Back to Kanzaki on the Road (aka Hisaaki Kanzaki): Open My Road and Little Road Gang

A very happy man indeed, from the looks of it, perhaps due to the great décolleté (or outright nudism).  Long long ago and far away I posted his third album which was called Long Romantic Road (the titles are suspiciously all similar aren't they).  It had a special place in my heart due to the references to Waikiki, where we migrate to every March like the humpback whales that swim each winter to Maui from as far away as Alaska.

It's obvious the discogs database for this luxuriously smooth saxophonist is incomplete.  Note the odd presence of American vibraphonist Mike Mainieri here, contributing a couple of songs on the records.  (Some of his solo albums were really good, if you remember.)  All the music starts to sound alike though, alternating between gentle fuzak instrumental to instrumental fuzak gentleness virtually imperceptibly.  My ears perked up at the lovely closer to Little Road Gang, called Still Like a Child, referencing (perhaps) the immortal Herbie's Speak Like a Child:





Sometimes uptempo sometimes more languid all the music really is the same as the above.
The earlier posted album, his last presumably, is his best.