Zek! at Shinjuku Pit Inn
ZEK! at Shinjuku Pit Inn, August 21, 2024
Kurumi Shimizu清水くるみ - piano
Yasushi Yoneki米木康志 - bass
Tamaya Honda本田珠也 - drums
Zek is the most unique of bands. It’s a piano trio—one of the most elegant configurations in jazz—that plays only the music of Led Zeppelin—one of the hardest-rocking rock bands of all. Zek’s deft magic transforms rock to jazz in the most unlikely of ways—electric guitar shifts to piano, rhythmic bass switches to melodically fluid bass, and four-beat drums turn to rhythmic subtlety. There are no vocals at all.
Describing it in words, it’s hard to see how that would work. But it does work and works marvelously. After listening to the Zek trio, you’ll never hear a jazz piano trio or hard rock band in quite the same way again.
Even for jazz fans averse to hard rock, the way the trio performs Led Zeppelin's songs is a marvel. They snatch the intensity, bluesiness, and wildness of Led Zeppelin and transform it all into a jazz trio. After hearing Zek live and listening to their recordings, I’m still unsure how they do it, but they do. And yes, they only play Led Zeppelin songs.
The evening started with “Four Sticks,” with Yoneki’s thick, juicy bass laying down the floor to hold up Shimizu’s wild piano and what sounded like four sticks from Honda. With a wild drum solo from Honda that was cathartic for everyone in the room, the stage was set for a high dose of both jazz and rock energy. The raw feel of the song was let loose.
“Gallows Pole” was delivered with a slow, bluesy intro packed with feeling. One of the things often overlooked in Japanese jazz is that deep setting of blues feeling. Part of Zek’s appeal is they put blues front and center. Like Led Zeppelin (Zep), “Gallows Pole” started slowly and gradually intensified. In many ways, I find Zek more cathartic than Zep, though Zep took up a fair share of my youthful listening. Or perhaps it’s a different kind of catharsis.
“Poor Tom,” with its great drumming (original and Zek-ified), led into “No Quarter.” Both tunes from different stages of the Zeppelin catalog were played with the reflective, spacy feel of the originals but were given room to use the full dimensions of the piano. Shimizu uses the piano for its melodic complexity and percussive effects. Her melodies sing while her left hand takes over with a rock-like barre chord fullness. These two songs played sequentially were lovely and orchestral.
The slow, bluesy “Dazed and Confused” was great. Its simplicity allowed everyone in the band to take great solos. The trio works together, not only because they’ve toured and recorded together, and are all virtuosos on their instruments, but because they all appreciate, maybe even revere, Led Zep. With this trio, something clicks especially well. Their connection is so tight it feels like they could play the song any number of ways: rock, blues, ballad, or free jazz. Or a bit of all of them. Which is what they do.
The band kept calling tunes. “Tangerine” was a lovely, slow blues song, a ballad they played straighter and prettier than the original. But it’s a compliment to say you can’t compare the original with the Zek version. They are two different creatures. “In My Time of Dying” was heartfelt, angry, and full of energy, but the original was a rather long song, which Zek plays fully and freely. Were they trying to out-rock the original? If so, it worked.
“The Ocean” was played with a tight, start-stop rhythm. As with most of Zek’s playing, Yoneki’s bass held the center so Honda could go wild on drums, and Shimizu could use the entire run of the keyboard. Shimizu can stay on the funky, bluesy center notes but still play freely.
But how can a jazz pianist translate the intense electric guitar sound? Pretty damn well, it turns out. One always thinks the intensity of rock comes from the loudness of the guitars, but the piano can be just as intense. One wouldn’t think rock is orchestral, but Led Zeppelin often painted on a big canvas. The Zek trio captures both the hard rocking energy and the lush reflective soundscape of Led Zeppelin.
The audience was hard to figure out. They knew the words to the songs, and some in the audience sang along to the refrain of “Rock and Roll,” “It’s been a lonely, lonely, lonely time.” For a moment or two, The Pit Inn felt like an arena show at the Tokyo Dome! People work Zek T-shirts!
The trio was inventive and moving. Zek repeats phrases like in rock but improvises freely, like in jazz. They pull out the catchy riffs of rock, unload them, open them up, and explore them in true jazz fashion. I find their music inventive, progressive, postmodern, and uniquely satisfying. It’s not that they are out to translate things or take them over, but rather to put themselves in dialogue with the original and enjoy what comes out. Everyone in the audience, whether they were rock or jazz fans, whether they knew the words or not, enjoyed it immensely, too.
(either I was having a flashback or the camera focus shifted…)