Biography
Yasuaki Shimizu stood among Yellow Magic Orchestra and Plastics in forging the signature sonic identity of 1980s Japan. Years afterward he remains a preferred session musician and producer while sustaining a solo body of work that merges jazz, rock, and classical minimalism with traditions adapted from African, Middle Eastern, Ethiopian, and Jamaican sources. Experimental prog rock band Mariah was founded by Shimizu in 1978, and the group delivered its self-titled album the following year. The aesthetic framework for his subsequent recordings was established by the solo albums Kakashi in 1982 and Utakata No Hibi in 1983, a direction borne out by the lush, post-new wave pop of 1987's Subliminal. In 1996 he composed and recorded the score for the successful animated film X while commencing the release of his internationally praised saxophone rearrangements of J.S. Bach's cello suites. Pentatonica, issued in 2009 under the Saxophonettes banner, presented both earlier pieces and fresh compositions and covers. Kiren, taped in 1984, finally appeared in 2022 together with the NHK Saturday Drama soundtrack for Kuhaku wo Mitashinasai.
Born in the rural community of Shimada within Japan's Shizuoka prefecture near Mount Fuji, Shimizu developed an early fascination with the qualities of sound and an attraction to musical instruments. Prior to concentrating on saxophone at age 11, he explored percussion, basic violin, guitar, clarinet, and piano, and he also experimented with electronics. During adolescence he activated a homemade radio transmitter and detected an unusual buzzing outdoors; tracing it through the rice paddies he encountered a dense chorus of countless insects, an encounter that ignited his enduring pursuit of sound and spatial relationships.
Shimizu's entry into professional recording came through drummer and composer Motohiko Hino's hard bop quartet, where he formed a quick alliance with guitarist Kazumi Watanabe. From 1976 to 1978 he appeared on pop, disco, and jazz sessions for artists including the Yosuke Yamashita Trio, vocalist Taeko Ohnuki, and disco revivalists the Paradise Garage. A one-time agreement with J-Jazz imprint Yupiteru Records yielded his debut Get You in 1978, a polished contemporary jazz set distinguished by his own compositions and the keyboard work of pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto. He simultaneously assembled the nine-piece adventurous prog rock ensemble Mariah, whose sound drew heavily from psychedelia, global folk and pop traditions, and new wave; their self-titled debut surfaced in 1979.
Electric Bird, another jazz independent, signed Shimizu, and he recorded and released Far East Express the next year in New York City with trumpeter Lew Soloff and bassist Tony Levin of King Crimson. That same year he contributed to Watanabe's Kylyn and Kylyn Live. In 1980 Shimizu appeared on Toshiyuki Miyama & New Herd's Plays Chikara Ueda - Big Stuff and joined Masunori Sasaji and Nobuyuki Shimizu on Electro-Pops of Beatles '80.
The wildly experimental solo album Berlin arrived in 1980, fusing classical, industrial, electronic, J-pop, rock, and jazz elements across original compositions, while Mariah issued their second album, Yen Tricks=Yen. Throughout the 1980s Shimizu participated in nearly every project offered, recording with Toots Thielemans, Tsunehide Matsuki, composer Masahiko Satoh, Watanabe, and numerous others.
In 1981 he produced and released IQ 179 - The Nervous Activities Prevention Law featuring Sakamoto, Watanabe, and a vocal chorus, as Mariah put out their third and fourth albums, Marginal Love and Red Party. Kakashi appeared in 1982, launching a sequence of recordings through the rest of the decade and into the early 1990s that drew from new wave, electro-acoustic experimentalism, pop, and jazz; Shimizu viewed it as the opening installment of a trilogy completed by 1983's Utakata No Hibi (Mariah) and 1984's Kiren, the latter unreleased until 2022. Also in 1983 the Saxophonettes delivered their first album, L'Automne À Pékin, with Shimizu leading on multiple saxophones above a rhythm section that included Sakamoto on pianos and electric bass.
During the ensuing five years Shimizu concentrated on composition, production, and session duties, releasing Stardust with the Saxophonettes while contributing to albums by the Great Jazz Trio (New Yorker Short Stories), Seigen Ono (Seigen), Watanabe and Sakamoto (Tokyo Joe), French singer-songwriters Pierre Barouh (Le Pollen) and Alain Chamfort (Tendres Fièvres), and saxophonist Akira Sakata (Da-Da-Da). Dementos, his most ambitious, playful, and varied collection to date, emerged in 1988; the twelve-track set earned praise in Tokyo and New York for its layered sonic inquiry that united pop, Japanese folk traditions, and electronic abstraction. Aduna, recorded in London in 1989, featured drummer Gavin Harrison alongside guitarists Jakko M. Jakszyk and Wasis Diop.
