Bruce Huebner and Tomoya Hara “Zui”

(Zabu Tone Music 2011)
Bruce Huebner – shakuhachi
Tomoya Hara – guitars
Saori Sendo – percussion
Mark Tourian – bass

Musical mixes between east and west tend to be either highly listenable affairs or interesting for their own sake, but the new CD from shakuhachi player Huebner and guitarist Hara is that rare thing—both beautiful and intriguing. It is the rare cross-cultural marriage that enhances both sides and creates a new sound altogether.

The tone of the shakuhachi with the electric guitar is like two opposite colors or textures placed together. Think a Japanese garden at the back of a southern roadhouse. It’s startling at first, but then, you realize, hey, they GO together! Hara’s guitar work, steeped in blues, jazz and world music, establishes a full, deep ground for Huebner’s gorgeous shakuhachi tone.

With an American guy playing a Japanese instrument and a Japanese guy playing an American instrument, Japanese traditional musical aesthetics meeting western guitar styles, Huebner and Hara take their own tacks and meet in the middle. And then they toss in some Brazilian rhythms!

Each song combines their two sounds in fresh, different ways. The opening tune, “Highway 395” takes off like a great drive along California’s highways, the kind that links forests, mountains and the desert. That opening number captures their interplay from the first note. Hara’s guitar tone lays down the forward drive and Huebner’s shakuhachi sounds as nuanced and complex as the human voice.

The cool-blues of “Scorpio” wraps itself around Hara’s gutsy playing, with the shakuhachi sounding as melancholy as a deserted temple. The blues and Japanese chromatics suddenly sound very universal, strong enough to thrive in any setting. On the upbeat tune, “We Feel Good,” even the shakuhachi gets down on the funky one-beat. Huebner’s rooted in Japanese tradition, but not stuck there. Hara’s deep into blues, jazz and ECM-like atmospherics, but not beholden unto them.

Each of the other tunes are inventive and fresh, moving between originals, Japanese tunes like “Sunayama” and “Akatombo Yuyake Koyake” become and an especially rich arrangement of Coltrane’s “Naima,” lyrical and gorgeous. Hara’s original, “Lullaby,” is stunningly pretty, infused with Japanese harmonies rooted in some dreamy musical past, folk-like, child-like and pure.

“Sukiyaki” or “Look to the Sky,” is here rescued from its karaoke deathbed and given a rollicking Brazilian resuscitation, the shakuhachi and acoustic guitar bouncing off each other with passion and invention. Both Huebner and Hara add solos that are lovely and strong, as if adding brand-new melodies, not just jamming.

Both Tourian on bass and Sendo on percussion are essential to this mix. The variety off added textures and rhythms from these two really cook. If there had been vocal mikes during their recording, I’m sure it would have caught them shouting, “Yeah! Yeah!!” to each other over and over. You can hear it brimming over from their playing.

The spacious clarity of shakuhachi with the spirited depth of electric guitar is a combo that you’re not likely to hear anywhere else. At least, until their next release!