Americans, how do you think foreignes playing jazz?

Ever listened to jazz music played by foreigners, you Americans? Being a foreigner I have been wondering for long time what it could be like.

We, had encountered a debut of foreigner as the "Enka" signer in 2008. It finally made me understand what it was like. The beautiful music is the music and nothing but the music, that what I've found.

There is this Japanese specific category of music called "Enka", It is like American country music, I assume. A foreigner has made his debut as the "Enka" singer in 2008. He was born in Pittsburgh, PA, 26 years old, a quarter of Japanese and American and named "Jero".
When I heard him the first time, I had been bewildered a bit. He has a face of foreigner yet sings beautiful Enka. Most of us, Japanese welcome his debut and he is active singing here.

The melody line is written in minor scale and sounds like there is the fixed grammar for the composition. Yes, I've meant to say that they sound pretty much same.

What you listen to is the verse.

I reckon in these days that I had been too easy to get into tear by listening to Enka and that could be the reason why I started to play piano jazz myself. Since "Enka" has nothing without its verse. On the other hand jazz sounds beatiful without any verse at all. Right! you can filter through your nerve touching particles out from the music and can enjoy the rhythm, melody and technicality of the players along with their personality.



Ever heard this? merci beaucoup! Michel Petrucciani, piano player. He is a foreigner, a French. He has his style and we can enjoy if we don't know the French language, right?

Milt Jackson or MJQ?

While listening to this tune, I realized the reason why I didn't like MJQ at the end. The tempo of this tune is rare in their collection. And they do 8 verse here. That is rare as well. Is it? I am not sure now. It's been a while since I listen to them.

The last was a session of Milt Jackson in San Fransisco, somewhere around mid 80es. It could have been in Sausalito. Yes, he is much vivid with his own group. And if you ever listened to John Lewis playing alone, he is thrilling in his own way and quite different from the thrill the MJQ had.

Those thing concludes that MJQ had been the group harmony. And in my opinion, it is not the way jazz should be. Or is it?

Anyway, the reason why I have bored with MJQ could have been that I was listening to them too much. That was really the day in and day out. I dosed off while listening to them and the first thing in the morning was to listen to their recording. Yeah, good days, good days, that was. . . . .

Well, Milt is hell'f vivid with this one.

C jam blues, played with four hands in Yokohama

As I repeatedly confess, I cannot get away from 1960es jazz scene. Because it links to my best years with excitement and thrill. One element that constitute the memory is Red Garland trio. Especially C Jam blues.

It was my greatest regret that I did not have the chance to listen to him live during my stay in NY, 1967-1972. I have experienced Bill Evans, Tomy Flanagan, Art Tatum, Wynton Kelly, Harbie Hancock and etc. Everybody except Evans played with so many sound and proved that they do have quite flexible fingers. Yeah, right Monk was the another one who sounded just like listening to LP.

Here, I have to get rid of my memory of Garland. Four hands play C jam Blues. The place was in Yokohama, my hometown.

There were Mr. Yoshida, who was the owner of a coffee shop. He was quite famous as the early explorer of jazz in Japan and love play with Pachinko. The name of the coffee shop was "Chigusa". As hs passed away, the shop had been demolished and give the space to one of those characterless condo in 2002? I am not sure on the date though, it's been a while since the shop is gone.

OK, here's what Red Garland did from his album "Groovy"

hey, Yokohama isn't bad, don't you think?