Over 53 years, that agitation, with this “Re-Intrusion Live” comes back on LP with Haruki Murakami’s newly contributed essay.
On 2023 12th of July, there was an event titled “Haruki Murakami presents Re-Intrusion Live by Yosuke Yamashita”. This was the event for Haruki Murakami to reproduce the guerrilla live performance of Yosuke Yamashita Trio which happened at the 4th Building of Waseda University in July 1969. I was lucky to be there at the event and was heavily impressed by the wonderful performance of Yosuke Yamashita, Seiichi Nakamura, and Takeo Moriyama. However, never had I expected its release on LP a year later. The LP comes with a CD recording talk session between Yosuke Yamashita and Haruki Murakami, a poster, and a booklet with essays contributed by Yamashita and Murakami and photographs of the event, which is quite a luxurious paradise for fans.
The initial track is “Theme”. Comparing the same piece on the first track of the album “Daincing Kojiki” which includes 2 songs from the event at Waseda on July 69, I am surprised to find the sound of the fast riff played by Yamashita at its beginning, Nakamura’s saxophone and Moriyama’s intimidating drumming on the record is far ever thicker and more threatening than in their 20s. The second track is “Mokujiki”. Looking back now, I know that this piece with a lyrical theme-melody played by Nakamura shared the same atmosphere of that time when Miles’s In a Silent Way appeared. Here ends Side A. Side B opens up with “Mina’s Second Theme”. This piece too based on the same concept that “Play a beautiful melody freely with free tempo” intoxicates the listener through the rich sound of Nakamura’s saxophone. The last piece with the Trio is their standard, “Gugan”. Listening to the solo performance at the last of “Memory is a Funny Thing” by Yamashita, I was reminded again how fruitful 50 years these three musicians have spent and still hold extraordinal artistry as “jazz of today” as a result. In the booklet, Haruki Murakami remarks “Their performance retains the force to inspire and activate the music right here now.” Exactly!
