SNJO World Of The Gods Queen's Hall Edinburgh 28th May 2023 Review
SNJO World of The Gods with the Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers at The Queen’s Hall Edinburgh tonight fused the worlds of Jazz and traditional Japanese Taiko drummers into a true cross-over event of both music and cultures.
Percussion is probably one of the oldest art forms in human history; striking one object with another to make a sound (or sounds) is something our far distant ancestors would certainly have done, but what music would they have made? That we will never know, but we can imagine the sound of drums, whether they be sounding joyous occasions, ringing out across a battlefield, or deeply rooted in religion and belief systems, and they are now very much a part of our daily lives, some would even say, part of our own heartbeats.
Jazz obviously has its own highly developed drum sounds and tonight, SNJO drummer Alyn Cosker seemed to seamlessly integrate his world and his skills with those of the Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers who also have their own highly sophisticated musical legacy to draw upon. Unlike Jazz though, these drummers do not use musical notation to record their work, instead a traditional phonetic/oral system is used, so finding a common ground of communication provided a few initial challenges.
This work was originally produced in 2010 (tonight’s work has had a few updates) after SNJO founder and musical director Tommy Smith watched a television programme about Taiko (2009) and was captivated by its traditions and sounds. The idea of fusing these sounds with the SNJO started to form, but where to find the drummers for this project? Japan was the obvious answer, but a far closer one lay in Scotland, in fact only a few miles from Tommy Smith’s own home. Mugenkyo was established in 1994 by Neil Mackie & Miyuki Williams, who studied Masaaki Kurumaya Sensei.
To start to understand Taiko drumming, a wider perspective of the philosophy behind the sound must be taken into account, and the best description comes from the drummers’ own website
"Mugen" means limitless and "Mugenkyo" means limitless reverberation, expressing our belief that Taiko has no limitations, no musical or geographical boundaries.
Mugenkyo have over the years not only stayed true to their traditional teachings, but also developed their art and performances to encompass new directions and new possibilities, and finding out tonight that their Sensei was also a Jazz trumpeter who incorporated different sounds into his teachings goes some way into the reason that this cultural fusion is such a success.
Drumming, percussion and Shinto Religion at times seem to be one, and here Tommy Smith has taken inspiration from traditional Japanese melodies and poems too and distilled all of this vast repertoire of tradition and religious beliefs into 10 very distinct works depicting “Goddess of Dawn & Revelry”, “God of The Moon”, “God of Fire”, “God of the Wind”, God of Storms”, “The Underworld”. “God of the Sea”, “Goddess of the Sun”, “God of War” and “God of Thunder and Lightning”.
In writing “World of The Gods” Tommy Smith has taken sounds that echo from our past and contemporary jazz to give each of these ten Gods their own very distinctive sounds and colours where soaring solo saxophones, a double bass (sounding like you never expect it to), trumpets, keyboards and much more paint pictures in sound that connect man, gods and the earth together.
I have more than a few favourites from this performance and the very special acoustic space of the Queen’s Hall was just a perfect one for the Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers. Nothing can quite prepare you for the sheer power of these drums sounding when being played, and “God of Storms” captured that feeling of the raw energy perfectly.
This is the Tommy Smith and the SNJO at their best – exploring new collaborations with musicians from different backgrounds to create together something new and often unexpected.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
Percussion is probably one of the oldest art forms in human history; striking one object with another to make a sound (or sounds) is something our far distant ancestors would certainly have done, but what music would they have made? That we will never know, but we can imagine the sound of drums, whether they be sounding joyous occasions, ringing out across a battlefield, or deeply rooted in religion and belief systems, and they are now very much a part of our daily lives, some would even say, part of our own heartbeats.
Jazz obviously has its own highly developed drum sounds and tonight, SNJO drummer Alyn Cosker seemed to seamlessly integrate his world and his skills with those of the Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers who also have their own highly sophisticated musical legacy to draw upon. Unlike Jazz though, these drummers do not use musical notation to record their work, instead a traditional phonetic/oral system is used, so finding a common ground of communication provided a few initial challenges.
This work was originally produced in 2010 (tonight’s work has had a few updates) after SNJO founder and musical director Tommy Smith watched a television programme about Taiko (2009) and was captivated by its traditions and sounds. The idea of fusing these sounds with the SNJO started to form, but where to find the drummers for this project? Japan was the obvious answer, but a far closer one lay in Scotland, in fact only a few miles from Tommy Smith’s own home. Mugenkyo was established in 1994 by Neil Mackie & Miyuki Williams, who studied Masaaki Kurumaya Sensei.
To start to understand Taiko drumming, a wider perspective of the philosophy behind the sound must be taken into account, and the best description comes from the drummers’ own website
"Mugen" means limitless and "Mugenkyo" means limitless reverberation, expressing our belief that Taiko has no limitations, no musical or geographical boundaries.
Mugenkyo have over the years not only stayed true to their traditional teachings, but also developed their art and performances to encompass new directions and new possibilities, and finding out tonight that their Sensei was also a Jazz trumpeter who incorporated different sounds into his teachings goes some way into the reason that this cultural fusion is such a success.
Drumming, percussion and Shinto Religion at times seem to be one, and here Tommy Smith has taken inspiration from traditional Japanese melodies and poems too and distilled all of this vast repertoire of tradition and religious beliefs into 10 very distinct works depicting “Goddess of Dawn & Revelry”, “God of The Moon”, “God of Fire”, “God of the Wind”, God of Storms”, “The Underworld”. “God of the Sea”, “Goddess of the Sun”, “God of War” and “God of Thunder and Lightning”.
In writing “World of The Gods” Tommy Smith has taken sounds that echo from our past and contemporary jazz to give each of these ten Gods their own very distinctive sounds and colours where soaring solo saxophones, a double bass (sounding like you never expect it to), trumpets, keyboards and much more paint pictures in sound that connect man, gods and the earth together.
I have more than a few favourites from this performance and the very special acoustic space of the Queen’s Hall was just a perfect one for the Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers. Nothing can quite prepare you for the sheer power of these drums sounding when being played, and “God of Storms” captured that feeling of the raw energy perfectly.
This is the Tommy Smith and the SNJO at their best – exploring new collaborations with musicians from different backgrounds to create together something new and often unexpected.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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