Masaru Imada, Masaru Imada Trio

Imada's second outing for Three Blind Mice, recorded across two January days in 1973 at Tokyo's Aoi Studio under Takeshi "Tee" Fujii's production. The record's structure follows from a negotiation between artist and producer: Masaru Imada had proposed a straight solo ballad recital; Fujii agreed to the conception but pressed him to balance the standards programme with a working-trio half devoted to his own writing. The LP that resulted is deliberately split — four solo readings on side one (Misty, When Sunny Gets Blue, Mal Waldron's Left Alone, Polka Dots and Moonbeams), three Imada originals (Sea Weeds, Poppy, Ascent) on side two with Isao Fukui on bass and Masahiko Ozu on drums.

The Waldron reading marks one pole of attention: Imada's solo voicings on Left Alone hold to the dry, melancholic discipline the piece demands, and that restraint carries into the originals, where Ascent opens up modally rather than reaching for any bebop default. A studied record from a pianist who built his reputation on this kind of considered architecture — TBM at its most chamber-scaled, with the producer-artist dialogue visible in the form itself.