Yokohama Jazz Promenade

The Yokohama Jazz Promenade just keeps getting better and better. The organizers know just what they are doing and the program has expanded each year without feeling any bigger. There was no feeling of being in a huge stadium or having to look for the screen to see what is going on. Each performance was intimate, even if you had to stand in the back.

The promenade organizers keep the focus on the music and choice becomes the main problem over the two full days. This year 151,000 people showed up at 51 venues for 347 performances. Not being able to hear everyone becomes a deliciously unsatisfied desire. But the bands one does hear assuage that need with jazz played at a high level.

By late morning, the line waiting for Toshihiro Akamatsu’s quintet reached down the block and back up, and for good reason. The vibraphone player’s quintet was sleek, cool and primed to play. The show started with a fat, rolling bass from Kunio Oinuma. The solos came on thick and steady after that. The quintet had a full-on sound, but the intriguing part of the show was the successive duets and trios.The duet of Hikari Ichihara’s trumpet and Akamatsu’s vibes was outstanding. Ichihara has eight CDs as leader, with plenty more coming. Their interaction was special, the soft, full trumpet meshing exquisitely with the vibraphone harmonies. The next number added the rightly popular Hakuei Kim on piano. The trio’s Gary Burton and Chick Corea vibe held plenty of “out” flourishes and a stately trumpet from Ichihara. The quintet ended their standing room only gig with an intense version of Miles Davis’ “E.S.P.” that showed just how deep the quintet’s interactive E.S.P. could be.

The mid-afternoon set from the popular Kankawa on organ was also standing room only. Kankawa was joined by a great supporting band that didn’t need to prepare, as Kankawa repeatedly told the audience. “Watermelon Man” kicked things into funk-land and the improvised-on-the-spot ramble, “Kaiko Kinen Blues,” was satisfying, but an organ funk group needs to get everyone sweating. The group cut grooves, but did not work them enough. The crowd of old fans seemed satisfied.

Shigeharu Mukai’s quartet was an outstanding display of real jazz. Kicking off with J.J. Johnson’s “Lament,” it was clear that the order of the day was fast bop, spiced with blues and served perfectly. The balance between Mukai and Ayumi Koketsu on saxophone was just right, expansive, inclusive and driving, in the post-bop style that always feels so nourishing. Koketsu and Mukai played with a quality of tone and musicianship, no matter what tempo they rev the song up to, which harkens back to the past, but is deeply in the present.

Yuichi Inoue on piano worked the ballads with special delicacy and complexity. His solos pushed Mukai and Koketsu to answer with longer lines and more exploration. All of their solos ended with a back-and-forth with drummer Masanori Ando that was more than just a passing conversation. It was a real debate! Shinichi Satou on bass anchored the proceedings to let everyone swing wider and wilder. If the crowd had had thought bubbles over their heads, they would have all read, “This is real jazz!”

The early evening duet of Pat LaBarbera on sax and Don Thompson on piano was sheer delight. They first came out onstage about half an hour before their gig for the sound check. The venue was open to the quickly gathering audience who listened enrapt to just the couple half-tunes they ran through to check the sound. Everyone applauded. “That’s just the sound check, folks,” LaBarbera called out, laughing. When the audience applauds the sound check, you know there’s even greater music to come.

And there was. Classic jazz in the hands of such masters is another experience altogether from the corporate roll-out of newest latest computer-corrected music as commodity. LaBarbera and Thompson are musicians experienced in playing live all their lives. They played with the sense of musicians who have been on countless stages in innumerable settings and have learned from every one. Thompson’s rumbling left hand and full right hand felt like two instruments. LaBarbera’s saxophone playing needed no accompaniment, and because of that, benefited from it all the more.

Affecting, honest and subtle, their duets offered up idea after idea on the classic tunes.  It was easy to get lost in Thompson’s double-fisted chords on “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes,” only to emerge into LaBarbera’s tissue-delicate phrases. “Old Folks” and “My Shining Hour” were straight-on takes. They played with a scrupulous melding of themselves and the song. Some musicians seem to be commenting from afar on the standards they play, as if calling on a cellphone with a bad connection. Thompson and LaBarbera are fully present and startlingly clear. They do not back away, but come out to play deep inside the songs, from deep inside jazz tradition.

Outside the inside venues, the Promenade had plenty going on. The sidewalks were filled with amateur bands from grade school to the silver set, playing their hearts out. The rows of bags, instrument cases and equipment from all the bands lined the public spaces and turned the whole of Yokohama into one big jazz club.

As nice as the performance spaces were, jazz sounds different in a club than in a concert hall, after all. Ending the day at the intimate Ueno 63 jazz club was a reminder of how cool it is to hear music without a mic. With only a dozen or so chairs, Ueno 63 lets the listener unwind with music up close, like, the sax bumping your knees. It’s almost frightening to hear instruments so directly in this day and age of digital everything.

Hisatsugu Suzuki’s trio with Dairiki Hara on drums Yasuhiko “Hachi” Sato on bass was a great way to round out a full day of jazz and more jazz. All three of these guys know how to slip into a song and wear it like a pair of soft jeans on a weekend afternoon. They played straight and direct, clean and pure. Their comfort with the flow of the music was relaxing and invigorating, like a glass of good whiskey in your favorite room of the house at the end of a long day.

The Jazz Promenade has long since become one of the best ways to hear Japan’s rich selection of musicians, as well as great groups from abroad. The 44-page booklet (with minimal ads) listing all the musicians for the two days felt like a collectors’ item, but it was also testament to how accomplished the Promenade is. If the Promenade can bring together tens of thousands of people and so many great musicians, they are doing things right.