophonist, a marine biologist and with his vocals from a far away time and place... Since the late 60s, Sakata has been a constant figure in jazz and creative music scenes as an adventurous multi-instrumentalist

Member of: Bonjintan
Live at SuperDeluxe - Volume 1
Tip! From the outset this ad hoc quartet hit the gas, launching into a frenzied, high-octane set with alto saxophonist Rasmussen engaging in a furious tightrope-walk of upper register screams while O’Rourke unspools some of the most gnarly guitar noise. The entire recording is a testament to refined listening. Even at the most scorching peaks each player is deftly attuned to one another’s sonic projections. Bridging generations, continents, and individual aesthetics, Rasmussen, Corsano, Sakata, …
Bonjin Tan
Jim O'Rourke plays a lot with Japanese Free jazz legend Akira Sakata in various formations. Together with Italian composer and pianist Giovanni di Domenico and the drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto they form this powerful band. This is their first release, combining contemporary Avantgarde and Free Jazz in a beautiful way.Line-up:Akira Sakata - sax, clarinet, voiceJim O’Rourke - double bassGiovanni di Domenico – piano, hohner pianetTatsuhisa Yamamoto - drumsRecorded at Pit Inn Tokyo on 10 January 2017
Japan 2019
PNL Records and Audiographic Records are thrilled to announce the release of the seven CD boxset, Paal Nilssen-Love & Ken Vandermark: Japan 2019. This co-production includes live recordings by this long-standing duo from their 16-date concert tour of Japan, as well as new collaborations with legendary Japanese musicians: Akira Sakata (reeds/voice), Masahiko Satoh (piano), and Yuji Takahashi (piano). The Nilssen-Love/Vandermark is an internationally acclaimed percussion/reed duo and has been in c…
Bridges
*2023 stock* "On a summer-like evening of May 2012 in Milan, Italy, three master improvisers played together for the first time, and created music full of spontaneity and ethereal beauty at JapzItaly – Jazz Aid for Japanese Children. At a superficial level, Andrea Centazzo – the idiosyncratic composer and percussionist renowned for refined finesse – and Akira Sakata – the iconoclastic reedman famed with volcanic emotional display – would make an ‘odd’ musical team. Despite this presumption, guid…
Live in Europe 2022
Live recordings of heavy weigh Japanese saxophone wizard Akira Sakata Europen tour in 2022. In Greece together with Giovanni di Domenico: piano, Giotis Damianidis: electric guitar, Petros Damianidis: double bass, Stephanos Chytiris: drums; in Italy with di Domenico, Damianidis and Balázs Pándi on drums; and in Belgium with di Domenico, Damianidis and Aleksandar Škorić on drums.
In Residency At Bitches Brew
*2023 stock* "In December 2018 I had a four-night residency at the Bitches Brew jazz club in Yokohama. These concerts were organized by Mr Kenny Inaoka, founder and editor-in-chief of the webzine JazzTokyo.com and a prodigious jazz record producer and Seiichi Sugita, the owner of the Bitces Brew. They managed to invite some of the greatest improvisers from the Tokyo area to join me for four concerts in a row. This album captures some sound memories of those unforgettable performances with fantas…
Kinjo No Tabibito
Three musicians of different generations came together to form this unusual free jazz trio. Comprised of veteran musician Akira Sakata (alto sax, clarinet, narration), noted young drummer Raiga Hayashi, and Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board)—who has been active on the improvised music scene inside and outside Japan since the 1990s—this much-talked-about band performs mainly at live music venues in the Tokyo area. Naturally, their performances contain the furiousness and wildness characte…
Gauche
*2023 stock* Alto sax/clarinet player Akira Sakata is a legend of Japan’s free jazz scene. Ken Ikeda is a musician who resided for many years in New York and London, and has been based in Tokyo since his return to Japan from the UK in 2020. In 2021, Ikeda released "Signal and Signaless," a duo CD with Rie Nakajima, on the Ftarri label. This album, "Gauche," is Sakata’s first release from Ftarri. On May 21, 2022, Akira Sakata and Ken Ikeda gave a duo concert at Ftarri, Tokyo. This CD consists of …
Akira Sakata x Triple Edge "Live At Pit Inn"
“A large tree thousands of years old, like Akira Sakata, seems to sway a variety of creatures as if they were being drawn to it. Is it a festival with Ming as a Shinto priest? Takeharu Hayakawa, who has a strong thud, changes his behavior like a ninja, and Masataka Fujikake wraps everything up and makes a deep rumbling of the earth. As for me, I'm on the same level as the piano and electronic sounds. Let's just say that it organically connects the past and the present. A rare improvised world th…
Sakata Akira x Triple Edge
A live recording by Akira Sakata (alto sax, clarinet, voice), Masayasu Tsuboguchi (piano, synthesizer), Takeharu Hayakawa (bass), and Masataka Fujikake (drums). An improvisational giant, Akira Sakata, is a direct hit to the brain.
