Disoriental (2017)

In het voorjaar van 2017 is de Japanse saxofonist Genzo Okabe, die in Den Haag aan het conservatorium studeerde, een van de twee Young VIPS die onder die noemer de Nederlandse jazzpodia langs toert. One of the clearest characteristics of Disoriental is the use of suspended chords. Conventionally, suspension is either major or minor in Western counterpoint. However, in most folk music traditions around the world, five sounds can be found, and their universality actually has a very deep relationship with the versatility of jazz. Starting from this premise, Okabe pursues the possibility of a pentatonic scale unique to Japanese traditional musicconsisting of 1, b9, 4, 5, 7in an attempt to reproduce the five notes in a way that does not correspond to the conventional heptatonic scale in the well temperament system. Through this process of seeking musical originality, Asian identity is mixed with jazz and Western music to produce a unique, unfamiliar, Disoriental music. (bron: Challenge)