Shabaka on his shakuhachi: ‘The way it makes you feel is unsurpassed by any other instrument’ A central figure of the London jazz scene, Shabaka Hutchings , 40, has been a member of bands including Shabaka and the Ancestors , and the Mercury-nominated Sons of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming . He announced last year that he would no longer be playing the saxophone live. For his solo debut album, Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace , released on Impulse! in April , he uses different types of flute and the clarinet.
This summer and autumn Shabaka tours the US, Canada and Europe, including the Montreal international jazz festival . He is pictured here with a shakuhachi, a traditional Japanese bamboo flute This is one of the more difficult instruments to play that I own. It was given to me by an instrument-maker and shakuhachi player in Japan, Katsuya Nonaka.
A year and a half ago, I travelled to Japan to meet him to talk about harvesting and making my own shakuhachi. We went to a bamboo forest and started the process of selecting the bamboo – it had to be the right age because of the moisture, and had to be suitable for my hand – and we dug it out of the ground from the roots. Then you burn the shakuhachi to get the initial oil out, and you leave it to cure for a year.
I went back a year later and finished the process: I made three shakuhachis, and harvested four more on that trip. I’ll be going back to Japan later this year for the process of boring the holes and .