Akira Sakata

Akira Sakata with Shinpei Ruike on trumpet and Jun Inui on drums, recorded at the Shibata Etsuko Gallery in Ginza on March 30, 2026. Sister Records.

Akira Sakata with Takashi Seo on contrabass and Jun Inui on drums, recorded at the Shibata Etsuko Gallery in Ginza on April 10, 2025. Sister Records.

Akira Sakata and drummer Jun Inui in duo, recorded at the Shibata Etsuko Gallery in Ginza on April 7, 2024. The first of their Gallery series on Sister Records.

A charity CD by Akira Sakata for the medical care of children in Chernobyl and Iraq, with Kyoko Kuroda, Vagabond Suzuki and Manabu Sakata, recorded in Tokyo in December 2007.

Akira Sakata on saxophones and clarinet with Febian Reza Pane, Hiroshi Yoshino and Tomohiro Yahiro, closing with a bonus Air On The G String. Ganbaranai, 2006.

Akira Sakata x Triple Edge live at Takutaku, Kyoto, February 2024: 65 minutes with Tsuboguchi, Hayakawa and Fujikake, plus Takayuki Kato on guitar and Hiroshi Funato on contrabass, built around the two-part Takutaku Suite.

Munich, Vielharmonie, 11 June 1981. Akira Sakata, two years out of the Yosuke Yamashita Trio, with his own trio, Hiroshi Yoshino on bass and Nobuo Fujii on drums, recorded digitally for Enja. Alto sax, alto clarinet and voice; four long pieces, including a version of Brigitte Fontaine's Comme à la radio.

1982 Japanese re-issue om MPS of the 1982 live album by the trio featuring Akira Sakata. With insert.

Gatefold LP edition + OBI.  There are few figures in improvised music quite like Akira Sakata. A marine biologist by training, he surfaced in the early 1970s inside the Yamashita Yosuke Trio, one of the most ferocious units Japanese jazz has ever produced, and for half a century since he has gone entirely his own way: bandleader, relentless collaborator, singer of strange incantations, a man who can make an alto saxophone sound like grief and slapstick in the same breath. Born in 1945 near Hiros…

*2026 stock* The third album of the quartet "Akira Sakata x Triple Edge," in which Masayasu Tsuboguchi, Takeharu Hayakawa, and Masataka Fujikake gather to create a rare improvised world with dynamism as if diverse organisms were wriggling under Akira Sakata, a giant tree several thousand years old.

«Hohai-Bushi» is the meeting between Paal Nilssen-Love and his Large Unit ensemble, here in a 13-person lineup, and the legendary Japanese musician Akira Sakata. Since the 1960s, Sakata has been one of the leading saxophonists in free jazz and improvisation, starting with the Yamashita Trio, continuing with his own ensembles, and later transitioning to younger musicians from various genres, including noise and experimental music. Akira Sakata is a living legend from the last 50 years of radical …

Hyperentasis is a double LP celebrating the unique connection between legendary saxophonist Akira Sakata and the city of Thessaloniki. Home to Defkaz Records and the birthplace of the Damianidis brothers, Thessaloniki has welcomed Sakata countless times. This release captures two of his landmark performances as a bandleader in the city. The first LP features the group Entasis with Giovanni Di Domenico (upright piano), Giotis Damianidis (electric guitar), Petros Damianidis (double bass), and Alek…

Edition of 200. Japanese free jazz legend Akira Sakata and Greek avant-garde guitarist Giotis Damianidis present Adyton, their first-ever duo recording. Having collaborated since 2018, the two musicians have developed an intuitive and electrifying musical dialogue, culminating in this live performance at Haekem, Brussels -- the final concert of a two-week tour with Entasis in September 2023. Sakata, who turned 80 on February 21st, 2024, delivers his signature fiery alto saxophone, evocative clar…

*200 copies limited edition* Akira Sakata is a treasure of Japan’s free jazz/improvised music world. Rie Nakajima is a London-based sound artist with an international career in Europe and beyond. Sakata and Nakajima have performed together in Japan and other countries since the mid-2010s. When Nakajima came to Japan for a time in 2023, the two appeared at Ftarri, Tokyo, on December 4, performing two duo sets. Sakata, on alto sax and clarinet, forgoes ferocious sound-making and plays with calm el…

