Missing Link - "The Spell Was Cast"

(Studio Wee) 2004

Takao Watanabe – Trumpet, Pandeiro, African Drum, Cxixi
Nobuhiro Nakane – Rrombone
Ryuichi Yoshida – Baritone Sax
Tsutomu Nakayama – Keyboards, Guitar
Takeharu Hayakawa – Bass
Atsushi Kitazawa – Drums
Mari Sekine - Percussion     

Aptly named, this group leaves nothing missing musically by linking up an incredible variety of styles, moods and musical approaches. Intelligent and informed, it's danceable much of the time and deeply pensive the rest. The septet digs into tight riffs, sets up intriguing musical links, and then explores with riotous good feeling.

Though "missing link" is originally a term from science that described the long search for evolutionary connection between apes and humans, musically, the evolution of styles can be said to have a similar gap. Missing Link changes all that by bringing things together with a wildly inventive sense, as if they had all been actually close all the time. "Virtual Beauty" opens the set with incantatory trumpet moaning and a throbbing undertow. Sitting as a bookend with the final tune, "El Derecho de Vivir en Paz" ("The Right to Live in Peace" and the only tune not penned by Watanabe), a full set of connections is completed.

In between, everything is a great amount of fun. "K's Walk" is as much rock as jazz, or rather, it's the missing link between the two. The great guitar work of Nakayama, heard throughout, hits with force over the thick rhythms. The high wild melody line casts its own kind of spell. "Dance" is a rollicking African hi-life jam. The debt to Fela Kuti's style is clear here, and it's a debt paid in full. The throbbing bass, tight guitar ostinato, and pointed keyboards create a trance over which Watanabe, Nakane and Yoshida wail like a herd of stampeding elephants. The drums and percussion keep the groove even during Hayakawa's intense bass solo.

"For Cuba" and "Marguerite" slow down the tempo for more reflective moods. The calm, even, well-placed tones blend all the instruments together. The gentle nestling of bass, electric guitar, rich trumpet, and pointed percussion creates a delicate, lush effect. "Carnival Baby" dances to a Trinidadian carnival beat, with a cool electric guitar pattern racing beside keyboards that play back and forth with the tight horn section. The soloists really throw down here, with everyone jamming to their heart's content.

"The Spell Was Cast" is eclectic but cool, wild but considered and outstanding. The spell takes over on each of these dynamic, intense songs, casting a musical intensity that reveals how flexible jazz styles can be in the right hands. Watanabe and band have found not only the missing link but also a perfect mix.