Various

Sakuraza

Genre: JAZZ / FUSION

LP (Black Vinyl)

Boomkat Product Review:

The stars align on the swirling, twinkling ambient-jazz microcosm of Eiko Ishibashi’s jam with Jim O’Rourke, Kei Matsumaru, Tatsuhiro Yamamoto, and Giovanni Di Domenico, recorded live at the cozy Sakuraza Jazz Club in Kofu, Yamanashi, Japan

Encompassing a gently fizzing yet milky fluidity of flute, alto sax, drums, keys, and electronics dappled on air with spacious precision and arcing timbral sophistication, ‘Sakuraza’ depicts the core, married duo of Ishibashi & O’Rourke and pals at their supine and seductive best at the behest of Di Domenico. The longtime collaborator and fellow traveller of the couple invited up-and-coming saxophonist Matsumara to show off his clear talents in the ideal setting of Sakuraza, whose wooden interior proves most sympathetic in conveying an absorbing, intimate experience where the players are assuredly comfortable in each other’s presence.

Softly softly go the quintet from the outset with a harmonious, sound-bathing blur of their respective inputs creating an enchanting portal that unfolds inwards along the reserved, near sleepwalking pace of Yamamoto’s drums to something like a night garden stroll perfumed by alien flowers under still, iridescent night sky. The spectres of spiritual jazz fill their hearts and wings in incremental fits and steps toward more curious expressions of night time music, electronics resembling a burbling waterfall or cosmic spumes that develop to a controlled crescendo and fallout in midway, and knit into freely dancing groove.

Di Domenico’s keys take a central role in the final 3rd, melodic then pointillist, setting up the twin wind section of Ishibashi and Matsumaru to entwine around dusted drums in a final fever dream portion that contrasts the sublime of the start, to which they return a little more frazzled with O’Rourke’s electronics diffused into and guiding their declension of energies gracefully back to earth or waking from the dream.

LP (Black Vinyl) (2)