Mohican Seki

September 19, 2005
Pit Inn

Mohika-no Seki—piano
Msayuki Suzuki—tenor sax
Hideaki Nakaji—trombone
Getao Takahashi—bass
Mizalito—percussion
Shoji Hirakawa—drums

Mohican takes his name from his haircut, but he might also take it from the original Mohicans, who were a powerful Native American Indian tribe. Seki's strong, proud, and natural Latin jazz is certainly the most muscular and complex in Tokyo. Though unafraid of placing a ballad in the middle of sets, Seki keeps the pace at rocket-fast speeds for intricate rhythms that left even the musicians catching their breaths by the end of the night. Seki's sextet creates captivating music of hot energy and electric passion.

Playing mainly his own originals (he covered one tune, by Michel Camilo), Seki gives the tunes bop-like arrangements. The leads are tricky, with stops and starts, long melodic lines, and lightning-fast chord changes. It doesn't sound that way, though, but rather like they were Latin dance tunes with clave-ready changes; it's just the band is at such a high level, it all sounds easy. The two ballads, "Sand Hill" and "Peace," the latter written about the 9/11 situation, created a lovely, calming spaciousness. The stately, pretty melodies suggested a faraway sad feeling, even on the turnarounds and bridges. On these slower tunes, Seki works the extremes, keeping his arrangements both wide-open for soloing and tightly structured. Other than these two tunes, the band plays full-tilt. They switch time signatures, deliver phenomenal solos, dance around tricky rhythms, and hold nothing back. Every tune was injected with a full shot of "salsa dura"—hard salsa.    

The solos worked through intimate lead lines and agile chord changes, but the soloists still were able to keep upping the energy level higher and higher. Suzuki's solos moved deeply into the melodies, keeping the feeling of the piece clearly in mind. Nakaji showed just why trombone has always been a staple in Latin bands. Nakaji can stay deep in the pocket while moving smoothly from flute-like nuance to elephant-like power. Seki's own solos were as much percussion as melody. His full-fisted solos were sharp, hard and intense, leaving the piano in need of a good tuning. Yet, he also worked with a range of feelings that revealed the good-time salsa dance energy was often just the outer wrapping around his inner sensitivity.

The compositions, like "Chase 5 in 6," (with rhythmic shifts too complicated to explain), kept the percussion section sitting up and paying attention. "Millennium Cha-cha-cha" had a cool, nimble pattern that gave Mizalito a chance to show why he's booked for bands every night of the week. All the tunes showed the way towards a great working band ready to record their breathtaking brand of Latin jazz. The audience were clearly and delightfully tired at the end of this full workout. Seki's group knows just how to work hard and play hard, in equal measures.