Isao Suzuki Trio - Black Orpheus (1979 Japanese Three Blind Mice Vinyl LP)

Isao Suzuki Trio - Black Orpheus | Vinyl LP, 1979 Japanese Three Blind Mice Reissue (TBM(P)-2563, 2500 Cat Series)

• The TBM label’s two biggest artists on one record: Isao Suzuki on bass and cello leading a trio with Tsuyoshi Yamamoto on piano and Fender electric piano, and American drummer Donald Bailey, who was living in Japan at the time
• Five tracks of standards and one Yamamoto original, opening with an eleven-minute reading of “Manhã de Carnaval” (the bossa nova standard from the 1959 film Black Orpheus) and moving through “Angel Eyes”, “Who Can I Turn To”, “In a Sentimental Mood” and a closing blues
• 1979 reissue in the 2500 Cat Series (third press), manufactured by Nippon Phonogram, with the same production team behind every major TBM session

This is the session where TBM’s two leading artists meet. Isao Suzuki and Tsuyoshi Yamamoto had appeared together on the label before (the Now’s the Time live set in 1974), but Black Orpheus is the album that defines their partnership. The trio format leaves nowhere to hide. Suzuki moves between bass and cello across the five tracks, and Yamamoto plays both acoustic piano and Fender electric piano, with the Rhodes adding a warmer, more atmospheric colour to the acoustic piano’s clarity. Donald Bailey, who had moved to Japan in the mid-1970s after years as the drummer in Jimmy Smith’s trio on Blue Note, brings a swing and a groove sensibility rooted in the American hard bop tradition. He had also played with John Coltrane in their early Philadelphia years, with Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, and Hampton Hawes.

The programme opens with “Manhã de Carnaval” at over eleven minutes, the longest track, building from a bossa nova pulse into something more open and exploratory. “Angel Eyes” (Matt Dennis) and “In a Sentimental Mood” (Duke Ellington) are ballads played with restraint. “Who Can I Turn To” (Bricusse and Newley) has more rhythmic momentum. “Blues”, a Yamamoto original, closes side B. The recording, engineered by Yoshihiko Kannari at Aoi Studio on February 20, 1976, captures Suzuki’s cello pizzicato and Yamamoto’s Rhodes with a directness that makes the interplay between the three instruments the centre of attention. This is the 1979 reissue in the 2500 Cat Series, noted as a third press. The original release was TBM-63 (1976, with an EMI-manufactured version following in 1977). Manufactured by Nippon Phonogram. Lacquer cut by Tohru Kotetsu at the Victor Company of Japan.