For my big birthday (75), I decided to brave a festival.
I hadn’t seen a true concert in over three years. A show at the Jazz a Junas festival seemed ideal: small, outdoors, 40 minutes away from our apartment in Nîmes over mostly non-life-threatening roads.
The American trumpeter and composer Jon Hassel’s sound influenced guitarists like Eivind Aarset and, well, me, as well myriad other musicians. He passed away on June 26, 2021. This year he would have turned 85 and to honor him Nasjonal jazzscene in Oslo, Norway put on a terrific memorial concert on his birthday, March 22.
I can’t believe it has been four years since I spoke to Eivind Aarset, the guitarist largely responsible for sending me on this Guitar Moderne journey. Now is the perfect time, as he is featured on four new records. We spoke about three of them, and surprise, surprise, his first new guitar in, well, forever.
RareNoiseRecords presents a slew of new records:
Merzbow/Haino/Pandi An Untroublesome Defencelessness
Japanese electronic maestro Merzbow (aka Masami Akita) joins countryman, guitarist Keiji Haino, and Hungarian drummer Balazs Pandi for some extreme sonic experimentation that transmits its own rough beauty.
I was going to wait for the next Guitar Moderne Festival post, but it is too good. Though the concert is from 2014, the video was just posted in May and the camera work and audio are excellent.