Double CD Edition. Jazzman Record's latest examination of esoteric, modal, and progressive
jazz of the 20th century has taken them to Japan. The liberating force
of jazz has been created and felt all around the world, but few nations
on earth embraced the jazz message with the passion and intensity of
Japan. From the dawn of the jazz age to the present day, Japanese
audiences have been renowned tastemakers, enthusiasts, and champions of
the music -- in the 1980s, Japan was the biggest per capita market in
the world for jazz records, and it has even been said that Japanese jazz
fans kept the jazz record industry alive through the lean years of the
1970s, when the music fell from commercial favor in the land of its
birth. But while the jazz aficionados of Japan are celebrated as
sophisticated fans and consumers of the music, comparatively little is
known outside Japan of the remarkable and abundant music produced by
generations of Japanese jazz musicians. Numerous Japanese jazzers have
found enormous success on the international stage -- Toshiko Akiyoshi, Sadao Watanabe, Teramasu Hino,
and many others are household names among jazz listeners all over the
world, and with good reason. But if such global figures are put aside,
the stunning heritage of Japanese jazz remains poorly understood outside
Japan. As a result, the work of many celebrated Japanese jazzmen has
remained largely unknown to international audiences, and the
extraordinary scope and depth of Japanese jazz has not been widely
recognized. Compiled for the Spiritual Jazz series in collaboration with the celebrated collector and DJ Yusuke Ogawa
(Deep Jazz Reality, Tokyo), this set aims to correct that omission by
uncovering the uniquely deep sound of esoteric, modal and progressive
jazz from Japan -- music of the heart, soul, and Japanese spirit.
Part One features: Mitsuaki Kanno, Tadao Hayashi, Minoru Muraoka, Takeo Moriyama, Koichi Matsukaze, Sadao Watanabe & Charlie Mariano, Shungo Sawada, New Direction For The Arts. Part Two features: Four Units, Tohru Aizawa, Keitaro Miho, Tee & Company, Takeo Moriyama, Kiyoshi Sugimoto, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Yoshio Ikeda.
