Ayako Hosokawa With The Masaru Imada Quartet – No Tears

A really lovely album from pianist Masaru Imada – a set that has some elements of the great Japanese fusion scene of the time, but a record that also has some warmer more acoustic moments too! Imada does a great job of balancing between upbeat groovers and some more personal, lyrical songs – and although he plays a bit of keyboards, most of his work is on acoustic piano – in a lineup of players that also includes Grovewr Washington Jr on soprano sax, Steve Khan or Kazumi Watanabe on guitar, Michael Brecker on tenor, and Steve Jordan on drums. There's some great interplay between the American and Japanese players – and titles include a version of Azymuth's "Carnival", plus "Morning Dream", "Blue Marine", "Secret Sounds", "Jumpin Dolphin", and "Andalusian Breeze".

A nicely bold record from pianist Masaru Imada – one of his most strongly-grooving records of the 70s, and a set that features some great hork work as well! The core trio features Kunimitsu Inaba on bass and Fumio Watanabe on drums – both of whom bring out a more soulful groove than on some of Imada's other albums of the time – which then gets really expanded by some excellent work from Seiichi Nakamura on tenor and Shigeharu Mukai on trombone – both very welcome players here, who really make the album shine! Titles include "Seeking Blue", "Piko", "Wake Up", and "Morning Sunrise".

Masaru Imada is a Japanese jazz pianist and composer. He played jazz in student bands while a student at Meiji University, after which he worked in business for a year. He then decided to pursue music professionally. From 1953 he was part of clarinetist Eiji Kitamura's band. Imada had his own trio from 1964. He played internationally at jazz festivals from the 1970s. In the 1980s he worked in New York and Tokyo with Tom Browne, Grover Washington Jr. (Blue Marine), Randy Brecker, David Sanborn, Kazumi Watanabe, Will Lee, Steve Gadd and Guilherme Franco (A Day in the Paradise, 1983) as well as with their own formations. In 1984 he founded the fusion band Now’in.

This album is dedicated to Duke Ellington, and it features Duke Ellington tunes - but overall the set is a very personal moment from pianist Masaru Imada - maybe one of his strongest dates of the 70s! The music opens up with that beautifully creative Japanese piano trio approach of the 70s - lots of new ideas and new styles brimming forth throughout, but always in a way that's respectful of tradition while pushing things forward - swinging back to familiar modes one minute, then soaring forth with a personal spirit the next. Masaru's trio-mates here are a great match - the excellent Isoo Fukui on bass and Tetsujiro Obara on drums.

The tunes are standards, but they're played with a great sense of personality by Japanese pianist Masaru Imada - ringing out with great sound and a strong focus, and recorded in that beautiful mode that was used heavily with Japanese trios in the 70s. The style is often fluid, but measured by a nice pulse on the keys - a bit in an Oscar Peterson mode, but far less heavy with cliche - and often snapping out with a fresh sense of rediscovery in some of these tunes. Members of the trio include Ken Suzuki on bass and Hironobu Fujisawa on drums.

Keyboardist Masaru Imada in a really great setting - working alongside a tight trombone lineup with a really bold sound! The style's still very much in the spirit of some of Imada's other 70s records - and he plays both acoustic piano and Fender Rhodes - yet the trombone work of Yoshio Okiawa, Michio Kagiwada, Hitomi Uchida, and Toshinobu Iwasaki really help give the record a lot of punch, too - as the players blow together boldly to augment the small combo at the core - not really in a big band sort of mode, but more like some of the classic swingers from JJ Johnson and Kai Winding! Other instrumentation includes guitar, bass, and especially nice drums and percussion - used in rhythms that help keep things from ever sounding hokey, and really helping the whole concept swing in great ways throughout.

Japanese pianist Masaru Imada is in his best fusion mode here working with great help from American players Tom Browne on trumpet, Grover Washington Jr. on soprano and tenor sax, Steve Khan on guitar, Anthony Jackson on bass, and Steve Jordan on drums! Imada plays both acoustic and electric piano, and the set has that perfect mix that happened with the best albums of this type - when a brilliant Japanese jazz musician came into contact with the cream of the crop of the American electric jazz scene - on a record that's got a strong sense of soul throughout! Things are tight, but never too slick or commercial - again that special balance that makes so many Japanese fusion projects so different than the smoother American work of the period.

A beautiful little record, with some of the slight exotic touches you might expect from the title - as the group features Kazumi Watanabe on acoustic and electric guitar, and Yuji Imamura on percussion - both musicians who help open up the sound of the trio core into much warmer territory! Masaru Imada plays piano with a sharply sparkling tone, but also a strong sense of rhythm - one that's often amplified by the excellent bass work of Mitsuaki Furuno, who may well be the real star of the set - given his subtle talent for moving things forward.