Shadow of China, Shimizu's first feature film score, was completed in 1990, and Latin appeared under the Saxophonettes name as a compilation of previously unissued solo saxophone performances from 1983 to 1991. He collaborated again with Sakamoto on Better Days Of in 1992. Saxophonettes issued Time and Again in 1993. The following year Shimizu made his initial appearance with Towa Tei on Future Listening and continued as part of the pop musician's studio ensembles into the early 2000s; he also co-produced and performed on Wasis Diop's No Sant that same year.
Cello Suites 1-3, the Saxophonettes' radical saxophone rearrangement of Bach's Six Unaccompanied Suites for Cello, was released in 1996 and received acclaim from classical critics worldwide. Cello Suites 4-6 followed in 1999 to even stronger reception and sales. In 2001 Shimizu and the Moonriders joined Barouh for the live Concert À L'Espace Pierre Cardin, while he produced and issued Cinefil. Film Lovers' TV Channel - The Music under his own name. The contemporary classical album Seventh Garden appeared in 2004, with Shimizu performing every instrument on original compositions and accompanied by vocalists, including the Hibari Children's Chorus, on four tracks.
Two years later the Saxophonettes solo project expanded into a quintet comprising Ryoko Egawa, Hirokazu Hayashida, Ryota Higashi, and Hiroshi Suzuki, featuring three tenors and two baritones. They recorded and released Pentatonica in 2007, blending classical, jazz, and modern composition rooted in the five-note pentatonic scale; alongside new material the album contained arrangements of Ethiopian traditional music and reworked earlier pieces. The ensemble toured Moscow, Havana, and Hong Kong. After the 2008 collaboration 100 with composer David Cunningham of Flying Lizards, the group premiered the first saxophone-quintet-and-four-contrabass version of Bach's Goldberg Variations in 2010 and refined and recorded it in 2015. A remixed, remastered, and edited edition of 1987's Subliminal appeared in 2018 as (Re)Subliminal.
An archival 2002 trio performance by Shimizu, Bill Laswell, and Hideo Yamaki at the Shinjuku Inn was issued in 2020 on the bassist's M.O.D. label. In 2022 the independent Palto Flats label released the widely acclaimed, fully remastered Kiren from its original analog tapes, fulfilling long-standing collector demand. Palto Flats followed in 2023 with a meticulously restored reissue of 1982's Kakashi, while the completely remastered TV score for NHK Saturday Drama (Kuhaku wo Mitashinasai) also appeared that year.
Born in the rural community of Shimada within Japan's Shizuoka prefecture near Mount Fuji, Shimizu developed an early fascination with the qualities of sound and an attraction to musical instruments. Prior to concentrating on saxophone at age 11, he explored percussion, basic violin, guitar, clarinet, and piano, and he also experimented with electronics. During adolescence he activated a homemade radio transmitter and detected an unusual buzzing outdoors; tracing it through the rice paddies he encountered a dense chorus of countless insects, an encounter that ignited his enduring pursuit of sound and spatial relationships.
Shimizu's entry into professional recording came through drummer and composer Motohiko Hino's hard bop quartet, where he formed a quick alliance with guitarist Kazumi Watanabe. From 1976 to 1978 he appeared on pop, disco, and jazz sessions for artists including the Yosuke Yamashita Trio, vocalist Taeko Ohnuki, and disco revivalists the Paradise Garage. A one-time agreement with J-Jazz imprint Yupiteru Records yielded his debut Get You in 1978, a polished contemporary jazz set distinguished by his own compositions and the keyboard work of pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto. He simultaneously assembled the nine-piece adventurous prog rock ensemble Mariah, whose sound drew heavily from psychedelia, global folk and pop traditions, and new wave; their self-titled debut surfaced in 1979.
Electric Bird, another jazz independent, signed Shimizu, and he recorded and released Far East Express the next year in New York City with trumpeter Lew Soloff and bassist Tony Levin of King Crimson. That same year he contributed to Watanabe's Kylyn and Kylyn Live. In 1980 Shimizu appeared on Toshiyuki Miyama & New Herd's Plays Chikara Ueda - Big Stuff and joined Masunori Sasaji and Nobuyuki Shimizu on Electro-Pops of Beatles '80.
