Isao Suzuki Trio/Quartet - Blow Up (1979 Japanese Three Blind Mice Vinyl LP)

Isao Suzuki Trio/Quartet - Blow Up | Vinyl LP, 1979 Japanese Three Blind Mice Reissue (15PJ-1023, TBM Best 1500 Collection)

• One of the most sought-after titles in the Three Blind Mice catalogue, originally recorded March 29 and 30, 1973 at Aoi Studio, Tokyo, and awarded both the Jazz of Japan Award and the Jazz Disc Award by Swing Journal
• Suzuki on bass and cello with Kunihiko Sugano on piano and Fender electric piano, George Otsuka on drums, and Takashi Mizuhashi joining as second bassist on the quartet tracks, allowing Suzuki to move between the two instruments freely
• TBM Best 1500 Collection reissue from October 1979, manufactured by Nippon Phonogram and cut by Tohru Kotetsu at JVC, with obi and insert

Isao Suzuki learned to play bass on American military bases in occupied Japan, worked his way through the Tokyo jazz scene in the 1960s, then moved to New York from 1969 to 1971 where he played with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Ella Fitzgerald and Jim Hall. He returned to Japan and began recording for Three Blind Mice, the label founded by Takeshi “Tee” Fujii in 1970 that became synonymous with audiophile-quality Japanese jazz. Blow Up was the album that established his reputation. The trio tracks feature Suzuki on bass with Sugano and Otsuka, playing with a directness and rhythmic force that earned comparisons to no one in particular, because the sound was his own. The quartet tracks add Mizuhashi on bass, freeing Suzuki to play cello, and the tonal contrast between the two configurations gives the album its range.

Three Suzuki originals anchor the programme. “Aqua Marine” opens with a cool, pacing groove. The title track “Blow Up” is the centrepiece at seven and a half minutes, building in intensity through the ensemble. “Low Flight” closes side B. Between them sit two standards: “Everything Happens to Me” (the Matt Dennis ballad) and “I Can’t Get Started” (Vernon Duke and Ira Gershwin), both played with more grit than sentimentality. The recording, engineered by Yoshihiko Kannari at Aoi Studio, has the clarity and presence that TBM pressings are collected for: each instrument occupies its own space, and the bass and cello are captured with a physicality that rewards good speakers. This is the October 1979 reissue in the TBM Best 1500 Collection series (catalogue 15PJ-1023). Manufactured by Nippon Phonogram. Lacquer cut by Tohru Kotetsu at the Victor Company of Japan.