Shūkō Mizuno / Toshiyuki Miyama & The New Herd Plus All-Star Guests - Jazz Orchestra ‘73 (1973 Japanese Three Blind Mice TBM-1001 Vinyl LP)

Shūkō Mizuno / Toshiyuki Miyama & The New Herd Plus All-Star Guests - Jazz Orchestra ‘73 | Vinyl LP, 1973 Japanese Three Blind Mice (TBM-1001, Gatefold, Toshiba EMI)

• Two side-long compositions for big band by Shūkō Mizuno, performed by Toshiyuki Miyama’s New Herd (one of Japan’s most important jazz orchestras) with guest soloists, recorded in two sessions at Aoi Studio in August and September 1973
• Over 44 minutes of music that moves between free jazz, hard-swinging big band writing, blues and funk, with a four-trumpet, four-trombone, five-saxophone section plus electric bass and drums
• Gatefold sleeve, liner notes by Shoichi Yui and the composer, engineered by Yoshihiko Kannari, produced by Takeshi Fujii

Shūkō Mizuno is a composer whose work crosses boundaries that most musicians stay inside. He was a co-founder of Group Ongaku in the early 1960s, one of Japan’s first free improvisation collectives, and his output ranges from electronic music and orchestral composition to these large-scale jazz works. Jazz Orchestra ‘73 is the first of two albums he wrote for Toshiyuki Miyama’s New Herd on Three Blind Mice (the second, Jazz Orchestra ‘75, followed two years later). The New Herd had been active since 1958 and was by this point the leading progressive big band in Japan, a group that had recorded with Charles Mingus in 1971 and toured internationally. Miyama treated the New Herd as a vehicle for adventurous arrangers and composers, and Mizuno’s writing here takes full advantage of that openness.

The album is two pieces. “Drive, Drive, Drive!” runs the entire first side at over 21 minutes. “Blues, Autonomy, Drive, Chaos” fills side B at over 23 minutes. The titles describe what happens in the music: sections of rhythmic propulsion, passages of collective free improvisation, blues-based episodes, and moments where the full weight of a 17-piece band lands with a force that smaller groups cannot produce. Yoshihiko Kannari’s recording captures the ensemble at Aoi Studio with the spatial clarity that TBM pressings are known for, and with a big band the dynamic range is considerable. This pressing (TBM-1001) is a gatefold including liner notes by Shoichi Yui and by Mizuno himself. Manufactured by Toshiba EMI. Please note the original 24-page booklet is missing.