Kaoru Abe (阿部薫) – "Winter 1972" (P.S.F. Records – PSFD-158) 1972/2004

My introduction to the wild world of Abe Kaoru was this, remastered from vinyl, release on P.S.F.; Aided by the bleak Industrial style cover art one suspected this might be quite good. 

It was three tracks of a bloke going apeshit on a saxophone in a small room for fifty minutes. It certainly misses drums or guitar to add a bit of colour to the proceedings,but, this does give one a chance to accompany Kaoru oneself. As he allegedly never listened to anyone he improvised with,you should end up with a bona-fide improvisation of yourself and the legend going ape in your front room.....with the added bonus of sparse applause for your efforts. It's also good for sampling a nuts saxophone solo for your own work without having the misfortune in having a real saxophonist visit your home studio.Luckily,or otherwise,for me I have a brother who's a more than willing contributor of reed jiggery-pokery to any of my recordings.....like this one.

Tracklist:

1 No.1 24:17
2 No.2 4:27
3 No.3 17:54

DOWNLOAD the winter of '72 to the winter of 2021...I know which winter i prefer...HERE!

Masayuki Takayanagi (高柳), Abe kaoru (阿部), and Hiroshi Yamazaki (山崎) - "Jazzbed (ライヴ・アット・ジャスベッド )" ( Jinya Disc – B-32) 1970/2020

Like Muslimgauze, new Abe Kaoru albums keep croping up on an almost daily basis long after his demise.

How this one has remained unreleased for the past fifty years is remarkable.Left to sleep in its 'Jazzbed' (see what I did?) since september 1970.

This time Abe gets to play backed up by the very able freeform guitar abuse of  Masayuki Takayanagi and very capable jap jazz legend, Hiroshi Yamazaki on the skins.

This is like a proper album rather than some casual jam session.Not too sure the word Casual is a word often used in relation to Kaoru's work,but you know what I mean....'cus I don't!?

Tracklist:

1 Jazzbed 1st (27:47)
2 Jazzbed 2nd (31:12)

DOWNLOAD then get back to yer jazzbed HERE!

Kaoru Abe (阿部薫) ‎– "(Unreleased Sessions) 未発表音源＋初期音源 4xCD Box (1970-73)" - ( Youth Inc. ‎– YOUTH-165) 2012

Yeah good isn't he? Because he's an artist he can do whatever the fuck he likes. Beating a Pregnant woman...way ta go maaaan. Being a general cunt to everyone....gimmie five maaaan. Or as Keji Haino reckons, a pretentious cunt who didn't listen to anyone he's improvising with....especially when it's improvised violence to women. Listening to this, Haino is correct, it's all about himself innit?...never heard of behaviour like that before in the Art community...only a small percentage of the self-indulgent bastards do shit like that,a minuscule 92% i reckon?But,just because an artist is a bastard,doesn't mean that one cannot enjoy the bastards' work...let me rephrase that....fucking about,artistically and sexually,most definitely NOT work . The main reason anyone goes into 'The Arts' is so they don't have to work for a living...real work I mean. It's the same as why I became self-employed when i left school...because I'm a Lazy bastard...but at least I don't beat women up.?......oh yeah, it happens to be fucking great stuff by the way...but does that make me an apologist for misogyny?...most likely yes,but i have a track record in that.....I still play Gary Glitter records for example,which are probably way weirder than this box set?But, alas, I still wouldn't argue against having the fuckers locked up. 

Tracklist:

1-1 –Masayuki Takayanagi & Kaoru Abe 1970.7.9 Station '70  41:27
2-1 –Masayuki Takayanagi & Kaoru Abe 1970.7.9 Station '70  41:46
3-1 –阿部薫 Solo 1973 (未発表音源) 3:36
3-2 –阿部薫 Solo 1973 (未発表音源) 25:07
3-3 –阿部薫 Solo 1973 (未発表音源) 21:38
4-1 –阿部薫 Duo (初期・未発表音源) 8:57
4-2 –阿部薫 Duo (初期・未発表音源) 31:27
4-3 –阿部薫 Duo (初期・未発表音源) 1:58
4-4 –阿部薫 Duo (初期・未発表音源) 16:22
4-5 –阿部薫 Duo (初期・未発表音源) 8:44

DOWNLOAD from a world where we accept a wife beater because he's good with a saxophone HERE!

