Akira Sakata

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Akira Sakata is a Japanese free jazz saxophonist, born in 1945 in Kure near Hiroshima. He first heard jazz on shortwave radio and through Voice of America, and became more interested in it through film music. At secondary school he played clarinet. At Hiroshima University he played alto saxophone in a jazz band. He studied to become a marine biologist and moved to Tokyo in 1969.

Music and breakthrough

From 1972 to 1979 he played in the Yamashita Yosuke Trio, with which he toured internationally. In 1986 he played with Last Exit and Bill Laswell. That performance appeared as The Noise of Trouble: Live in Tokyo. Laswell later played bass on albums by Sakata and produced them, such as Mooko, Silent Plankton and Fisherman's.com. The guitarist Pete Cosey, who had worked with Miles Davis, also played on the last of these. Sakata also collaborated with DJ Krush and with Chikamorachi. In 2002 he suffered a brain haemorrhage. He had to learn to play the saxophone again and performed again after three months.

Influence

Sakata is also an actor for television and film, and a writer. He has invented a language of his own, which Japanese people find very funny. On stage he sometimes puts his saxophone down and makes sounds only with his voice, which is both funny and musical. In this way he shows that free jazz does not have to sound serious all the time.

Listening

In School of Rock

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