Blank Forms: Aspirations of Madness - by Lawrence Kumpf (Paperback)

About the Book

"Blank Forms' fifth collection of archival, unpublished, or newly translated texts, takes its title from a series of interviews with Japanese free jazz pioneer Masayuki Takayangi that were published in Japanese in 1975-76 and are published here in English for the first time. The interviews provide a rare look at Takayanagi's eccentric practice and personality, both long under-recognized by audiences outside (and often, inside) of Japan. In this respect, the interviews speak to the goals of Blank Forms' publication enterprise, that is, to expand upon our work in performance programming, record production, and archival preservation, and to foster new dialogues on vanguard art and music from the past 50-plus years. Aspirations of Madness considers the work of not just Takayanagi but also, in different ways, the poets Louise Landes Levi and Kazuko Shiraishi, the musician and writer Joseph Jarman, the polymath Catherine Christer Hennix and her one-time student the poet Charles Stein, the musicologist Henry Orlov, and Maryanne Amacher. Aspirations of Madness features additional contributions by Alan Cummings, Bill Dietz, Peter Kastakis, Art Lange, Satoru Obara, and Tomoyuki Chida ..."--Provided by publisher

Book Synopsis

A rare look at an underappreciated and pioneering figure in Japanese free jazz

Aspirations of Madness, Blank Forms' fifth collection of archival, unpublished, or newly translated texts, takes its title from a series of interviews with Japanese free jazz pioneer Masayuki Takayangi that were published in Japanese in 1975-76 and are published here in English for the first time. The interviews provide a rare look at Takayanagi's eccentric practice and personality, both long under-recognized by audiences outside (and often, inside) of Japan. The postwar Japanese history that Takayanagi describes also surfaces in this publication's opening piece, a poetic tribute by the writer and artist Louise Landes Levi to one of Takayanagi's contemporaries, the poet Kazuko Shiraishi. Aspirations of Madness includes a second Levi poem as well, "A Deep River," written while at La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela's Dream House in 2003. Complementing this tradition of Japanese free improvisation and poetry is the republication of a 1977 interview with Joseph Jarman, the great composer, poet, and multi-instrumentalist. We also feature Charles Stein's introduction to Being = Space x Action. Further along, Aspirations of Madness features an excerpt from The Tree of Music, a cross-cultural treatise by the Russian musicologist Genrich "Henry" Orlov, the English translation of which has never been published before. Aspirations of Madness closes with one of Maryanne Amacher's final pieces of writing, "The Agreement," from 2009. The text takes the form of a letter between Amacher and the Open Ended Group, with whom she had planned to collaborate on her final, unfinished project, Lagrange: A Four Part Mini Series.