In Focus – Sakata Akira

Sakata Akira(坂田明)is one of Japan’s greatest musicians. He’s a legendary “free jazz” sax man now in his mid-60s, still putting on fierce live shows. He was involved in the late 60s free scene here, though like most non-Japanese I first came to hear about him when he played with Bill Laswell and Ronald Shannon Jackson in the 80s. He’s since collaborated with many “world” musicians in the 90s and has recently incorporated Japanese traditional instruments into his recordings as well. The Japanese phrase “atto-teki sax” (圧倒的) was used on a flyer for one of his recent gigs. It translates as “overwhelming sax”…

Read some more about him here: http://www.warabi.ne.jp/~daphnia-pulex/english/e_profile.html and
here: http://www.jazz.com/encyclopedia/sakata-akira, and there’s a great discography on his website.