Henry Kaiser

Guitarist Henry Kaiser stands out as a highly active participant in the San Francisco Bay Area music community and as an internationally acknowledged figure among the second wave of free improvisers that emerged during the 1970s. Early influences came from the angular approach of English improvising guitarist Derek Bailey and the guitarists featured in Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, followed by absorption of nuanced phrasing from American blues players and traditional repertoires from Asia, especially India, Korea, and Vietnam. First recordings captured both unaccompanied work and impromptu sessions alongside fellow energetic players such as Fred Frith, the Rova Saxophone Quartet, pianist Greg Goodman, and vocalist Diamanda Galas. During this period Kaiser developed numerous unorthodox electric-guitar methods that he integrated with logical structure and economical phrasing, frequently employing advanced signal-processing equipment.

Projects in the 1980s gravitated toward the rock idiom of the preceding two decades, particularly the music of the Grateful Dead, resulting in appearances on multiple tribute albums issued by Imaginary Records. After being identified primarily as a “cover artist,” Kaiser largely abandoned rock-oriented playing and returned to free improvisation, documenting encounters with Derek Bailey and Jim O'Rourke as well as fresh duo material with longtime partner Fred Frith. The 1990s brought greater visibility through partnerships with David Lindley and musicians based in Madagascar and Norway, plus several Shanachie sessions recorded in Burma. A further change occurred in the late 1990s when Kaiser teamed with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith for a long-running exploration of the early-1970s electric Miles Davis sound; the ensemble issued 1998’s Yo Miles! on Shanachie and the mid-2000s Cuneiform albums Sky Garden and Upriver. Between late 2001 and early 2002 he spent two and a half months in Antarctica with a scientific team, becoming the first musician to record on the continent, with some results later appearing in digital form.

Although Kaiser maintains a continuous schedule of recording in varied contexts, the pace of official releases sometimes lags behind the actual sessions, exemplified by the 2003 Guitar Party album with Glenn Phillips that originated in 1990. Into the twenty-first century he has sustained activity with multiple ensembles, among them the Yo Miles! project and an avant-garde improvising power trio alongside drummer Weasel Walter and bassist Damon Smith that released Plane Crash in 2009. Additional work includes collaboration on Richard Thompson’s score for Werner Herzog’s 2005 film Grizzly Man. Kaiser is also recognized as an underwater photographer whose images have influenced Herzog’s filmmaking; footage by Kaiser appears in the director’s 2005 science-fiction feature The Wild Blue Yonder and in the 2007 Antarctica documentary Encounters at the End of the World, which Kaiser produced and for which he co-composed and performed the original score with David Lindley.

Prolific studio output persisted. In 2007 several landmark recordings were reissued while new titles—No Way Back, Blue Water Ascent, Invincible Fantasy, and Indestructible Fantasy—were issued. The following year Kaiser worked with shakuhachi player Kiku Day and assembled thirteen musicians, among them Toshinori Kondo, Charles K. Noyes, Davey Williams, Larry Ochs, and John Oswald, for the Bailey memorial Domo Arigato Derek Sensei. Duo, trio, and solo sessions from 2009 yielded Plane Crash with Damon Smith and Weasel Walter in May, the solo set Where Endless Meets Disappearing, and the duet Ultraviolet Licorice with Bob Bralove. Another solo guitar recording appeared in 2010, alongside participation in Electric Willie: A Tribute to Willie Dixon with Elliott Sharp, Queen Esther, Eric Mingus, and Melvin Gibbs. Two rock-trio albums arrived in 2011—Ninja Star Danger Rock with Noyes and Walter, and Invisible Rays with Trey Gunn and Morgan Ågren—together with two self-released solo guitar collections.

Only one physical release, Kamüra with Torsten Müller and Randy Raine-Reusch, emerged in 2012, although multi-part digital sets such as Jazz Free, featuring Nels Cline, Walter, Jim Thomas, and Allan Whitman, also appeared. Requia and Other Improvisations for Guitar came out on Tzadik in 2013; while its title nods to the Takoma recordings of John Fahey and Robbie Basho, the tracks honor those artists plus Sun Ra, Masayuki Takayanagi, Hubert Sumlin, and Randy California. The same year Fractals released the Encounters at the End of the World film score co-written and performed with Lindley. No recording appeared in 2014 owing to an intensive studio schedule. Kaiser opened 2015 with four albums issued in a single week, among them The Celestial Squid with guitarist Ray Russell on Cuneiform, Relations with Damon Smith, and Leaps with Scott Amendola. Four further releases followed in 2016: Jazz Free, a collaboration with guitarists Nels Cline and Jim Thomas, plus Starbreak Splatterlight, Nazca Lines, and Skip to the Solo. Two collaborative albums appeared in 2017—Ocean of Storms with Tania Chen, Wadada Leo Smith, and William Winant, and Positively Space Music with Bob Bralove and Chris Muir. In 2019 Kaiser issued a second volume, More Requia, continuing the 2013 tribute to American Primitive guitar pioneer John Fahey.