Yoshiaki Miyanoue and Smokin’

Live at Rooster January 9, 2002

Yoshiaki Miyanoue--guitar
Mamoru Inagaki --bass
Kohei Ota--drums

Yoshiaki Miyanoue’s guitar technique is amazing. He plays in a sophisticated chording style that draws from the masters--Wes Montgomery, Tal Farlow and Joe Pass. His combination of styles and techniques is all his own, and combines with a love of standards and an appealing sense of humor.

From the first intro, you can’t help but say to yourself, “Man, this guy has practiced!” He makes impossible fingerings seem effortless. His runs of chords in different positions up and down the neck of the guitar flow smoothly and amazingly quickly. His fingers are up at the top, then suddenly spilling over the bottom of the fret over the pick-ups, then back again--all the while maintaining the melody and harmony. He never uses fancy technique for its own sake, but always uses it to draw out a different tone and feeling to add to the overall mood of the piece. He’s flashy, but unlike many less experienced players, he is naturally flashy. The result is solid, thorough guitar takes on standards.

His choice of songs are all standards, but well-chosen ones. “No More Blues” and “Wave” kept the complex chording over a Brazilian beat, and gave a chance for Inagaki and Ota to show how important their rhythmic contributions are to the overall sound. Equally impressive were the blues, “Georgia” and “When a Man Loves a Woman” which gave Miyanoue space to dig into soulful single-note solos. The bop numbers, though, were what really had the crowd going, such as the opener, “Sugar Ray” by Phineas Newborn. The pace of the bop pieces was incredibly fast, but you couldn’t hear a note dropped or missed anywhere.

Inagaki and Ota got their share of solos as well. The trio works together tightly, due to their long interaction, but also due to a shared interest in high quality music. Especially nice were the intros and take-outs, adding “one more time” when everything was dropping into place, or turning the direction around to see who would follow. Miyanoue also has an amazing ability to find unexpected melodies inside his solos. His playfulness is so expansive that all melodies seem to interconnect, with a Charlie Parker quote here, a children’s melody at double-time there, or a rock-blues line underneath it all. What he manages to quote inside the solos always fits, but always surprises. Miyanoue is an accomplished and sophisticated guitarist who entertains at a very, very  high level.