Mitochondria
Tip! Spectacular live recording from 1986 of two seminal figures of the Japanese avantgarde - Akira Sakata on saxophone and Takeo Moriyama on drums. Mitochondria captures the reunion of the two free jazz masters, who started playing together in the Yosuke Yamashita Trio in 1972 until 1975. For both, the experience with the trio was an important step in the development of their own career and musicianship. The recordings are a remarkable performance in which each successfully highlights the essen…
And Life Also Same (LP + 7")
Tip! **300 copies, with Obi and translucent insert** Diving forward into a mind-blowing, contemporary expressions of improvisation, the next offering in Holidays’ latest batch of releases, And Life Also Same, captures a recent collaborative artefact from the long-standing, prolific partnership between the seminal Japanese saxophonist, Akira Sakata, and the Italian pianist and composer Giovanni Di Domenico.Born in 1945 and trained as a marine biologist, for decades Akira Sakata has stood at the f…
Hōryū​-​ji
** 2021 Stock ** Hōryū-ji or else Learning Temple of the Flourishing Law is one of the powerful Seven Great Buddhist Temples in Japan. Horyu-ji has entasis, in architecture, the application of a convex curve to a surface for aesthetic purposes. It also serves an engineering function regarding strength, the key word of this collaboration that brought together Sakata, Yermenoglou, Di Domenico and Damianidis in a two days live concert meeting in Duende jazz club at Thessaloniki in May 2018. The rec…
Dental Kafka
Jim O'Rourke (of Gastr del Sol and Sonic Youth fame) plays a lot with Japanese Free jazz legend Akira Sakata in various formations. Together with Italian composer and pianist Giovanni di Domenico and the drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto they form this powerful band. Their second release combines contemporary Avantgarde and Free Jazz in a beautiful way.Line-up:Akira Sakata - sax, clarinet, voiceJim O’Rourke - double bassGiovanni di Domenico – piano, hohner pianetTatsuhisa Yamamoto - drumsRecorded Jim O…
Horyu-Ji
**300 copies** Hōryū-ji, or else, the Learning Temple of the Flourishing Law is one of the powerful Seven Great Buddhist Temples in Japan. Hōryū-ji is built with entasis, which - in architecture - is the application of a convex curve to a surface for aesthetic purposes. It also serves an engineering function regarding strength, the key word of this collaboration that brought together Sakata, Yermenoglou, Di Domenico and Damianidis in a two-days live concert meeting in Duende jazz club at Thessal…
D.D.T.
Akira Sakata is a legendary Japanese jazz musician active since the early 70s (Yosuke Yamashita Trio, Akira Sakata Trio) and also an ocean-biologist. Among others he has toured and recorded with The Thing, Jim O’Rourke, Bill Laswell, Merzbow, Chikamorachi, etc.On this album originally released in 1985 he teamed up with vocalist Akira Emoto to create an incredible record which is rooted in Jazz and explores an entire world of sounds. You got to listen to believe it! 
Fisherman's.com
Trost have unearthed another gem from the Japanese jazz maestro Akira Sakata, together with Bill Laswell, Hamid Drake, and Pete Cosey. Fisherman's.com was released originally on CD, Japan-only, by Starlets Records in 2001. This release marks its first time on vinyl and available worldwide. Fisherman's.com is Sakata's ode to folksongs of the sea -- an intense personal statement on the fluidity of tradition. Personnel: Akira Sakata - alto saxophone, vocals, synth; Bill Laswell - bass, synth; Hamid…
First Thirst, Live at Cave12
Swiss drummer Nicolas Field (1975) has been collaborating with Japanese saxophone player living-legend Akira Sakata since his first visits in Japan in 2006. Nicolas Field is born in London in 1975. He studied drums and percussion at the Amsterdam Conservatorium (1996-2002), sonology at The Hague Conservatorium (1997-2002) and "Art and media" at HEAD in Geneva (2007-2009). He has received multiple awards and was artist in residence at the Swiss Institute in Rome (2010-11), AirAntwerpen (2011), Be…
Leave No Trace: Live In St. Louis
Proton Pump is a milestone achievement in the winding career of alto saxophonist, gibberish shrieker and jazz legend Akira Sakata. It’s a lightning-fast, real-time cut-up of melody and bare-knuckle action that swings between the avant garde and hardcore be-bop. Sakata is backed by his famed rhythm crew Chikamorachi -- drummer Chris Corsano and acoustic bassist Darin Gray -- and joined by composer and pianist Masahiko Satoh. Sakata and Satoh emerged out of the late-1960s Tokyo jazz scene -- S…
New Jazz Festival Balver Höhle (New Jazz 1976 & 1977)
A stunning new 8 CD box set, comprised of recording from New Jazz Festival Balver Höhle between 1976 & 1977, and issued by the German imprint B.Free, offers a mind altering vision of just that. Toward the middle of 2016, B.Free released a sprawling 11 CD box of recordings from the 1974 and 75 incarnations of the New Jazz Festival Balver Höhle. As remarkable as it was, the following years seriously upped the game. Found within this new box are complete performance recordings of ensembles led by s…
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