Greetings and salutations Hivers. Today let's go into another Evening Groove / Three Tune Tuesday post.

As always, thanks to @ablaze for making this series. Lots of people participate in it! Follow the tags to find a ton of good music recommendation.

Today let's return to some Japanese jazz!

You know, at this point I'm starting to forget which people and songs I've covered. I'm going to have to look through my post history and make a spreadsheet. But that's later. For now... we hope! But if I have covered this guy before, well, just enjoy again! :) But even if I have covered him before, I will probably pick new songs this time. It's always hard for me to pick favorites, so I just go with whatever jumps out at me when I'm writing these.

That guy is Masabumi Kikuchi, a jazz pianist who was in the jazz game from the 1970s until his death in 2015. He explored the jazz genre from experimental and avant-garde all the way to more traditional jazz, but he was most well known for his fusions He didn't make a name for himself until he came to America as established himself in the New York jazz scene. He played with some of the greats in his life, including Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Sonny Rollins, and more.

Most of his American releases used the name Poo-Sun, so that name might be more familiar to you if you've listened to a lot of jazz. Poo was his nickname, or Poo-sun from the title of one of his albums. I've never been able to find out where the nickname came from. In Japanese poo, プー, can be the sound of a horn, so maybe it came from his jazz playing (even though he wasn't a horn player). Poo can also be the sound of a fart, so maybe he has a lot of gas. Then sun sounds kind of like "san", the polite Japanese name ending. The Japanese wikipedia page uses プーさん, Poo-san, as his nickname, so maybe they guess the same. At any rate, he embraced the nickname and used it his entire life.

Anyway, let's look at three of his hits.

Gumbo

From his 1981 album Susto, this one is more traditional but has a strong funk to it. Very relaxing and just carries you away.

Here is the entire record being played if you want more.

Admire, But Detest (Mr. Out)

From his 1973 album End for the Beginning. The album itself has some fusion bits, but this song is solid post-bop. The saxophones are really great here, but Kikuchi also gives us some of his great piano work

Puzzle Ring

This is from his 1970 album Poo-Sun. Unlike the previous two I posted, this entire album is very avant-garde, using experimental ideas on every track. This is a great track that is very much a fusion of ideas. I think it's pretty great. See if you agree.

Another of my favorites here. Like many I've covered before, he has so many, picking just three is only the tiniest sample of his work. Maybe for this Japanese Jazz series I'm going to have to start returning to some people I've covered and look at other songs. Hmm

But anyway, what's your favorite of these three?

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.