Kiyoshi Sugimoto

Kiyoshi Sugimoto recorded L.A. Master between December 1976 and October 1977, and it came out in 1978 on Toshiba EMI's Express label. This 2026 LP is Universal Music Japan's remastered reissue, part of its J-Fusion Renaissance series, pressed on clear sky blue vinyl and sold with the obi strip and the series sticker. Sugimoto wrote the six pieces and arranged them, apart from the synthesizer parts, which Jun Fukamachi arranged, and he plays electric and acoustic guitar.

Sugimoto had been a working guitarist since 1960. By the late Sixties he was playing in groups with Hideo Shiraki, Akira Ishikawa and Terumasa Hino, and he made records of his own such as Country Dream (1970) and Babylonia Wind (1972). Here he leads a band of Tokyo session players: Yasuaki Shimizu on saxophones, Haruo Togashi on electric piano, Akira Okazawa on bass, Yuichi Togashiki on drums and Tsunehide Matsuki on a second guitar, with Toshiyuki Daitoku on piano and three more percussionists. The album sits on the jazz-funk and fusion side of Japanese studio music of the late Seventies. Side A opens with Yeh! Boogie, and side B closes with the eight-minute Moving.

Remastered for this edition, with lacquers cut by Katsutoshi Kitamura. Japanese pressing, UPJY-9543, released on 24 June 2026.