Improvised Music from Japan is a website and record label.
The website was originally known as Japanese Free Improvisers. As its name suggests, it concentrates on Japanese and Japan-based improvisers, particularly free improvisers.
In December 2001, a compilation box-set, also called Improvised Music from Japan, was released to mark the fifth anniversary of the website. It was a 10 CD collection of previously unissued material from a variety of Japanese musicians (some of them collaborating with Europeans and Americans). The artists featured on the release are:
- Tetuzi Akiyama
- Big Picture (band)
- Haco
- Shoji Hano
- Junji Hirose
- Ryoji Hojito
- Yoshimitsu Ichiraku
- Kazuo Imai
- Incapacitants
- Atsuhiro Ito
- Utah Kawasaki
- Kyoko Kuroda
- Brett Larner
- Sachiko M
- Toshimaru Nakamura
- Takehito Nakazato
- Mitsuru Nasuno
- Masahiko Okura
- Aki Onda
- Yasuhiro Otani
- Yoshihide Otomo
- Tetsu Saitoh
- Michihiro Sato
- Skist
- Taku Sugimoto
- Tamaru
- Yumiko Tanaka
- Tsuguto Tsunoda
- Kazuhisa Uchihashi
- Michiyo Yagi
- Seiichi Yamamoto
- Tetsuro Yasunaga
- Ami Yoshida
- Yasuhiro Yoshigaki
The label has since released a number of other records featuring similar artists:
- Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama and guests, Meeting at Off Site Vol. 1 (IMJ-501, April 2002)
- Otomo Yoshihide, Ensemble Cathode (IMJ-502, July 2002)
- Kaffe Matthews, Andrea Neumann and Sachiko M, In Case of Fire Take the Stairs (IMJ-503, December 2002)
- Ami Yoshida, Tiger Thrush (IMJ-504, July 2003)
- Shoji Hano, 48 (IMJ-505, May 2003)
- Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama and guests, Meeting at Off Site Vol. 2 (IMJ-506, May 2003)
- Yumiko Tanaka, Tayutauta (IMJ-507, due January 2004)
- Raku Sugifatti (Radu Malfatti and Taku Sugimoto), Futatsu (IMJ-508/9, December 2003)
- Aki Onda, Bon Voyage! (IMJ-510, October 2003)
- Otomo Yoshihide, Park Je Chun and Mi Yeon, Loose Community (IMJ-511, December 2003)
- Peter Brötzmann and Shoji Hano, Funny Rat (IMJ-512, October 2003)
- Toshimaru Nakamura, Side Guitar (IMJ-513, December 2003)
- Han Bennink and Kazuo Imai, Across the Desert (IMJ-514, December 2003)
- Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama and guests, Meeting at Off Site Vol. 3 (IMJ-515, December 2003)
Other Japanese artists which could be considered free improvisers include:
- Kaoru Abe
- Masayuki Takayanagi
Famous quotes containing the words improvised, music and/or japan:
“If melodrama is the quintessence of drama, farce is the quintessence of theatre. Melodrama is written. A moving image of the world is provided by a writer. Farce is acted. The writer’s contribution seems not only absorbed but translated.... One cannot imagine melodrama being improvised. The improvised drama was pre-eminently farce.”
—Eric Bentley (b. 1916)
“During the cattle drives, Texas cowboy music came into national significance. Its practical purpose is well known—it was used primarily to keep the herds quiet at night, for often a ballad sung loudly and continuously enough might prevent a stampede. However, the cowboy also sang because he liked to sing.... In this music of the range and trail is “the grayness of the prairies, the mournful minor note of a Texas norther, and a rhythm that fits the gait of the cowboy’s pony.””
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“I do not know that the United States can save civilization but at least by our example we can make people think and give them the opportunity of saving themselves. The trouble is that the people of Germany, Italy and Japan are not given the privilege of thinking.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)