Shigeo Aramaki Group

Hiroshi Fukumura Quintet

One of the common impressions of Japanese jazz is of skilled technicians working studiously within the confines of jazz tradition to turn out polished music. Indeed, many Japanese jazz musicians fail to exploit the full potential of jazz improvisation, preferring instead to remain dedicated, humble craftsmen, honing their chops and leaving the boundaries right where they found them. Two new quintets, The Shigeo Aramaki Group and the Hiroshi Fukumura Quintet trample this stereotype into delightful smithereens. Both groups have found a brash, open and unrestrained approach that follows the spirit of jazz more than the letter.

These two groups, both newly formed within the last year, are comprised of well-established musicians. The members of each quintet lead their own individual groups, and have recordings under their own names, but the particular collective spirit they embrace when together is special. Both Aramaki and Fukumura know how to create open, flexible structures in which the different individual styles amplify the strengths of the others with creative tension. All too often, the members of a jazz group have to submerge their identities to the leader’s concept, but in these groups, the leaders construct a rough agenda for each piece and let the musicians take them apart in their own way. The resulting interplay brings out an exuberant openness and unaffected roughness that is unusual in Tokyo’s jazz scene.

The roots of Fukumura’s group have been growing for thirty-some years. Fukumura played trombone with pianist Fumio Itabashi’s group before he attended the New England Conservatory in 1974. He studied there when free jazz, under the sway of musicians and teachers such as Jaki Byard, was at its most popular. Returning to Japan, though, Fukumura found himself playing standards and fusion. Still, neither direction was time wasted. For Fukumura, balance is important. “If it’s only free, it’s too much. I want to play standards, but freely. The romantic is still necessary,” he said.

On originals such as “J1” and “K1” (even the names suggest the work-in-progress feel), the band starts with rather catchy, even romantic, melodies only to blast open the chord changes. The blistering solos from saxophonist Nao Takeuchi and the centrifugal force of Itabashi’s keyboard playing quickly dismantle the pretty lead lines. Underneath them, drummer Dairiki Hara moves between simmering laid-back support and disruptive provocation, while bassist Nobuyoshi Ino keeps the backbone in place. Their transitions between restrained lyricism and discordant energy feel effortless. “I want to play both hard and soft,” Fukumura explained, “But always, always natural.”

Part of the naturalness is reflected in the way Fukumura brought them casually together.  The band’s offhand creation sounds like an impromptu jam session. “I still play in Itabashi’s orchestra, so I just asked him to join and he did. As for Takeuchi, I like his sound. Ino was an old friend. We made some albums together a long time ago, so he joined. Hara was in my last group, the Afternoon Jazz Band,” Fukumura said. In fact, the group is intensely focused, though they rarely practice. The high level of improvisation and interaction demands energy and attention. You can see the members breathe a sigh of cathartic relief when Fukumura calls a break between sets. “This is the music I really want to do,” said Fukumura. It shows. Their fluid free energy of the group was well worth the thirty-year evolution.

The Shigeo Aramaki Group also delves into free territory when the spirit takes them, but create their energy with a blues-based, bop-spiced mixture. In Japanese jazz, the influence of bop’s fast-fingered technique is everywhere apparent, but the blues is conspicuous in its absence. Perhaps many Japanese groups are uncomfortable with the authentic language of the blues, but Aramaki has no such worry. He digs right in. Like Charles Mingus, a clear influence, he starts with a core rhythm and melody that spins out into concentric circles of deeper and stronger variations. Mingus’ classic, “Better Get Hit in Your Soul,” often starts their sets, though they also hammer home standards, tricky Thelonius Monk numbers and rootsy originals.

As leader, Aramaki is less concerned with the structures than with forward momentum. The pounding depth and Mingus-like anger springing from his muscular bass pulls everyone along in its wake. Part of this drive was practiced in the hard-core blues bands he also joins, such as Blues File No. 1. Aramaki’s anchor allows room for the two-sax front line of Joh Yamada and Nao Takeuchi (also with Fukumura) to create impetuous lead lines that veer and diverge wildly. These unpredictable melody lines create friction instead of harmony. For their individual solos, they accelerate these lines to the breaking point. After an especially long and fiery solo at a gig last month, Yamada seemed to almost collapse. He had to lay down his sax and walk out of the club to recover. The rest of the group was too absorbed to notice.

Takeuchi is just as self-demanding, taking solos with rough physicality, straining his whole body with circular breathing and lungfuls of forceful notes. In the Aramaki group, it’s not just the drummer, but all the musicians who use all four limbs. The bop side of the quintet is pegged down by the fleet piano of Keiichi Yoshida, who shoots through neat, elegant solos at Bud Powell-like speeds. The group splits the drum spot between Tamaya Honda and Yoshihito Etoh, both busy with their own demanding schedules. Honda and Etoh have different styles, but they create space and textures rather than regulate rhythm, splitting the beats into finer and finer variations that push the soloists to play hard.

What is striking about Fukumura and Aramaki’s quintets is just how they manage to bring together the individual styles into an unvarnished and passionate whole. These two newly formed groups have both managed to get past the restraining aspects of jazz conventions to arrive at a fresh, open style that feels relaxed and confident, which is perhaps the real essence of the improvisational spirit of jazz.

Hiroshi Fukumura Quintet can be heard at Akai Karasu, a five minute walk from Kichijoji station on the Chuo Line on August 14 and September 20. The Shigeo Aramaki Group can be heard at Sometime and Blues Club Rooster.