Music For Zen Meditation

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A celebrated jazz clarinettist in the 1950s, Tony Scott started collaborating with Japanese artists on a trip he made to the country in 1959; he returned in 1964 to teach classes in American Jazz, and ended up collaborating with koto-ist Shinichi Yuize and shakuhachi flute player Hozan Yamamoto on a dozen improvised collaborations. Based on the Zen concept of Beginner's Mind, a state of openness that leads to exploration, the Scott-led pieces pre-date the more modern concept of 'ambient' by a good couple of decades--but, as music descended from temples and designed to ease the mind to a state of higher consciousness, it follows many of the same directives. The gentle clarinet is complemented by the flute, with the koto--a 13-stringed zither--providing a comfortable contrast, though all three musicians appear on only a single track, the opening "Is Not All One?". --Randy Silver