Fukamachi and Wada together in Digit Cafe 2005 and Super Duo Live 2022

 

Just when you think you've escaped the Jun Fukamachi addiction, you get sucked back in.  Oddly enough these came up when I begged my wife to find some of his music on the abhorrent spotify streaming service which I would never get a subscription for (because it pays artists infinitesimal royalties).

Way back when I tried to post most of his 'earlier' stuff then we found the later stuff was almost universally great too.   This came out much more recently, but note that Wada played with Fukamachi in the latter's fusion band Keep, discogged here.  I think I put up that stuff way back too?

Fukamachi passed away in 2010, so amazingly the 2005 Digit Cafe (not databased on discogs) was recorded / released when he was almost 60 years old! hard to believe he was still so proficient and virtuoso, but sad that he passed only 5 years later which seems way too young.

Unfortunately it isn't clear who the composers were on these 2, but I'm guessing it's mostly the keyboardist.  The 2 CDs have almost the same tracks but a few are different, with Digit Cafe being nice for me because studio and the Super Duo Live, info here, disappointing for me, for the same exact reason.

The title track is I think classic Fukamachi:

While the dissonant arpeggios of Accomplice, this time the live version, are out of the ballpark, as usual for anything JF related:

There is one drawback, at least for me, probably not for everyone, the improvs are way way too long and make each track almost annoying, a tendency which obviously was taken to an extreme on the live.