Kind Mind: Masako Hamamura, piano; Edward Perraud, drums; Peter Scherr, bass
http://www.masakohamamura.com/ www.peterscherr.com http://www.edwardperraud.com/Home.html http://www.youtube.com/user/peterscherr
Masako Hamamura is a uniquely gifted improvising pianist and composer. She has the ability to make everything that happens in the music work. She makes everything sound good! How does she do it? I don't know, but I always feel good making music with her. And furthermore, she has a very fertile imagination. Her choices are always pleasant surprises. I would say that her writing has a certain serenity. She leaves a lot of poignant spaces, understated melodies, and structures that invite freedom.
I feel that she works the Maralyn Crispell, Paul Bley, Cecil Taylor areas, but with a definite Japanese sensibility.
This trio session came about because Masako and I had been playing in Joe Rosenberg's group Signal to Noise for a couple of years, with the wonderful French percussionist Edward Perraud. After our first studio sessions with Edward in January of 2008, we had a brief late night session that had an incredible atmosphere. After this session, we decided to make a session together in the fall of 2008 at my studio in Hong Kong.
For the session, Edward brought along a pair of French made condenser mics. We tried them on drum overheads, and got a marvelous clear, almost liquid texture. In making other mic and placement choices, I tried my best to complement and accentuate this texture, and I feel that this recording is one of the finest recordings I have made in the studio.
In post production, I made a few editing choices that I felt helped the music, cutting one long improvisation into two parts that seemed to be complete pieces in themselves. Mixing was very straightforward. The texture seemed to define itself.
The trio also features Masako singing on two tracks: Aozola Lala, and Imachizuki Hitotso. Her unaffected, untrained voice is simply touching.
Here are my recollections of that initial late night session in January 2008. The one that led to the fall 08 trio sessions:
January 21, 2008. I had been dreaming. Weird, troubled dreams, their subject now forgotten. I groggily looked at my watch: 2:30 am. It had been a long intense day of preparation and recording -one in a series of long days. I think that the heavy meal we all had after the session contributed to my rough night.
Figuring that sleep would not return for many hours, I dragged myself out of bed, and stumbled downstairs to the studio to putter around for a while. I checked the headlines, listened to a few things and pondered the piles of clutter on my desk. Late at night and awake again. I started an email to a friend. I went downstairs to the kitchen to get a diet coke, guiltily opening the fridge...
Masako and Edward were sitting quietly on the couch, talking. I wanted to join their conversation, but was a little hesitant about breaking into their late night vibrations, their nice social continuity.
"May I join you guys?" I asked.
"Of course." Edward made room for me on the couch.
We started talking quietly together. Somehow, the late hour, our collective fatigue, the days we shared, perhaps something in the air freed us from the modesty of people that don't know each other well, but are extremely fond of each other. We spoke of very personal things in the most unguarded way. At least Edward and I did. Masako, though less revealing, was sympathetic in her responses. We talked for a long time, eventually moving to some chairs on the patio, so that Edward could smoke. It was cool and misty, and we could hear a gentle chorus of rain dripping from the trees.
I opened up a bottle of wine for Edward and Masako, and another soda for myself. We continued talking, and the hours rolled by. The dogs milled around, enjoying the late night windfall of attention and affection. Finally, after a few glasses of wine, perhaps around 4:30 am, Edward said:
"Would you guys like to record?"
Masako and I looked at each other. After a moment, I said:
"Why not? The gear is already there. It'd be nice to play a little trio… Just give me ten minutes to let the microphones warm up again. Sure."
I went upstairs, snapped the power supplies on, readied the computers, and opened up the session. There it was: our day of work with Joe Rosenberg. The colored, horizontal waveforms glowed on a pro tools timeline. It was his band, his music, and it had been a fruitful day. A bit of a struggle, perhaps, but I felt we had a lot of compelling music already in the can. Joe had gone home hours earlier, immediately following dinner, and there we were, getting ready to record again. Was it a transgression? Was it wrong, to record without him? Of course not, but the thought was there nonetheless. I restrained myself from listening to even a moment of the day's work. I wanted this to be fresh, to be its own thing. I knew that I had only limited energy, limited concentration available, and I didn't want to waste it.
Edward and Masako entered the studio. It was way beyond the normal musician’s late night, way beyond the witching hour. A deep calm filled me. I felt that the static of daily life, the confusing psychic noise of people’s efforts, thoughts and activities had ceased temporarily, leaving us this wonderful space... I dimmed the lights, put on my headphones, closed the control room door, picked up my bass, started the transport and waited for the others to start making sounds.
It was like entering a dream. Masako played a few quiet notes, and I let myself respond. Edward and I entered into an effortless dialogue. I watched my hands run loosely up and down the fingerboard, and listened as the low notes tumbled out. No will at all, just a gentle presence of mind, calmly watching, calmly listening as the music took place. There was a long, grooving passage where Masako’s piano was in the foreground. Yet there was constant dialogue. Everything seemed to be in relaxed proportion. There was no feeling of overplaying or consciously making space, or any kind of corrective thought or gesture. Edward drew characteristic coloring from his battery of drums and percussion. After some minutes, I dropped out of the music, and listened to Masako and Edward duet for a while. Then I played a brief, melodic passage with the bow as Edward trailed off on his percussive idea, and Masako insistently plied a two-note figure. A minute passed, and it was over. I waited until the piano and cymbals “ring-out” finished, and was still another half a minute or so to see if anyone had anything else to say. The concentration that had wrapped us up together gently lifted as the moment ended, and I heard breath, a cough perhaps, a quiet exclamation.
We knew that we had captured something very unusual. Out of dozens of fine and productive sessions, a feeling like this may only come once in ten years. It can’t be planned; one can’t make it happen. The best that we can do is to record as often as possible, and try to be in the moment. Maybe if we are lucky, this rare, strange wind will come and carry us away together.
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