Wisdom on Japanese J*** sought

The Japanese jazz label Three Blind Mice was famous in the 1970's. I have a few original ones, newly made are available:

Vinyl: TBM vinyl

CD:TBM CD

JohanR

While I'm not an expert on Japanese Jazz, that Masura Imada/ George Mraz due recording on Three Blind Mice is excellent. Most Japanese Jazz is pretty derivative, unlike a lot of European jazz, but Imada is excellent. For more recent CDs the Venus label is outstanding--it includes both U.S. and Japanese musicians (Most recent CDs on Venus I picked up were Seven Steps to Heaven by Francesco Cafiso, young Italian alto phenom and Kelly Blue by young U.S. pianist Dan Nimmer, both superb). If your tastes lean to the avant garde, Yosuke Yamashita is an adventurous, interesting pianist.

The Masada/Mraz CD is called Alone Together on Three Blind Mice

I acquired about a dozen TBM CDs in the 80s, and they are all sonically excellent. Alone Together remains one of my favorite jazz albums, but most of the rest have fallen by the wayside. Really, most of them pale when compared to the giants of American jazz such as Miles Davis, Coltrane, Bill Evans, and others of that period.

Norman

quote:

Originally posted by blackforest:

- TATSURO YAMASHITA
- YUMI MATSUTOYA

Christian,

Above two are not really *jazz*. More like Yumi Matsutoya ( aka Yuming ) is a queen of J-pop from early 70's and she's still pretty active.

I love Tatsuro stuff from my hi-school days and have few of his albums/CDs. He's more like a California fusion light pop xovered with funk.
His recent releases have been acapella type of music with Beach Boys-esque harmony.

To sample his older work, if you can get a hold of the Greatest Hits on vinyl ( it comes in CD also, but a record sounds better ), you'd get the pretty good flavour of his past work.


Later Yuming's work has a polished glossy production value ( often recorded/mixed Westlake studio and mastered by Burnie Grundman )
This is the compilation of her work up to '76 or so.

Or to sample her newer work:

They can be ordered here:
HMV Japan

It's interesting to see Giles Peterson is using their tunes in his mix now.

Have you checked out the Kyoto Jazz Massive , Hajime Yoshizawa or Soul Bossa Trio ( their new release Dolphin on the vinyl is excellent, btw )?

They probably fall into a down-tempo acid jazz genre.

For more traditional jazz vein, I like Ponta Box .

This live recording is pretty good.

All TBM catalogue is *nice* especially in a XRCD format, but I can't take them in a massive dose as they get tedious. Performance wise, I think, they are better than the 'Jazz at the Pawnshop* crap, but it's still pretty lacklustre.

thanks kuma et al. - very helpful. i check most of the names thru wikipedia and indeed most of them are NOT jazz.

the IMADA MASARU track ("Nowin") is the bomb!

regards,+bf