Masayuki Takayanagi and Abe Kaoru - "(集団投射)Mass Projection" ( DIW ‎– DIW-424) 1970/2001

Its that Japanese Sid Vicious of free improvised Jazz again (Abe Kaoru). Seems he was a bit of an arsehole,.....correction, a lot of an arsehole, like a large number of musicians,and Artists give the impression of being.So Kaoru shouldn't feel victimized by my post mortem chastisement. It appears to be an important,and popular pre-requisite required to exist in these particular creative spheres.Where would we be without an arsehole or two to empty our bowels after a hard day at the Job Centre or queuing for an experimental vaccine? Without an arsehole we would be more full of shit than we think we are. 

Why we, the public, seem to be obsessed with these self important self-destructive deconstructavists i haven't the foggiest idea. Act like a complete twat for three or four years then die and you're made for life...or death, as seems the more popular career path to immortality than actually just making something great and being er...nice?...fuck that. Yet here we stand, drooling over these mentally dysfunctional attention seekers, hypnotised by the mystique of self-disintegration coming forth from this incoherant rage at the so-called establishment,these fuckers are as much a part of the establishment as we are. I guess that very few of these icons of filth ever actually follow through with their own funeral,so that explains the obsession,the t-shirts, and the endless post-mortem archive releases...of which this is one.

Kaoru looked, acted and sounded as if he was going to self-immolate,leaving a molten saxophone and a pile of ashes to remind us of the rage.At least he played some ferocious sax,and was honest enough to actually fulfill his destiny of sucessfully destroying himself...not that he didn't try to take someone else with him in between beating up his pregnant wife. Move on, nothing to see here,just a rather ruthless free jazz masterpiece that sounds like a Guitar and Saxophone being attacked by an angle-grinder for fifty minutes.

Tracklist:

1 集団投射-1 29:25
2 集団投射-2 24:38

DOWNLOAD a projectile not intended to be thrown at a member of the faireer sex HERE!

Kaoru Abe / Motoharu Yoshizawa / Toshinori Kondo / Derek Bailey ‎– "Aida's Call"(Starlight Furniture Co. ‎– *09) 1978/1999

So now we know that Kaoru Abe or Abe Kaoru was a pretentious bore and a wife beater. Here he is in free improvisation with Derek Bailey in 1978 who, and i'm guessing here, was most certainly NOT a wife beater...not even sure he had a wife to beat.Could Google it, but don't you all think that google search has ruined all pub arguments......not that there's any pubs open to NOT argue in!?...If you're reading this ten tears from now, this was written during the pandemic hysteria that you all laugh about in the future.That one when we fucked up the lives of the enormous amount of survivors by destroying the world economy, when all we had to do was wash our hands regularly and stop hugging strangers for six months.

I don't know what I'm complaining about, its what us anti-capitalists wanted wasn't it? The planes are grounded, and now i'm moaning that i can't go anywhere,not that I went anywhere anyway,but its what was necessary to cut carbon emissions wasn't it? I also derided the angry mob of trump supporters who stormed the Capitol,but isn't that what we've been advocating for years.....it was just the Wrong Mob!

I'm just a hypocrite like everyone else,wanting a comfy life and something to help me feel superior to others. Yeah, bring back capitalism and lets party again while Rome burns...i think thats my new philosophy, and Free Improvisation is its perfect soundtrack......but yeah....Kaoru was misogynistic woman battering macho man.Another opportunity for us to separate the man from his art.An art that Keiji Haino said wasn't quite as good as others made out. So we can carry on turning a blind eye to our trumped up morals and take the easy way like we always do.....there are exceptions,and we usually follow their example to the point of naming a shitty park after them,or some forgotten street behind a shopping mall.......and why not? What makes them so special? Martin Luther King delivered his most famous speech,round about the same place that the Wrong Mob stormed the capitol building last week.The Wrong Mob needs a martyr....any volunteers? 

Kaoru was dead shortly after this concert,to claim his prize as a free Jazz martyr,and has suitably,from some quarters been awarded the much coveted jazz bores saxophonists's saxophonist choice as having  the most abrasive saxophone sound in Jazz history.The jury's out on that one,but being dead doesn't do any musician or artist any harm in the bullshitty myth stakes.....yeah he's got an abrasive sound,but so has Peter Brötzmann and John Zorn,but they ain't dead.

Tracklist:

1 Administratio 23:41
2 The Man From S.L.A.P.P.Y. 9:47
3 Spear-Core 6:27

DOWNLOAD the abrazive but dead Kaoru Abe HERE!