Tip! The trio of Japanese Saxophone legend Akira Sakata with the scandinavian rhythm section presents already his fifth album! While the trio was on a Japan tour in 2019, Sakata arranged for a handful of special collaborations, with some of Japan’s most important artistic figures. Featuring the avantgarde dancer Min Tanaka, the pianist Yuji Takahashi and a heavyweight veteran of Japanese experimental music - drummer Takeo Moriyama. Moriyama was playing with Sakata in the Yosuke Yamashita Trio an…

*2024 stock* The Yamashita Trio on tour in Germany in 1975 had a miraculous encounter with free improv genius Manfred Shcoof! This is a too hot live recording of the live performance with Yosuke Yamashita, Akira Sakata, Takeo Moriyama, and Manfred Schoof, who responded aggressively with their whole heart and soul!

Trost Records returns with a blasting gut-punch of an LP, with “Live at SuperDeluxe - Volume 1”, a full throttle body of improvisations from the all-star quartet of Akira Sakata, Jim O'Rourke, Mette Rasmussen, and Chris Corsano - never before captured on tape - live at legendary Tokyo venue, SuperDeluxe. Riding the wire between free jazz and noise, it's nothing short of powerful, real-time advocation of socio-political importance of free improvisation that leaves you on the edge of your seat fro…

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…

*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 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.

*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…

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…

*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 …

“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…

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.

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…

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…

** 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…

**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…

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! 

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…

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…

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…

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…

Japanese saxophone transgressor Akira Sakata meets with his long-time collaborator and Fender Rhodes virtuoso Giovanni Di Domenico, Portuguese guitarist Manuel Mota, and drummer Mathieu Calleja for a session recorded at Les Ateliers Claus in Brussels. Named after the Jomon period of the Japanese prehistory - when Japan was inhabited by a hunter-gatherer culture rich in tools, clay pottery, and jewelry made from bone and stone - the record features three tracks: Jomon (縄文), Kaen (火焔), and D…

LP version. Arashi presents Semikujira. Arashi is: Akira Sakata - alto saxophone, clarinet, voice; Johan Berthling - double bass; Paal Nilssen-Love - drums & percussion. The Wire about Arashi (TROST 130CD/LP), the trio's first release: "there are moments on this album when the energy is so furiously intense it feels like it's going to spin out of control and take someone's eye out. Sakata delivers wry alto phrases, as though from the corner of his mouth, before digressing into urgent flights of …

Akira Sakata, a legendary Japanese jazz musician active since the early '70s (Yosuke Yamashita Trio,Akira Sakata Trio) and a marine biologist, has toured and recorded with The Thing, Jim O'Rourke, Bill Laswell, Merzbow, Chikamorachi, et al. The Tale of the Heike is an intense solo performance originally released on CD in 2011, and now available on vinyl for the first time. This edition is expanded to include four pieces from the 2013 DVD release of a live ensemble performance of the piece. Akira…

Recorded at NHK-604-Studio on Nov & Dec 1991 Musicians: Akira Sakata,Tamai Toyooka,Asuka Kaneko, Kyoko Kuroda,Hiroshi Yoshino,Yu Fujii  Kiyohiko Semba,Atuy,Fusae Doi, Mishio Ogawa,Shigeri Kitsu,Norihiko Yamanuki.

Flying Basket is a double album of avant jazz, discord and deconstructed rock by five master practitioners. It also marks the debut collaboration by a pair of Japan's legendary transgressors  -- saxophonist Akira Sakata and noise pioneer Masami Akita, aka Merzbow. For the past ten years Sakata has rededicated himself to fiery free jazz alongside guitarist Jim O’Rourke and the monstrous rhythm section that is Chikamorachi -- Chris Corsano (drums) and Darin Gray (double bass, percussion). Sakata's…

**2009 release, long out of print, very few copies available** Mooko was the first installment of a short-lived "power trio" comprised of Japanese free saxophonist Akira Sakata, bassist Bill Laswell, and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. At the time of this recording, the latter two were deeply into their Last Exit project, a band with whom Sakata sat in during their tour of Japan. This trio is a bit like a pared-down version of Last Exit, without the incendiary guitar work of Sonny Sharrock…