When pianist Masao Nakajima put out Kemo-Sabe in 1979, Japanese jazz was going through an electric fusion boom. Blue Note imitation was dead; artists dashed toward free improvisation, post-modal impressionism, and deep spiritual jazz. Musicians were transplanting elements of electronic music, rock, Afrobeat, flamenco, and funk into their arrangements; no boundary was being left untested. Against this backdrop, Kemo-Sabe was a stylistic outlier: a classically acoustic jazz album. Not that Nakajima was a staunch traditionalist. He’d once owned synthesizers and a Hammond organ, but he sold them all to fund a formative trip to the U.S. The innovation on Kemo-Sabe comes in the dynamic interplay between the quartet, the airy grooves, and the virtuoso soloing. The tools—piano, bass, drums, and sax—may have been standard, but the results are a reminder of the freewheeling individualism that broke loose in Japanese jazz.
UK label BBE has reissued Kemo-Sabe as part of its wonderful J Jazz series, which covers the relentlessly inventive period in Japanese jazz from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Its attention turns to Nakajima after the title track was previously included on the compilation J Jazz Volume 3. Born in 1950 in Ōta, a special ward of greater Tokyo, to a councilman father and mother who sang classical music, Nakajima started playing piano at age 7 and became interested in jazz around 12 or 13, when he was exposed to visiting foreign artists on television and radio; Erroll Garner, Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson, and George Shearing were among his early favorites. At 16, Nakajima was already the resident pianist in a jazz live house, his clear talent making him well placed for the creative explosion in Japanese jazz that was to come. By the time he recorded the first album under his name in 1979, he already had over a decade of experience as a session player, touring musician, and musical director, and was just back from a year in the U.S., where he worked on Robin Kenyatta’s disco-inspired fusion album Take The Heat Off Me.
Joining him for the Kemo-Sabe sessions was bassist Osamu Kawakami, who had previously collaborated with scene heavyweight Sadao Watanabe. On drums was American Donald Bailey, known for playing on Jimmy Smith’s Blue Note records as well as recording with Roy Ayers; he spent five years in Japan, part of a wave of American musicians picking up work in the happening scene. Though Kemo-Sabe was initially intended for a trio, Nakajima invited Toshiyuki Honda, leader of the popular fusion group Burning Waves, to play flute and saxophone on a few songs. Yet if the quartet appeared to be swiftly assembled from assorted components, the play on Kemo-Sabe is slick and well tuned, melodic and textured, seamlessly moving from dramatic to sensual depending on the steward’s whims.
The record kicks off with the title track, penned by Mike Nock, a New Zealand pianist and then member of Bay Area electric fusion group the Fourth Way. Taking no time to heat up, we’re dropped into the set right as Honda’s sax swoops over Nakajima’s staggered piano keys. The band expertly hits the crescendos of the catchy composition; Kawakami and Bailey get a turn at the forefront of the arrangement over its second half. There’s an immediate change of tone on the velvety noir piano piece “Beloved Diane,” the one Nakajima original, suitable for quiet neighborhood diners when the street lamps light up outside. None of the six songs stretch beyond six and a half minutes, keeping the album moving at a snappy pace.
Like most Japanese jazz of the era, the production on Kemo-Sabe is warm and inviting. Take the rendition of Herbie Hancock’s autumnal smooth-jazz number “Tell Me a Bedtime Story.” Quincy Jones had recorded a version the previous year with Hancock on electric piano; here, Honda’s graceful flute lights the way, fluttering like candlelight.
Though all the players get to showcase their best stuff at different times, Nakajima leaves his own apex for the conclusion: His version of the old Leonard Bernstein number “My Love” places his piano front and center as he caresses the keys. There’s a sense of adventure and romance in his play as he wanders off on his own path before seamlessly finding the melody once more. It puts the seal on a set that deserves consideration in any framing of the era. While his contemporaries were tying tradition up in knots, Masao Nakajima made a record that masquerades as classicist but overflows with character.
