Koichi Yabori Mike Stern Tribute
Rooster Ogikubo October 28, 2014
Koichi Yabori – guitarHisatsugu Suzuki – saxShunsuke Sano – bassHidenobu “Kalta” Otsuki – drums
Mike Stern is one of the most popular jazz-rock guitarists, and for good reason. Hard rocking and technically impressive, he’s rooted as much in blues and rock as in jazz, and mixes them all together for great rollicking music. Koichi Yabori knows how to dig into Mike Stern’s music and play it to perfection. It is not just Yabori picking some of Stern’s charts, which would be cool enough, but rather his immersing himself fully into Stern’s approach to making fun, robust and masterful music.
On each song of the first set, Yabori set up Sterns’ easy-sounding, but startlingly difficult, way of building solos, and took off. Each jam was infused with character, depth and feeling. Solo after solo added dimension after dimension to the main melody. Layering exuberance onto sophistication, Yabori and company’s way of unpacking the tunes made complex songs seem easy, even when, or maybe especially when, they are not easy! This is music not just to listen to, but to feel with the entire body.
The audience certainly felt the music physically, barely letting their feet and hands rest during the breaks between songs. The tempo of the evening was fast-- funk workouts at bop speed, jazz rock with dance rhythms, and post-bop with a rock backbeat. “Kalta” Otsuki on drums and Shunsuke Sano on bass were a solid ground of rhythm. Sano’s five-string fretless bass let him switch from funk to bop to rock and back again with ease. Besides, kicking each song into gear, Otsuki took long, intense solos.
Hisatsugu Suzuki on sax added the salt that brought out the other flavors. His solos jumped on-beat into the eager rhythms, but pulled against them, as if to test them to see how far they could stretch before snapping back in place. Suzuki’s solos added tension, passion, and an acoustic tone that evened out the electric punch of the bass and guitar.
But of course, the band belonged to Yabori. That doesn’t mean he didn’t share, he did, but on every song, there was a moment where Yabori bent into the guitar, a gorgeous special-made Fender, and showed why he is one of the best electric guitarists in Japan. His solos were constantly inventive, playing with an ease that most guitarists summon up only in short bursts. Yabori turned and twisted each of the great melody lines into a brand new thing altogether.
This is a high-energy band whose purpose seems total catharsis! The first set was such a vigorous workout, it seemed impossible they’d have enough energy left over for the second set. The second set eased into a couple ballads, but the closer was even higher energy than the first set, showing they had plenty left over and then some. Too bad the last train and last call was looming for the audience. Hopefully, Yabori will take this quartet into the studio soon, and set up regular gigs around Tokyo and Yokohama. Tokyo needs a lot more cathartic music like this!