Masayuki Takayanagi

Hideto Kanai Group - Q (1971) {2013 Japan Three Blind Mice Mini LP Blu-spec CD Remaster THCD-255}
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© 1971, 2013 Three Blind Mice / Sony Music Direct (Japan) / Think! Records | THCD-318 | LP TBM-6
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Bass

The sixth album released by Three Blind Mice turned the spotlight on Hideto Kanai a veteran bassist who had been pursuing a very progressive, unique and uncompromising kind of jazz since the early 1960s. With his passion for educating young musicians and adventurous nature, Kanai has drawn some comparisons to another great leader, Charles Mingus, whom he respected.

Sadao Watanabe - Sadao Watanabe (1972) {2014 Japan Jazz Collection 1000 Columbia-RCA Series SICP 4066}
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© 1972, 2014 Columbia / Sony Music Japan | SICP 4066
Jazz / Fusion / World / Jazz Funk

Reissue with the latest DSD remastering. Comes with liner notes. After completing explore the entire Brazilian music in the sixties and to become the representative of the genus in Japan, Sadao has put aside Bossa Nova to enter in a new era with this iconic album which opens his African period. From return of East Africa when he visited Kenya, Sadao recruited new musicians featuring trombonist Hiroshi Fukumura and operates now the African musical culture mixing the rhythms to the free forms of experimental jazz. Each track can be seen as the theatrical representation of the African Culture. All tracks mixed by Kunihiko Sugano at Iino Hall.

This just might be the single greatest side of OTT psych/noise guitar oblivion ever put to wax, a suitably enigmatic nada-information ultra-limited LP w/printed off-set covers featuring a shades-less Mizutani, an enigmatic insert with nothing but a colour ocean-front snap and two ludicrously extended, blown-out takes on primo material from the most legendary Japanese underground group of all time, Les Rallizes Denudes…

Three Blind Mice revitalized the Japanese jazz scene during the 1970s and 1980s. Its initial mission was to proactively produce albums of new musicians. Another goal was to expand its fan base, which was done by releasing albums of famous musicians. Through these efforts, TBM has greatly contributed to enriching the Japanese jazz scene. Tsuyoshi Yamamoto and Isao Suzuki were two of the leading figures who gained prominence by their works on TBM. Yamamoto quickly became a star in the Japanese jazz scene by releasing a series of excellent albums on the label.

Henry Kaiser - Requia And Other Improvisations For Guitar Solo (2013) {Tzadik Key Series}
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© 2013 Tzadik | TZ 7645 | Key Series
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Experimental Rock / Improvisation

Research diver, underwater videographer, world traveler, film director and guitarist extraordinaire, Henry Kaiser has been a central figure in the Bay Area music scene since the late 1970s. A member of the first generation of American free improvisers, his style is completely unique and touches on Rock, Blues, World Music, Folk, Jazz, Classical and so much more. Here he steps out on his own for a solo guitar album that pays tribute to a handful of his heroes who have tragically died in the past few years. A heartfelt and touching program of “requia” for solo guitar by this always surprising American Maverick.

Takeshi Shibuya - Cook Note (1977) {2018 Octave Lab OTLCD2357}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44.1kHz - Digital Download -> 259 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 101 Mb | Artwork | 5% repair rar
© 1977, 2018 Trio Records / Deep Jazz Reality / Octave Lab | OTLCD2357
Jazz / Post Bop / Contemporary Jazz / Piano

Takeshi Shibuya is a Japanese jazz pianist who also worked as a film composer. Takeshi Shibuya worked in the Tokyo jazz scene from the late 1960s a. a. with Nobuo Hara, with whom the first recordings were made in 1969/70. In the 1970s he played with Masayuki Takayanagi, Kunihiko Sugano and Shun Sakai, and he also arranged for the singer Ryoko Moriyama. In 1975 he made his debut album Dream, a live recording from Club Pannonica in Kagoshima with Tatsuhiro Matsumoto (bass) and Yoshitaka Uematsu or Sumiaki Matsushima (drums); 1977 followed the trio album Cook Note (Trio Records, with Tamio Kawabata, Shoichi Miyazawa), 1982 the solo album Shibyan !. From the 1980s he also accompanied the vocalists Maki Asakawa, Akira Sakata and Hideko Okiyama.

"Tee" in Tee & Company is the nickname of Three Blind Mice's founder and producer Takeshi Fujii, who formed the all-star group of eight top Japanese jazz musicians in 1977 for a series of concerts and seven days of studio recording that produced three separate albums. This supergroup included who's who of the Japanese jazz scene: Kenji Mori and Takao Uematsu on saxophones, Masaru Imada on piano, Masayuki Takayanagi on guitar, Hideto Kanai on bass, Nobuyoshi Ino on electric bass, Hiroshi Murakami on drums and Yuji Imamura on percussion. Fujii and the musicians at the time were pursuing jazz as a new art form and not just as commercial entertainment. This is an important historic document of the energy that jazz had in Japan in the late 1970s!

Alexander von Schlippenbach - Schlippenbach Plays Monk (1997) {ENJA}
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© 1997 ENJA Records | CD 9104-2
Jazz / Post Bop / Avant-Garde Jazz / Piano

Recorded during a German tour in 1996, Schlippenbach Plays Monk teams the esteemed pianist with Ino Nobuyoshi on bass and Sunny Murray on drums. Schlippenbach has played with both sidemen previously (Nobuyoshi can be heard with the Schlippenbach/Takase-led Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra and Murray on the excellent FMP album Smoke) but this tour was the first that brought them all together and the pairing brings an interesting dynamic to the often revisited Thelonious Monk songbook.

Japan has produced some exceptionally talented jazz drummers and among them is Tatsuya Nakamura, who joins the BBE Music J Jazz Masterclass Series with his album ‘Locus’ from 1984, a session covering several bases, from heavy percussive samba to meditative avant-ambient. This is the album’s first ever reissue, although a track from ‘Locus’, ‘1⁄4 Samba’, was included on J Jazz vol. 3.