The Empty Gallery is proud to present a solo performance by Masayoshi Urabe (alto sax, etc). One of Japan’s foremost free reed players, Masayoshi Urabe is perhaps the most important Japanese saxophonist of his generation. More akin to shamanic ritual than “improvised music”, Urabe’s intensely physical live performances exist at the absolute limit point between music, dance, and theater. Eschewing the bravura sax runs favoured by many of his free jazz peers, his playing deploys large swathes of silence between notes, intuitively recalling the Japanese concept of Ma (間). Urabe ruptures this sonic void with sudden, spontaneous eruptions of sound: coruscating squeals, delicate breathing noises, fragments of surprising lyricism. Beyond free jazz, improvisation, or noise, Masayoshi Urabe’s playing manages to attain a level of simultaneous delicacy and brutality which few but the greatest have ever been able to claim. Over the years, he has played with Junko (Hijokaidan), Kan Mikami, Rinji Fukuoka (Overhang Party, Majitsu no Niwa),  Mukai Chie, Toshiaki Ishizuka, Hiroshi Hasegawa, Kousokuya, and countless others from the Tokyo underground. Please don’t miss this rare chance to see Urabe-san give a haunting performance in The Empty Gallery’s unique space!