Sunday, April 10, 2005

LISTENING POST

By MICHAEL PRONKO

If poets are the unacknowledged statesmen of the world, musicians are the unacknowledged healers. Jazz violinist Billy Bang is a great example. After studying classical violin as a teenager and playing in bands through college, his career was put on hold -- to say the least -- after he was drafted and sent to Vietnam. But from that experience has grown a powerful curative force in his life and music. This week Bang brings his uncompromising style of jazz to Japan.

Bang has never really been off the scene. Since the 1970s, he has kept up a relentless touring schedule. "My head is spinning from so many flights," he said after last Thursday's first show of the tour at B Flat in Tokyo. Staying busy has had him leading his own groups and recording with jazz heavies such as Ronald Shannon Jackson, Don Cherry, James Blood Ulmer as well as 10 years with Sun Ra. Though a rare instrument in jazz, Bang's violin fits right in. "I think of it as a saxophone. I try to riff like they do so the other musicians don't have to think of it as a violin. I listen to Eric Dolphy and Jackie McLean. I study with these records, not violin records."

Thursday's show offered plenty of meaty, progressive jazz. Together with Japanese bassist Toshiki Nagata, saxophonist Sachi Hayasaka and drummer Shoji Hano, who will be on most of this tour, Bang showed he knows the sharp edges of jazz as well as the deeper pools of its tradition. In a mix of his own compositions, open, jam-ready numbers, such as Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman," and several nicely upended standards, such as "My Funny Valentine," Bang and his band showed originality and energy. Bang's huge repertoire of techniques, everything from funky driving riffs to Hendrix-like brawn to proficient classical tones mixed wonderfully with the Japanese musicians.

Still, it was a number from his 2001 album, "Vietnam: the Aftermath," that brought on the deepest chills. That tune, "Moments for the Kiamia," dedicated to soldiers killed in action or missing in action, mixed Vietnamese melodies with a sweeping symphonic sound. Turning memories into music, though, was not easy. "When I was writing those pieces, I went through a lot of stuff, crying and everything. I re-lived it. It was what I was avoiding all these years, but still carrying around. The record was more therapeutic for me than anything I could have imagined," he said.

Painful though that process was, Bang will push ahead with a new recording of Vietnam-related work to accompany a film of his returning to the country for the first time. "The new one is the same band plus Vietnamese musicians," he said. "That's what we're working toward, finding harmony with the Vietnamese."

Few musicians have drawn such strength from such a variety of sources, but Bang channels his past experiences in Vietnam, Germany and New York together with artistic influences -- jazz violinist Stuff Smith, sculptor Alain Kirilli, and N.Y.C's avant-garde loft scene -- into remarkably original work.

"I feel like I'm on a mission," he confided. "I want to bring this music to ears that are not familiar with it. I play a lot of cities and towns because I feel it's my duty to do this." Bang's intense, creative mission is one that deserves to be experienced.

Billy Bang plays: April 10 at Parker House Roll in Kyoto, (075) 352-8042; April 12 and 13 at Koba in Hiroshima, (082) 249-6556; April 15 at B Flat in Tokyo (03) 5563-2563; and April 17 at Naguri-mura Canoe Kobo in Saitama (0429) 79-1117.

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