Ken Ota Swingroove

November 28, 2009

Ken Ota – Sax
Hidenobu “Kalta” Otsuki – Drums
Ryo Ogihara – Guitar
Ryu Kawamura - Bass

You cannot ask anything more from a jazz group than that they play fully and honestly. Ota’s Swingroove is a tight, hardworking straight-on quartet that does that and then some. Taken from the title of Ota’s CD from three years ago, “Swingroove” this quartet moves easily from swing to groove, from four-beat to pulsing funk, with natural flow and energetic spirit.

Ota knows his sax men and chooses inspiring tunes from his favorites. Starting out with “Invitation,” the quartet worked into a very cool, deep pocket, followed by the seriousness of Wayne Shorter’s “El Gaucho.” The first flowed, the second crunched, and everyone was clearly hungry for more. The third song, Stevie Wonder’s “You’ve Got It Bad, Girl,” was a funky, four-beat blend of soulful melody with lots of room to stretch out into the nicely arranged jazz chords. The quartet kicked into a very cool jam-groove feeling, but without the too-easy crowd-pleasing approach of most jam bands. Instead, they played self-challenging solos more Shorter than Wonder.

“Angel Eyes” slowed the pace down and featured a tremendous bass solo from Kawamaru that showed off his unique voice and heavy chops. He spun out melodic passages that still kept full-on percussive power. The first set closed out with a brand-new great-fun original from Ota, “Free Pass,” that rocketed along like highway drive. The final solo from Otsuki showed off why he’s the power-funk drummer of choice in Tokyo.

The second set started with a Dave Holland number, “The Oracle” which combined that spacious ECM sound with a funky-ticking groove. Ota’s “Swingroove” from his last CD was a great template for their whole sound that easily melded beats, feelings and the best from a variety of jazz styles. “All or Nothing at All” tuned into Coltrane’s approach while “Shaw Nuff”, taken at a very fast tempo, channeled Parker into the mix.

Everyone in the group used rhythm as a central focus, less constraint than springboard. They swung at times, dug into four-beat, relaxed into funkiness and all the while pushing and pulling the beat to keep it fresh and honest. As jazz musicians who also dig pop sensibilities, they have little of the anxiety straighter musicians have over where to BE at any one moment. All four of them discard what they do not need in order to better play from the depths of all their musical preferences. They make music that would fit as comfortably inside a hip all-night jam band scene as inside an exclusively jazz-oriented club. They know that the audience wants to hear the pleasures of music, not the limitations of genres. That is a relief, of course, but also a big, big pleasure.

(December 7, 2009)