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J Jazz: Deep Modern Jazz from Japan 1969 - 1984

by Various Artists

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    3LP with OBI strip 180gram gatefold vinyl. Repress

    Tracklist 3LP Vinyl Album:

    Side A
    Koichi Matsukaze Trio - Earth Mother
    Takeo Moriyama Quartet with Shigeharu
    Mukai - North Wind*

    Side B
    Tohru Aizawa Quartet - Dead Letter
    Eiji Nakayama - Aya’s Samba

    Side C
    Takao Uematsu - White Fire
    George Otsuka Quintet - Sea Breeze*

    Side D
    Shintaro Quintet - A Blind Man
    Mitsuaki Katayama - Unknown Point

    Side E
    Fumio Karashima - Little Island
    Kiyoshi Sugimoto - Long Neal

    Side F
    Takeo Moriyama - Kaze
    Terumasa Hino Meets Reggie Workman - Ode to Workman*

    *This tracks are vinyl only, not on CD.

    Includes unlimited streaming of J Jazz: Deep Modern Jazz from Japan 1969 - 1984 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more
    ships out within 7 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £30 GBP or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    CD tracklist
    1 – Koichi Matsukaze Trio - Earth Mother
    2 – Tohru Aizawa Quartet - Dead Letter
    3 – Eiji Nakayama - Aya's Samba
    4 – Takao Uematsu - White Fire
    5 – Shintaro Quintet - A Blind Man
    6 – Mitsuaki Katayama - Unknown Point
    7 – Takeo Moriyama - Kaze
    8 – Fumio Karashima - Little Island
    9 – Kiyoshi Sugimoto - Long Neal

    Includes unlimited streaming of J Jazz: Deep Modern Jazz from Japan 1969 - 1984 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £15 GBP or more 

     

  • Book/Magazine

    NOTE: THIS IS A PREORDER ITEM - SHIPPING May 31st 2024

    BBE Music is thrilled to present J Jazz: Free and Modern Jazz From Japan 1954-1988, a remarkable large-format book covering some of the deepest, rarest, and most innovative jazz music released anywhere in the post-war era. Compiled by Tony Higgins and Mike Peden, co-curators of BBE Music's acclaimed J Jazz Masterclass Series, the book also features a foreword by Japanese jazz icon, Terumasa Hino.

    This is the first time a book of this type has been has been published outside of Japan and the first anywhere of this size and scale. It is a unique collection of over 500 albums of free and modern jazz recorded and released in Japan during a period of radical transformation and constant reinvention. An era that saw Japan return from the ravages of World War Two to become a global economic power and emerge as both a technological leader and an international cultural force.

    Through a unique gallery of albums, J Jazz charts the development of jazz in Japan from the first stirrings of the modern jazz scene in the mid to late 1950s and on through the hard bop and modal jazz of the 1960s. It steers the reader into the radical directions of the 1970s when free jazz, fusion, post-bop, and jazz-funk opened up a growing number of Japanese jazz artists to a new global audience before consolidating in the mid to late 1980s with a musical scene that laid the path for the contemporary jazz generation to follow.

    Over 500 full-colour sleeves from many of the leading names in Japanese jazz sit alongside rare and private pressings that tell a story of constant change and musical exploration. J Jazz includes profiles of several leading record labels such as East Wind, Frasco, King Records, and Nippon Columbia as well as critical independents such as Three Blind Mice, ALM, and Aketa’s Disk. J Jazz includes interviews with celebrated jazz photographer Tadayuki Naito, and pianist Tohru Aizawa, bandleader on the totemic spiritual jazz album, Tachibana Vol 1, as well as free-jazz record collector and jazz musician Mats Gustafsson. 

    The book also features a chapter on albums by non-Japanese artists that only received a Japanese release, with collectible, rare, and obscure releases by figures such as Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Mal Waldron, Steve Lacy, and Art Blakey. J Jazz includes Japanese jazz charts from some of the world's leading jazz DJs including Gilles Peterson, Toshio Matsuura, Paul Murphy, and Shuya and Yoshihiro Okino. Among the specialist content is a feature on obi strips by record dealer and Japanese jazz expert, Yusuke Ogawa, plus a special article on Japanese Blue Note albums.

    Across its 300-plus pages, J Jazz includes a detailed introduction contextualising the music, tracing the story of Japan's fascination with jazz back before the war. It also features biographical information on many of the key artists involved in shaping the post- war Japanese jazz scene including Sadao Watanabe, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Masabumi Kikuchi, Masahiko Togashi, Terumasa Hino, Yosuke Yamashita, Fumio Itabashi, Masayuki Takayanagi, Takeo Moriyama, Isao Suzuki, and many more.
    ... more
    shipping out on or around May 31, 2024
    Purchasable with gift card

      £100 GBP or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £8 GBP  or more

     

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about

In the years following the World War Two, Japan developed one of the most insatiable, dynamic and diverse markets for jazz. For a crucial period of little over a decade - from the late 1960s to the early 1980s - Japanese jazz culture progressed at an astonishing rate, producing an extraordinary array of artists, recordings and record labels that created some of the most forward thinking and impressive jazz to be committed to tape. This amazing journey is explored on ‘J Jazz’.

This compilation from BBE uncovers some of the most sought after and rare material from this period and pulls together key artists who shaped the postwar modern jazz scene in Japan. ‘J Jazz' includes obscure and sought after rarities like the bass-driven power jazz of Koichi Matsukaze’s ‘Earth Mother’, the holy grail rarity of Aizawa Tohru Quartet’s ‘Dead Letter’ and the loping majesty of Takeo Moriyama’s ‘North Wind’.

This collection takes the listener into deep spiritual jazz, post-modal impressionism and fierce dance-floor fusion with material from artists and composers whose names are generally only known to committed collectors of Japanese jazz. Fumio Karashima, Mitsuaki Katayama, Takeo Moriyama and Kiyoshi Sugimoto are among the names featured on an album aiming to shed a little light on the shadowy world of Japanese jazz clubs, tucked away in the neon backstreets. This music demands a wider audience and BBE are excited to deliver a landmark compilation, lifting the veil on this wonderful and mysterious area of the global jazz catalogue. None of the tracks featured on ‘J Jazz’ have ever received an official release outside Japan before.

The albums the tracks are taken from are extremely hard to find and often fetch huge sums on the collector’s circuit. Originally pressed in small numbers on independent and private labels such as Union, Johnny’s Disk, Whynot, ALM and VAP, these tracks are now available for everyone to enjoy. Compiled by Tony Higgins and Mike Peden, both long-time collectors of Japanese jazz, ’J Jazz’ brings together the very best in modern jazz from Japan, recorded during a critical period of musical and cultural transition that saw composers and musicians not only assert a new artistic identity but also create a lasting musical legacy.

For Fans Of:
Gilles Peterson, Wax Poetics, Cinematic Orchestra

credits

released February 23, 2018

2018, BBE

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