(Yet) Another Japanese Fusionary Genius: Masahiko Satoh, Part One

I'm very excited about this one.  This is why it's in the lead-up to Christmas.

The next few posts are dedicated to this remarkable artist who made a string of formidable fusion works in the late seventies-early eighties period, sometimes equalling our old favourite and everyone's favourite I believe, Jun Fukamachi, at least here and there.  The overall sound is actually very similar to the two LPs I posted not too long ago late this past summer from countryman Masanori Sasaji and I hope everyone is not yet tired of those amazing tracks.  Or, if you are, get ready for some more amazing music to listen to, blessed with a very original and emotional sound combining the ultimate excitement of electric fusion from the American side with the depth of feeling and resonance that I've often said is a hallmark of the European masters of the art, plus of course, the brilliant classical education that puts it over the edge for me, with the addition of complex chord progressions, polytonalities, etc.

First of all in his discography you can remark that he spent a lot of time in the early years treading water in that awful swamplike morass of jazz standards that was obligatory for the jazz musician of the time before fusion exploded on the scene.  Just as confusing to me is the fact he played in so many different bands, usually one-off, which I don't know anything at all about.  I would certainly out of habit discard the solo piano albums and the ones classified as free jazz, but that still leaves us quite a few to wade through.

Anyways for part one I stuck to two from 1979 and 1980 that are very similar to the Sasaji works, All in-All out, and Chagall Blue.  From the former absolutely incredible high-energy fusionary masterpiece, which incidentally far exceeds more famous works by Mahavishnu or Patrick Moraz' Story of I, or even most Herbie Hancock mid-70s fusion works, the track called Moth Ball highlights the kinds of crazy ideas this album is chock-full of like a Kellogg's breakfast cereal stuffed with sugar:





And one of the highlights of his works is that he is equally at home with ballads and tender music as he is with the dense-with-energy stuff.

Moving on to the second album, we have mostly a trio with the grand piano and rhythm section added, but here and there you'll notice some cello and violin melodies for some very beautiful, characteristically Euro-fusion effects.  For those who are familiar with the classical piano repertoire, the Impressionistic Dusk is simply a phenomenal homage to Debussy/Ravel (of course, their piano compositions were so similar):





I'm reminded of two other artists/albums with similarly perfect piano compositions, the Japanese work Inada Bemi Family's side one, an immortal masterpiece for me, and the Rena Rama called New Album, wherein the track called Gestalt simply blew me away, and in fact, still does.
More to come.