The Life of Chikuzan

Masahiro Shinoda is one of Japan's heavyweight film directors - I've recommended his films in this blog before. I recently enjoyed his film Chikuzan, about Chikuzan Takahashi, one of Japan's most renowned folk musicians. Chikuzan was blind from the age of two, and the film documents with pathos and humor his hardscrabble existence as a traveling musician. It features many strong female characters, and plenty of louche males - the women in Chikuzan's life are shown ultimately to be his salvation. There's plenty of gorgeous cinematography and fascinating music, and lovers of Asian traditional music or art-house cinema will not be disappointed.



Asmik's Japanese Region 2 DVD has an excellent visual presentation of the film, as is typical of Japanese DVDs. English sub-titles are available. Note that Chikuzan is presented in 4:3 aspect ratio, which means you may need to adjust a widescreen television (by selecting size 4:3) in order to view it correctly at home. The DVD is available from HMV Japan.

Steely Dan Presents...

Tenor saxophonist Pete Christlieb's 1978 album Apogee is an unusual Jazz album. Firstly, it's a great, mainstream acoustic Jazz record from a time not exactly associated with that kind of music - loud Jazz-Rock fusion, stuffed with electric instruments, and not always especially tasteful, was more the norm - and it was released on a major label no less. Secondly, it was produced by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan fame, Jazz-lovers both. The fact that Becker and Fagen got this released by Warner Brothers in 1978 had a lot to do, no doubt, with their clout at the label then. It's worth noting that Christlieb had previously played on Steely Dan's Aja - just one feature of his successful career as a studio musician (with James Brown, Tom Waits, Bobby "Blue" Bland, etc. and also as a longstanding fixture of the Saturday Night Live band).


Christlieb's co-leader on the set was Warne Marsh, a tenor-playing veteran of the Lennie Tristano cool school (Tristano was a remarkable musician, and is very much worth checking out in his own right), which makes this album something of a "two-tenor battle" in the grand tradition.

Two brilliant, under-acknowledged saxophonists with complementary styles, spurring each other on to marvelous heights of invention; some great, distinctive arrangements; a wide range of material, including a Kern/Mercer show-tune, plus material from Charlie Parker, Lennie Tristano, and Becker/Fagen; a very supportive band featuring Lou Levy on piano... Apogee is a winner, and well worth picking up.

Kaurismäki's Finnish Magic

Recommending a film that has recently won the Cannes Grand Prix (the annual festival's second most prestigious prize, behind the Palme d'Or) seems rather like blowing in the direction of a hurricane. I so much enjoyed "The Man Without a Past" from Finland's Aki Kaurismäki, however, that I can't resist adding my 2 pence worth of cheerleading. Centered amongst a lovable community of Helsinki's less fortunate denizens, it's tremendous fun, and full of bone dry humour plus infectious warmth and humanism. Darkness is not far away, however - in fact, it's instrumental to the plot - which adds depth to the film.



ICA/Optimum's R2 UK DVD is as every bit as good as this film deserves: a stable, well-defined picture with minimal artefacting.

Meditative Mountain Music

"Music of Central Asia is a co-production of the Aga Khan Music Initiative in Central Asia, a program of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, and the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The aim of the series is to present leading exponents of Central Asia's rich and diverse musical heritage to listeners outside the region."


So says the blurb on the back cover of the CD/DVD set "Tengir Too - Mountain Music of Kyrgyzstan", which is Volume One of the series.

Tengir Too is an ensemble formed to modernise Kyrgyzstan's folk music tradition, which historically was played solo by shepherds on a range of wind and string instruments as well as the so-called Jew's Harp*. The ensemble music is true to the roots of the music, and represents a gentle experimentalism. A wide range of exotic and beautiful sounds is on offer here, and the accompanying DVD contains some intimate performances and interviews, plus spectacular scenery.

A lovely package, highly recommended. Sound samples are here.

* Having heard both instruments, I wonder whether this colloquial name is due to the tiny instrument's sonic resemblance to the ancient Begenna, or Harp of David, still played in Ethiopia. See here for a sample of that tradition of spiritual music.

A Bad Trip

Japanese Director Sion Sono's Strange Circus is an appropriately shocking and disturbing film about childhood sexual abuse. Nothing is what it seems, as we witness events on screen through the lens of the disintegrated mental state of one of the characters, but it's safe to say that the various possible interpretations of the disjointed story are horrendous. I haven't painted a pretty picture, yet this is a remarkable, visually striking, and highly original film, full of twists and turns, that takes a hard-hitting approach to its subject matter. It ought be appreciated by those with a taste for challenging cinema, but its extreme approach will alienate more than a few.


Masumi Miyazaki gives an excellent triple performance as writer Taeko, the older Mitsuko, and her mother Sayuri.

The US Region 1 DVD from TLA Releasing (in their Danger After Dark series) makes for top quality viewing.

Kind of blue? Perhaps you need a new Jazz album..

Sonny Rollins' Saxophone Colossus is aptly named - Rollins assumed the mantle during the 1950's of pre-eminent saxophonist in Jazz, and this album shows why. The leader's tenor is not the only marvel on display here, since we are treated also to a tremendous display of Max Roach's god-like talent on drums.


The 1950's was a stabilising period in Jazz. The thrusting, determined modernity of Bebop became integrated into a more lyrical, accessible conception (although hot, tough music persisted in the hard-bop style, the jam session phenomenon, etc.), and Saxophone Colossus is a key work in that development. Jazz history aside, it is quite simply an amazing album of music.

First up is St Thomas, a calypso which Rollins turns into a swaggering display of rhythmic mastery and easy-going improvisational invention. Next, You Don't Know what Love is is a superb ballad showcase - Rollins plays a magnificently querulous extended solo that never runs out of great ideas. Moritat (a.k.a. Mack the Knife) is warm and lyrical (perhaps a tribute to Louis Armstrong, who revived the tune in 1954?). Blue Seven is a brilliant extended track on which Rollins and Roach both shine.

Superlatives don't do this one justice. Every music-lover deserves it.

They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To...

Hugo (eyeing Yan's apartment): "You've got everything..."
Yan: "You can't have everything. Good thing, too..."

Here's a very nice, moody crime flick from 1970's France, a slice-of-underworld-life if you will. Alain Delon puts in a great titular performance as "Le Gitan" ("The Gypsy"), a melancholy thief with a deep love of his dispossessed people. Delon is reunited with Renato Salvatori, with whom he starred in Visconti's "Rocco and His Brothers" plus several other films, although a bigger part (that of the well-off jewel-thief Yan) is played here very well by another top actor, Paul Meurisse.


"Le Gitan" contains plenty of action and suspense, but what's memorable here is the gritty tableau, a dark vision of the lives of two extraordinary men, the little touches that reveal character, the philosophical asides, and not least the lovely soundtrack which features Django Reinhardt's peerless guitar.

"Le Gitan" is available to English speakers as part of the Region 1 "Alain Delon - Five Film Collection", and the Region 4 "Best French Crime Flicks" box from Australia's Madman Studios. The latter features only dubbed English audio for this film, but I can recommend the result (also the video transfer to DVD).