Legendary Japanese reed player-vocalist Akira Sakata (b.1945, of the seminal trio of pianoist Yosuke Yamashita with drummer Takeo Moriyama) toured Europe in the spring of 2023 with his trio Arashi (with Swedish bassist Johan Berthling and Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love). Young Norwegian, Bergen-based pianist Isach Skeidsvoll (b.1996, who plays in Nilssen-Love’s Sun & Steel quartet, a recent collaborator of Frode Gjerstad, member of General Post Office, and leader of his own septet) used this opportunity to record a duo album with the Japanese master.

The hard-hitting, 33-minute only of Hidden River features three free improvised pieces, capturing the duo’s spontaneous and intense energy, fully possessed by the moment. Sakata plays the alto sax and clarinet while Skeidsvoll sounds as if he is all over the piano, all the time. The cover artwork is by Lasse Marhaug.

The opening, title piece erupts with great power as Sakata’s alto sax and Skeidsvoll’s piano keep colliding, but mid-piece, Sakata shifts the tone to a lyrical, melodic, and openly emotional one. The following «Kaigara-Bushi» (貝殻節, Shell tune) is a Japanese folk song of fishermen (and Sakata was a professional marine biologist), and here Sakata sings the words with a commanding voice of an old sage, telling about a fisherman who cries about his destiny, while Skeidsvoll repeats the cyclical theme. The last piece of this criminally short album, «The Silver Bell», with Sakata on clarinet, is free-associative and playful but no less intense or powerful, highlighting Sakata and Skeidsvoll’s immediate, sympathetic dynamics. It ends with a spontaneous, beautiful, lyrical melody.

Eyal Hareuveni    

Akira Sakata (alto saxophone, clarinet, vocals), Isach Skeidsvoll (piano)