Yosuke Yamashita
Shinjuku Pit Inn
December 7, 2015
Yosuke Yamashita 山下洋輔 piano
Yuya Yoneda 米田裕也 sax
Akira Yanagihara 柳原 旭 bass
Takumi Ogasawara小笠原拓海 drums
Yosuke Yamashita might be one of Japan’s best-known jazz pianists, but he still likes to mix it up. For his two days at the Pit Inn in December, he pulled in players whose collective ages added up to his own. For many pianists, that might be a comment in the between-song patter, but Yamashita takes playing with a variety of musicians—not just different ages but different approaches, continents and genres—with the seriousness complex collaboration deserves.
The middle of set one, his “What is Free” showed why collaboration is so satisfying when done right. The song burst open with an energetic lead, then everyone soloed in whatever direction they liked. The song was as close to pure energy as music gets, with everyone’s full collaborative powers in high gear. Ideas poured forth with focus, intensity and an unceasing inspiration, before heading back to the main melody, and setting off in the next fascinating direction.
After an intense first set, the band took a break, wrapping themselves in sweatshirts and warm clothing like sports stars do. To cool off too quickly would have been a muscular shock! Yamashita plays with a furious intensity, squaring off against sections, octaves and runs of the keyboard, searching it seems, for new ways to think of them, relate to them, and make them produce.
The second set got going with the aptly titled, “Tense,” packed with plenty of solo time passed around and used up with the right tension. “Energy” followed with everyone on target, both their own and the central musical ones of expressive, energetic music. The four played together and as individuals of separate sensibility in equal measures.“Groovin’ Parade,” one of Yamashita’s originals, set New Orleans second line rhythms against free jazz. The tension between the foot-tapping beat and the exploratory solos was a delicious tension--muscular energy for the body and unrestrained ideas for the mind. It seemed such a simple idea, pairing bluesy fun with outside intensity, but it is actually a unique, and rather rare, pairing of musical approaches.
No less rare was “Kurdish Dance,” another Yamashita original, set in a fast-tempo 9/8 rhythm. It drew up memories of Dave Brubeck’s time signature explorations, such as on “Blue Rondo a la Turk.” Yamashita even went to eastern Turkey in search of that Kurdish-based rhythm for an NHK documentary program. Not finding the rhythm anywhere, as it turned out, might have disappointed NHK, but the song he got from it all was well worth the try. The nimble 9/8 rhythm demanded focus, but once locked in, it spurred all four musicians towards a different way of improvising.
For an encore, Yamashita and band tore into the wildest, freest version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” this reviewer has ever heard. Their version was like an inoculation against all the schmaltz, vapidity and BGM abuse of Christmas carols the Christmas season forces on everyone. “Free carols” just might be the next genre for Yamashita to explore. That encore was just one more example of how Yamashita’s shows are always filled with integrity, pleasure and real musical joy.