Toshinori Kondo

Avant-garde jazz and fusion trumpeter Toshinori Kondo was born Kondō Toshinori on December 15, 1948 in Ehime, Japan. When he was enrolled at Kyoto University in 1967, he became friends with percussionist Tsuchitori Toshiyuki. They left university five years later and collaborated with different musicians – Kondo worked with Yosuke Yamashita. He relocated to New York in 1978, working with acclaimed avant-garde musicians Fred Frith, John Zorn, Bill Laswell, and Eraldo Bernocchi. He released the album Moose and Salmon in 1978, which was a musical collaboration with guitarist Henry Kaiser and saxophonist John Oswald. In 1979, he was involved with the recording of the album Environment for Sextet, which also featured Zorn, Andrew Centazzo, Eugene Chadbourne, Tom Cora, and Polly Bradfield. Kondo’s first proper solo album was Fuigo From a Different Dimension (1979). He continued to collaborate with other artists on a series of albums in the early 1980s. Kondo toured and collaborated with artist such as Chadbourne and Peter Brotzman before returning to Japan. Back in his homeland, he collaborated with Kazumi Watanabe, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Herbie Hancock. He recorded solo albums that blended electronic music with his avant-garde roots including Taihen (1985), Touchstone (1993) and Shadow (1995). He also became a member of Die Like a Dog, who recorded the album Fragments of Music, Life and Death of Albert Ayler in 1994. Kondo was approached by the Dalai Lama, who invited him to be involved with an international peace festival in Hiroshima. He continued collaborating with various artists – most significantly the Blow The Earth project with his band Kondo IMA – and recording releases include the 2018 Kondo IMA album Space Children In 2019, he released the album Blow The Earth India. Toshinori Kondo died on October 17, 2020 at the age of 71.

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