Phenomenal live material from the sextet-era version of the Jazz Messengers! This 2-volume CD series takes a small amount of live material that was originally issued under the 3 Blind Mice title, and adds a huge amount of previously unreleased tracks to expand both CDs into a whopping batch of hardbop killers. The group includes Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Curtis Fuller, and Cedar Walton – and the live setting shows the band at their finest, able to trade lines and invent solos with amazing dexterity.
Three Blind Mice Blu-spec CD reissue series! Limited paper sleeve edition! Now's The Time captured two groups who performed at the Three Blind Mice's own jazz festival called "5 Days in Jazz 1974." The first group was the Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio with guest soloists Isao Suzuki on cello and Sunao Wada on guitar. They performed two songs on Side A of the original vinyl LP.
Japanese drummer George Otsuka is always one hell of a hip cat – one of those players whose name on a record always means that we'll pick it up – and never fail to hear something wonderful! And while Otsuka first got his start working with a piano trio at the end of the 60s, this sweet set from the mid 70s really has him stretching out nicely – working with a freewheeling group that has plenty of spiritual elements – but in that gentler avant mode you'd find in the Japanese scene of the time. The set's got some especially great Fender Rhodes and piano from Fumio Karashima, plus tenor and soprano sax from Shozo Sasaki – and all tracks are nice and long, and really let the instrumentation build up in this flowing, organic sort of way. Mitsuaki Furuno plays bass, and Norio Ohno adds in a bit of extra percussion too – and titles include a nice reading of "Naima", with lots of fast-moving congas – plus "Physical Structure", "Mustard Pot", and "Little Island".
Three Blind Mice Blu-spec CD reissue series. Limited paper sleeve edition. Singer Koji Moriyama was just 33 years old, but had been singing professionally for over 15 years when he recorded this, his second full-length LP for Three Blind Mice, a label that began a trend of providing recording opportunities to talented but underappreciated Japanese jazz singers in the 1970s.
Three Blind Mice Blu-spec CD reissue series. Limited paper sleeve edition. With his stunning debut album Blow Up in 1973, bassist Isao Suzuki quickly became a star musician in the roster of the Three Blind Mice label. Ako's Dream was his seventh album, and as the jacket and the title suggest, it is dedicated to his young baby girl named Ako.
During the 70s, the Japanese jazz scene was in an incredibly intense phase - one that had players breaking out of older modes that were often strict copies of American jazz, and working in newer styles that often blended soul, modal, and spiritual jazz with freer-thinking ideas and more Eastern-inspired modes. The result was an incredible batch of music that was probably more strongly recorded by the Three Blind Mice label than any other Japanese imprint - because unlike some of their contemporaries, TBM didn't fill their catalog with work by American players, and often focused exclusively on Japanese artists.
Three Blind Mice Blu-spec CD reissue series. Limited paper sleeve edition. Yellow Carcass in the Blue is considered an important album by talented singer Kimiko Kasai in which she really began to show her original qualities. At the same time, as the "double bill" credit suggests, it was also a showcase for the Kosuke Mine Quartet, which plays two tunes on their own.
Three Blind Mice Blu-spec CD reissue series. Limited paper sleeve edition. Girl Talk was Tsuyoshi Yamamoto's sixth leader album released by the Three Blind Mice label in a short span of two years. With a huge hit of Midnight Sugar, the young pianist –who was 28 at the time of recording – had become one of the most popular jazz pianists in Japan. With bluesy and soulful style influenced by Red Garland and Wynton Kelly, Yamamoto and his trio tackled well-known jazz standards and a popular movie tune ("The Way We Were"). One of the highlights is "Take the 'A' Train" which begins with a free style introduction and moves into a high-speed, high-spirited swing.
Three Blind Mice is a Japanese jazz record label founded in June 1970 as a showcase for Japan's emerging jazz performers. It has produced more than 130 albums have been released since. So far they have won the Jazz Disc Award five times in Japan. Produced by Takeshi Fujii (producer) and often recorded by the Yoshihiko Kannari, TBM created jazz records by Japanese players since the 1970s and became known for its audiophile sound quality. TBM's records captured a very important, vibrant era in the development of Japanese jazz. Stars like Isao Suzuki, Tsuyoshi Yamamoto, George Kawaguchi, Terumasa Hino and Mari Nakamoto recorded their very first albums with the label. Artists also include Shuko Mizuno's "Jazz Orchestra '73", Toshiyuko Miyama and Masaru Imada.
Three Blind Mice Blu-spec CD reissue series. Limited paper sleeve edition. Blues For Tee is the second of the three albums that came out of the legendary Christmas sessions at the Misty, a Tokyo jazz club, which took place on December 1974. The Three Blind Mice producer Takeshi "Tee" Fujii wanted to record Yamamoto before he left for the U.S. to study at Berklee School of Music, and almost all of the performances were so good that he decided to release three LPs instead of one that was originally planned.