Ganryu Island (album) (original) (raw)

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1985 studio album by Michihiro Sato & John Zorn

Ganryu Island
Studio album by Michihiro Sato & John Zorn
Released	1985 1998 (Re-Release)
Recorded	Radio City Studio on November 23, 1984[1]
Genre	Avant-garde
Length	75:24
Label	Yukon Tzadik (Re-Release)
Producer	John Zorn
John Zorn chronology
The Classic Guide to Strategy(1983) Ganryu Island(1985) Voodoo(1986)

Ganryu Island is an collaborative album by John Zorn and Michihiro Sato. The album was first released on vinyl LP on Yukon Records in 1984 and later re-released on Tzadik Records as a CD with five additional tracks in 1998.[2]

The album is titled after Ganryujima, a small island in the Strait of Shimonoseki where legendary samurai warriors Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro engaged in battle.

The Allmusic review by Joslyn Layne awarded the album 4 stars stating "The great, no-holds-barred improvisation is by no means an inchoate whirl -- indeed, the shamisen's rhythmic presence often provides a steady, but flexible structure for the duo's truly imaginative interaction".[3]

The Penguin Guide to Jazz observed "listening to Ganryu Island is like panning for gold: seeming eternities spent lodging through muddy dross in order to turn up a few moments of pure gold. By the oddest perversity, the very best tracks seem to be those which were excluded from the venial release".[4]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[3]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz	[4]

All compositions by John Zorn and Satoh Michihiro

• John Zorn - alto and soprano saxophones, Bb clarinet, game calls, E-flat clarinet
• Sato Michihiro - shamisen

1. ^ Discogs
2. ^ Tzadik catalogue
3. ^ a b Layne, J. Allmusic Review accessed July 22, 2011
4. ^ a b Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2000). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (5th ed.). Penguin. p. 1613. ISBN 0-14-051452-X.