October 2001

Open Ears
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By Laurence Donohue-Greene

Miya Masaoka truly defines uncategorical--simply she is beyond category. She has performed and/or recorded with musicians as varied as Steve Coleman, Pharoah Sanders, the Rova Saxophone Quartet, Henry Kaiser, Fred Frith, James Newton, Wadada Leo Smith, Reggie Workman, Andrew Cyrille, Gino Robair, and trombonist/electronics experimenter George Lewis. Masaoka, in addition, has presented works that also include such diverse instrumentation and mixed media in conjunction with her koto playing as various electronics (including laptop experimentation), violin, bassoon, a live bee hive (yes, you read right), dancers, poetry, and naked Asian men (yes, you read right again!) Needless to say, I expected the unexpected when going to see her perform live during her too rare of a New York, from Northern California, visit over at the Tonic in early September.

Her Trans Timbral Literation Trio, as she labels this collective and fairly new experiment, featured tabla player, Samir Chatterjee and trumpeter, Amir El Saffar. Masaoka’s already established Eastern sense of space and time would certainly be showcased at the forefront of this trio, or presumably so. The music was written out and of a demanding nature with all six eyes, for the most part, glued to the sheet music. The formal structure and complexity of the music wound up an antithesis of Masaoka’s personal strengths unfortunately, though there were more than a few memorable highlights from Masaoka's latest experimentation.

“The Koto and the Tabla”, an obvious feature for Masaoka and Chatterjee, started as a slow almost tuning-up like vamp for the threesome. El Saffar was initially hesitant in his playing, as he gathered eventual momentum and confidence as the time of the tune progressed. It seemed as though the brass instrument or maybe his chops weren’t appropriately warmed up to greet the music. Meanwhile, the sounds from the koto and tabla comfortably and naturally intertwined. Masaoka exploited the sitar relation in the sound of the koto instrument, which seemed to fall somewhere between an actual sitar and the drone providing East Indian instrument known as the tamboura.

El Saffar, utilizing the plunger to ill effect on the second piece of the evening (“Hi Hi Ti Hi”), subtly tried in complementing on plunger a more breathy style that may have been more convincing on a reed instrument. The successful pairing, however, of the koto and tabla, once again, was heard to great effect, as one could not help but notice the synchronicity and coordination between the hands and fingers of both Masaoka and Chatterjee. Not only was it a fascinating sight and, consequently, riveting sound, but it was as if each could have been playing the other’s respective instrument throughout.

The duet, “Pointings”, was a successful trumpet and koto duet. El Saffar’s notes became more projected, well rounded, and crisp. For the first time during the evening, the trumpet certainly complemented Masaoka’s concept on koto, as Saffar contributed convincing and haunting call like riffs. They together worked their way towards a timely coda, with El Saffar’s trumpet weaving itself in and out of the straight ahead steady metered tune.

After unsuccessfully fiddling around with her laptop for a mixed media piece, Masaoka gave up on the technology (as it seemed to just be taking too long to boot up) and went right into a traditional Hindustani piece called, “Pesh Kar”. Beginning with a sparse tabla accompaniment of start and stop deep bellows and high tinny accents, Masaoka complemented with the single note clusters from her koto. There were a few minutes of repeated give and take runs which momentarily quenched the thirst for the more freedom based playing Masaoka has become associated with through not only her live performances, but through her various recordings as well.

The dissonant exploratory mode of the koto and tabla found on the following and final tune, “Etchings”, continued this exploitation of Masaoka’s true strengths in collaboration with Chatterjee on tabla, and especially so on this occasion in particular. The lack of any distinct beat, as this was the first and only tune of the evening without an obvious beat or specific meter, proved to be quite interesting to say the least. Masaoka plucked with her right, and bent the koto strings with her left. Moving in a near Gamelan style, all three participants returned to a coordinated approach, each echoing similar lines to one another. El Saffar, again, just didn’t seem to have the technical facility for this type of music that say a Dave Douglas may have been able to better contribute to, and his vulnerable tone proved convincing, to the detriment of the music overall. However, he did construct a run, and in a single breath mind you, that totally contradicted all of my above mentioned trumpet short falls and criticisms.

It goes without saying that Masaoka will continue to experiment, and whether successful or unsuccessful is beside the point, as the fact that she never relents to continuously work and play with new ideas as time goes by is a success unto itself. Look out for a follow up to her Maybe Monday – Saturn’s Finger recording (Buzz Records), which features the exact trio line-up of Fred Frith (guitars) and Larry Ochs (saxophones), due out on the Winter & Winter label.

And keep your ears open to the music!