Masayuki “Jojo” Takayanagi (1932-1991) was a maverick Japanese guitarist, a revolutionary spirit whose oeuvre embodied the radical political movements of late '60s
Japan. Having cut his teeth as an accomplished Lennie Tristano disciple playing cool
jazz in the late '50s, Takayanagi had his mind blown by the Chicago Transit Authority's “Free Form Guitar” in 1969 and promptly turned his back on the jazz scene by which he was beloved, going as far as to call his former peers and admirers “a bunch of losers” in the press. Takayanagi had found a new direction, an annihilation of jazz and its associated idolatry of hegemonic American culture. Aiming his virtuoso chops towards the stratosphere, Takayanagi dedicated himself to the art of the freakout, laying waste to tradition left and right, most notably via the all-out assault of his aptly-named New Direction for the Arts (later New Direction Unit) and collaborations with like-minded outsider saxophonist Kaoru Abe. His innovations on the instrument parallel those of Sonny Sharrock and
Derek Bailey and paved the way for the Japanese necromancy of
Keiji Haino and
Otomo Yoshihide, but even at its most limitless hurdling Takayanagi's playing is propelled by the dexterous grasp of his foundations, to which he paid tribute with elegant takes on flamenco and Ornette Coleman's “Lonely Woman.” In the autumn of his life, Takayanagi's solo Action Direct performances made him one of the first guitarists, alongside but independent of Keith Rowe, to use tabletop guitar for pure noise
improvisation.
