Yuki Arimasa Trio
Una Mas, Mitaka
June 23, 2009
Yuki Arimasa – piano
Yasuhiko “Hachi” Sato - bass
Dairiki Hara – drums
The piano trio forms the very heart of jazz and Yuki Arimasa’s is one of the finest examples why. They play jazz: a simple statement that is easy to say but rarely accomplished. The trio has the right synergy, which they put to great use. The club is just the right venue for this trio, not only because of great acoustics, but because the acoustics allow you to really hear every nuance of the trio’s sound and sink into it deeply.Average pianists just play the song, but Arimasa immerses himself in each song and sets up a dynamic relationship with it. His intros to the songs are especially interesting, making you guess what it will become. The long intros seem to be his way of really moving inside the composition, feeling out the melody and charting directions before the bass and drums kick into gear. This initial working away inside the songs, often at varied tempos and a range of dynamics, establishes the design in which the extended soloing later follows. It’s a complex coherence, but a beautiful one.
In this way, standards like “Why Don’t We Fall in Love” and “There Will Never Be Another You” come out fully refurbished. The interiors are new, interesting and full of feeling. “When I Fall in Love,” taken at a slow ballad tempo, was rich and full, using the slow motion to resonate and linger over melodic possibilities. Arimasa finds great contrasts in all the songs, but the ballads especially, and more importantly leaves aside the sentimentality and overplaying ballads usually receive. He plays with a lean directness, with each note and complex chords in 
place, nothing wasted, nothing too sweet.
That does not mean the trio never swings. Just the opposite, they swing hard, dropping down deep at times, yet in a very contemporary way. Knowing each other well from years as a trio, they create tensions between the three instruments that are striking and original. They suggest more by going in their own directions. Yet, when the same note in the same place needs to be played, they are all right there together. The interplay merges their three distinct voices into a harmony that remains taut and pleasingly unresolved.
Hara used lots of brushwork through the evening, much of it greatly textured. He seemed less concerned with time than with the character and shape of each song’s motion. Sato’s 6-string electric bass gave him a full range of sounds, deep and tasteful at times, and assertive and melodic at others. Their recording of 2006 captured the trio sound perfectly, but they have kept progressing since then. Arimasa’s piano voice has become his own, which is not as common as one might think, especially with such intensity and feeling.