Takeo Moriyama

Pit Inn
November 12, 2004

Takeo Moriyama—drums
Toshihiko Inoue—saxophones
Nobumasa Tanaka—piano
Benisuke Sakai—bass

Moriyama always comes out like a boxer swinging hard. His speed, power and dynamism are startling at first, resetting your heartbeat and realigning your spine. Then, he goes on to take the energy level even higher. Moriyama is like two drummers, really, creating double the number of rhythms with a full-bodied style that made this quartet sound like a quintet—an excellent quintet.

Unafraid to leap into any and every opening in the songs, Moriyama twisted and wrapped the other players together tightly. Inoue's sax playing fit this style wonderfully, as did Tanaka's piano. They both knew how to focus into creative solos while riding the tiger-fierce drumming of Moriyama. The first set hit a peak with Inoue's composition "Grasshopper." The delightful grasshopper-like melody moved between the comfy feel of summer to raging torrents of release. The other, slower tunes had an intense lyricism, as if all the players were focused on losing themselves deeply in every note.

The second set started off at a reasonable, even pace, but these four hardly rest. Every song built to high points, which were easy to mistake for peaks, but turned out to be only the base camp from where they ascended to even higher peaks. This style of climax-laden playing might wear some listeners out, but the full house was ready to take on all the intensity the quartet, I mean, quintet could put out. It's nice to see a group wearing themselves out playing. Though some groups talk between songs to cover for scant material, these guys have to really catch their breath. They play with their entire bodies.

The musicians' characters came through strongly, too, making this a real group of individual voices. Moriyama has a distinctive percussion style that works in and out and around the other musicians. Inoue, too, has a powerful set of lungs that are no less sensitive for being able to stay loud and hard. Tanaka's piano moved from percussive to delicate with quick, neat shifts. On bass, Sakai kept a full, thick sound that pushed up between the others at all the right points. Their ability to come together into a solid unit, even while diverging in their own directions, gave every tune a compelling and expansive range. The evening was hard-driving, robust jazz at its very best.