小埜涼子 Ryoko Ono (alto saxophone, voice), Rogier Smal (drums, percussion)

doubt musicを始め幾つかのマイナー・レーベルからの諸作品に好評を得てきた、名古屋を拠点に活躍する異能のフリー・インプロ派女性アルトサックス奏者:小埜涼子(北海道出身)の今作は、オランダのドラマー:ロヒエル・スマルとのデュオによる一編。まろやかさと締まりを兼備し、清澄な潤いも含んだ中々美味しいトーンのアルトサックスが、奔放自在で激しく異形な、それでいて飄々とした軽みを感じさせるところもある抽象性濃いインプロヴィゼーションを流麗に紡いで、誠に清新な華を成し縦横無尽の機動力を有する。そして結構ドスも利いたドラムの遊撃アタックぶりも頼もしげに彩りを添えた、壮快で歯応え充分の好演内容。パワフルでエモーショナルな腰の据わった勢いある硬派フリー熱演が骨太く展開され、ハードで妖しいアブストラクト傾向と切々とした熱血なスピリチュアルさの間を往来する何げにドラマティックでバランスのとれた道程の中、水を得た魚の如く終始イキイキと跳ね泳ぐ小埜(as)の活躍が実にスカッとした爽快な冴えを、好調ぶりを見せてゆく。フリーキー・トーン交じりのストレンジでビザールな怪演に嬉々として興じながら、その奇異さの内側からわりかしソウルフルな人情味〜情魂っぽさも絶妙に見え隠れするという超絶ハイテクニックにしてしっかり味のある鳴音キャラは説得力抜群で、一方スマル(ds,per)の、獰猛そうでいて自在に小回りを利かせた敏速アクション攻勢のキレのよさも格別。

==CATFISHRECORDS==

Ryoko Ono is one-half of Sax Ruins, the current incarnation of Tatsua Yoshida's febrile Zeuhl-rock project, but as this bracing duo set with French percussionist Rogier Small shows, she's worthy of serious attention as a saxophonist in her own right. Playing the dizzyingly complex music of Ruins requires precise articulation and Ono brings that sharpness to a freer context with aplomb, spiralling through boppish runs and harmolodic riddles, peppering it all with pinched squawks and waspish asides. On one track she switches to a strangely hip vocalese, her gibberish becoming increasingly demented as Smal turns up the heat. The drummer is an excellent foil, driving and physical when he needs to be, while taking inspired detours into metallic percussion abstraction and Sun Ra space trance.

==The Quietus==

Featuring Ms. Ryoko Ono on alto sax & vocal and Roger Smal on drums. If the name Ryoko Ono sounds familiar, it is because she is a member of Sax Ruins, whose second disc we listed last week (4/8/16). Ms. Ono also has a great solo disc out on Doubt Records which includes the Tatsuya Yoshida (from Ruins) on drums. Amsterdam-based drummer, Rogier Smal has worked with an eclectic cast of characters: Eugene Chadbourne, Marshall Allen and Daevid Allen. Together Ms. Ono & Mr. Smal make a most formidable duo! This sounds like a studio date and the sound is well-captured. There is a strong, spirited dialogue going on here. The duo take their time and start often quietly on the second piece, building in intensity throughout. The exchange back and forth is most extraordinary and intricate, even telepathic at times as they enter twine perfectly. There is a good deal of more subdued moments here in between those blast of fire. The more restrained pieces are much more diverse then one would imagine. There times when Ms. Ono sounds like John Zorn when she pushes the pedal to the metal with quick, zigzagging lines, circular-breathing is short bursts, bending those multi phonic notes inside-out and even dipping her mouthpiece into a glass of water, an old trick that Mr. Zorn used to do in the early days of the Downtown scene. This is a most extraordinary duo, one that won't be beat anytime soon I predict. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG

==Bruce Lee Gallanter / Downtown Music Gallery==

Half- facetiously Emily Remler once joked that she wasn’t really a young female Jazz guitarist, but the reincarnation of an old male jazz guitarist from years earlier. The same jape could be applied to Ryoko Ono. Instead of really being a young saxophonist from Nagoya, Japan, she could be the reincarnation of Cleveland’s Albert Ayler, who would be 80 of he was alive today, a lot older than Wes Montgomery or Grant Green would have been if Remler saw them in the 1970s.

At the same time in terms of the ferocity, the way she and Dutch drummer Rogier Smal blitzkreig the nine untitled tracks have the velocity and power of fictional Spinal Tap guitarist Nigel Tufnel showing how the usual zero to 10 volume knob goes up to 11. From the get-go, like the desiccated vocal tones of her namesake, Yoko Ono, Ono’s reed program is nearly always altissimo pitched or higher, sharper than a fencing saber and shrill enough to inflect flesh wounds on any of the ears’ receptor organs. On “Wood Moon 4” she moans in a raspy, syllable-retching delivery that makes the vocalizations of Ayler and Y. Ono appear almost dulcet. With sophisticated technical command of her instrument as well, she tongues elongated phrases from her alto without a pause almost before she finishes intoning.

Ken Waxman / Jazzword

credits

released May 1, 2020

Ryoko Ono: Saxophone, vocals

Rogier Smal: Drums, percussion

Artwork and design by Simon Fowler

JVT0016 / TOZ017 (Jvtlandt / Toztizok Zoundz 2016)

price:2,530yen

Improvisation

WOODMOON