The wildly experimental solo album Berlin arrived in 1980, fusing classical, industrial, electronic, J-pop, rock, and jazz elements across original compositions, while Mariah issued their second album, Yen Tricks=Yen. Throughout the 1980s Shimizu participated in nearly every project offered, recording with Toots Thielemans, Tsunehide Matsuki, composer Masahiko Satoh, Watanabe, and numerous others.
In 1981 he produced and released IQ 179 - The Nervous Activities Prevention Law featuring Sakamoto, Watanabe, and a vocal chorus, as Mariah put out their third and fourth albums, Marginal Love and Red Party. Kakashi appeared in 1982, launching a sequence of recordings through the rest of the decade and into the early 1990s that drew from new wave, electro-acoustic experimentalism, pop, and jazz; Shimizu viewed it as the opening installment of a trilogy completed by 1983's Utakata No Hibi (Mariah) and 1984's Kiren, the latter unreleased until 2022. Also in 1983 the Saxophonettes delivered their first album, L'Automne À Pékin, with Shimizu leading on multiple saxophones above a rhythm section that included Sakamoto on pianos and electric bass.
During the ensuing five years Shimizu concentrated on composition, production, and session duties, releasing Stardust with the Saxophonettes while contributing to albums by the Great Jazz Trio (New Yorker Short Stories), Seigen Ono (Seigen), Watanabe and Sakamoto (Tokyo Joe), French singer-songwriters Pierre Barouh (Le Pollen) and Alain Chamfort (Tendres Fièvres), and saxophonist Akira Sakata (Da-Da-Da). Dementos, his most ambitious, playful, and varied collection to date, emerged in 1988; the twelve-track set earned praise in Tokyo and New York for its layered sonic inquiry that united pop, Japanese folk traditions, and electronic abstraction. Aduna, recorded in London in 1989, featured drummer Gavin Harrison alongside guitarists Jakko M. Jakszyk and Wasis Diop.
Shadow of China, Shimizu's first feature film score, was completed in 1990, and Latin appeared under the Saxophonettes name as a compilation of previously unissued solo saxophone performances from 1983 to 1991. He collaborated again with Sakamoto on Better Days Of in 1992. Saxophonettes issued Time and Again in 1993. The following year Shimizu made his initial appearance with Towa Tei on Future Listening and continued as part of the pop musician's studio ensembles into the early 2000s; he also co-produced and performed on Wasis Diop's No Sant that same year.
Cello Suites 1-3, the Saxophonettes' radical saxophone rearrangement of Bach's Six Unaccompanied Suites for Cello, was released in 1996 and received acclaim from classical critics worldwide. Cello Suites 4-6 followed in 1999 to even stronger reception and sales. In 2001 Shimizu and the Moonriders joined Barouh for the live Concert À L'Espace Pierre Cardin, while he produced and issued Cinefil. Film Lovers' TV Channel - The Music under his own name. The contemporary classical album Seventh Garden appeared in 2004, with Shimizu performing every instrument on original compositions and accompanied by vocalists, including the Hibari Children's Chorus, on four tracks.
Two years later the Saxophonettes solo project expanded into a quintet comprising Ryoko Egawa, Hirokazu Hayashida, Ryota Higashi, and Hiroshi Suzuki, featuring three tenors and two baritones. They recorded and released Pentatonica in 2007, blending classical, jazz, and modern composition rooted in the five-note pentatonic scale; alongside new material the album contained arrangements of Ethiopian traditional music and reworked earlier pieces. The ensemble toured Moscow, Havana, and Hong Kong. After the 2008 collaboration 100 with composer David Cunningham of Flying Lizards, the group premiered the first saxophone-quintet-and-four-contrabass version of Bach's Goldberg Variations in 2010 and refined and recorded it in 2015. A remixed, remastered, and edited edition of 1987's Subliminal appeared in 2018 as (Re)Subliminal.
An archival 2002 trio performance by Shimizu, Bill Laswell, and Hideo Yamaki at the Shinjuku Inn was issued in 2020 on the bassist's M.O.D. label. In 2022 the independent Palto Flats label released the widely acclaimed, fully remastered Kiren from its original analog tapes, fulfilling long-standing collector demand. Palto Flats followed in 2023 with a meticulously restored reissue of 1982's Kakashi, while the completely remastered TV score for NHK Saturday Drama (Kuhaku wo Mitashinasai) also appeared that year.
Albums
