Forums

Yes, Sakata was pretty extraordinary. I'd not seen him before and had few preconceptions. This wasn't the fire breathing Sakata but a far more considered approach. A beautiful tone on both sax and clarinet, especially clarinet. Duo with what I think was some kind of no contact mic set up creating a percussive undertow. Then a trio with Rie Nakajima's small percussion and a poet reciting, in Japanese. Sakata also sang/ intoned and played bells. All quite spellbinding  It was very reminiscent of this very good album https://rienakajima.bandcamp.com/album/1-may-2018

Was it good? I was weighing it up and plumped for the Vortex trip mainly because I so rarely go there now.  You tipped me off to Arbenz I think, a year or so ago. Thank you for that. Half to hear that Sakata was good!

Enjoy that, I like Arbenz and used to buy everything Osby released. I nearly booked for it but decided on Sakata at Oto as this week's trip out. I wasn't disappointed.

See? The Stones as a whole are definitely OUT by the usual European definition within the R'n'R subculture (even if certain tracks - as with the Beatles' oeuvre - would fit into R'n'R, stylistically speaking). Haley, Lewis and Berry are IN. But they cover only SOME aspects of the ENTIRE spectrum of R'n'R. To varying degrees.  And that "driving around getting teenage kicks" that you mentioned about the "Rocket 88" lyrics is ONE aspect that would rate this recording as "early" R'n'R.  Whereas the recordings by Wynonie Harris (that often rock even harder) might not qualify that easily because THEIR lyrics - about boozing and the pimp making love to the preacher's wife in the kitchen - address a rather different audience. His "adult R'n'R" or "adult R&B" recordings therefore lack the "teenage/youth audience" angle that sets R'n'R apart as the first specific style of music geared specifically to the YOUNG'UNS. Not to what the elders would condescendingly allow their kids to listen to in the pre-1954 days.  (Not that WHITE parents in 50s US of A - or parents in the UK or Germany, for that matter  - would have been enthusiastic about their kids listening to Wynonie Harris, but I think you get what I mean. )  OTOH others (like me, incidentally ) may find the strictly adult lyrics no hindrance to R'n'R status if the music has the right vibe. So it all depends on what importance you place onto what aspect of the individual recordings. Not a question that can or will ever be settled.