Seiji Tada

Birthday Live
NARU
May 19, 2018

Seiji Tada – saxophones, flutes 多田誠司
Akane Matsumoto – piano 松本茜
Yuji Ito – bass 伊藤勇司
Masahiko Osaka – drums 大坂昌彦 

Tada Seiji has spent so much time playing live, his shows seem as easy as breathing for him. Of course, he’s breathing pretty hard and fast on some of the songs, especially those bebop numbers taken from his CD “Workout” released this year and recorded in New York City. But even the fast ones, seem easy, and for the fans who packed NARU, they were a welcome embrace of jazz intensity. The evening at NARU, home ground for Tada, found him and the rhythm section romping all over the songs from that recording, plus a handful of others that should have been on the CD, if only CDs were twice as long.

Instead of the New York CD trio of Renee Rosnes, Peter Washington and Kenny Washington, who backed Tada on the CD, at NARU, Tada was joined by three of the best musicians in Tokyo, who knew just what he was going for, and why. The three sets were a full evening of straight-on jazz in one of the best clubs in Tokyo. Tada and band dug deep into the tunes and traded solos with the kind of casual elegance that makes it seem effortless, until you realize how intense the numbers really are.

Tada and band were most pleasing on the faster numbers. But they weren’t just fast, they were fascinating. Jumping into the rollicking bebop of “Con Alma” or the intensity of “Segment,” a less-often covered Charlie Parker number, everyone soloed long and hard. Matsumoto on piano was especially engaged, as Tada and band threw solos her way without notice. She would smile and then blast forward with innovative lines and great energy. Her left hand is strong and rhythmic, while her right keeps melodies sophisticated.

Ito on bass dished out more than his share of the group sound, pumping up solos, adding and supported the full-on sound the quartet aimed for. Ito is a rhythmic player, which meshed neatly with Osaka’s melodic drumming. The two of them accented each other with great subtlety on the Jobim numbers (especially “O Grande Amor”), and on Tada’s carefully crafted originals. Osaka’s solos are always a pleasure, and having played together with Tada for years, the two of them know how to top out and bottom up the totality of the quartet’s sound.

It was Tada’s night, though, as his birthday live, a yearly event at NARU, so it was a special time to let loose, and let loose they did. The vibe of the birthday had Tada in even finer form with an adventurous sense of exploring the pieces, originals or great selections. Onto his usual mature approach to jazz, he’s added that hard-to-get feeling of humanity. Hearing his solos and soaking up the interactions of the quartet, one’s reminded of how jazz is an expression of creative and continual re-birth of structures, ideas, improvisation and feelings. Happy birthday indeed.