CK Listens

For the next installment for Native Son we'll take a quick look at their next 4 studio albums. I quite enjoyed 1983's Resort but I began to lose interest with the following 3 albums that we'll also discuss here. For Resort , another new bassist is onboard in American Gregg Lee . All other bandmates return including trombonist Hiroshi Fukumura who first appeared on the excellent  album,   Shining . I have a couple of his solo albums to share at some point that have some memorable moments. I appreciate that we've made it to 1983 without falling into full-on smooth fusion. They're off to a strong start again with an opening track from Honda, "Bay Street Talkin'," followed up with a nice tune from newcomer Lee, "Nite of Limbo" and "Midnight Cruising" from Ohde. Only other track worthy of mention is  the nice, funky tune "Under the Bahamian Moon".  Overall, still a nice album with about half of the tracks being solid, in my op

I stumbled upon this French fusion album kind of randomly out of plain dumb luck. The only bad thing here is that it appears to be a one-off and I haven't found much else on the artists. This is more rock than jazz, to me. And certainly funky. All instrumental with 8 relatively quick hitting, energetic tracks.   Quite a few artists were involved on the project but the main 4 who's surnames make up the group/album name are Andre Ceccarelli  on drums,  Marc Chantereau  on keys, fantastic bassist  Christian Padovan  and guitarist  Slim Pezin .  Favorite tracks: "Death for the Spanish Lion" (Pezin) and "Prancai" (Ceccarelli) but frankly there isn't a skippable track here.  Where ever their careers took them after this record, I'm not sure. But I'm certainly glad their  paths  crossed long enough to make this gem. Enjoy.

Excited to share the next band with anyone who may be unfamiliar. They're relatively new to me but I instantly fell in love with some of their tracks.  My favorite band is Herbie Hancock's Headhunters so my era of choice is 70s jazz-funk and fusion. I re-fell in love with jazz some 20 years ago when I dove into Miles and Herbie's electric years.  Fortunately for me, a lot of musicians were influenced by the Headhunters. There's a ton of albums from 1974 and after that try to capture a similar sound. In the latter part of the 70s and into the 80s, a lot of that fusion starts to get a little too soft/smooth for me. Within that same time frame, Native Son  released a few albums in a row that were absolutely fantastic. By the mid-80s they began to drift into the too smooth for me category but not without some nice tracks here and there.  For the sake of completeness, I'll share the full catalog and anyone that stumbles across these next few posts can decide for themselv

I recently revisited an album from this saxophonist and was blown away by his playing. The albums listed here are a little more straight ahead jazz than what I typically listen to, but fantastic nonetheless. Each of the four could easily have been released years prior.  I'm unsure when I first encountered  Hidefumi Toki  but it was likely after listening to  Endless Way  from the excellent guitarist  Kazumi Watanabe . I may have a KW album or 2 to post that aren't readily available. Most of his massive catalog can be found with a little digging. Toki was born in 1950 in the Hyogo prefecture in Japan, and passed in 2021. I'm most familiar with his earliest work starting with his debut in 1975 - Toki .  Released on Three Blind Mice, Toki was joined by  Nobuyoshi Ino  on bass,  Steve Jackson  on drums and the previously mentioned Kazumi Watanabe on guitar. The opening track "Lullaby for the Girl" is my personal favorite.  The second album is 1976's  Sky View and

Thanks for checking out my first post. My goal for this page is to share some music I really enjoy. Some are less accessible due to licensing issues, or whatever else, so they're not always available on streaming services. Which unfortunately for me, is the primary way I access music these days.  The album for today is basically the inspiration for the creation of the page. Hiroshi Murakami is a drummer originally from Tokyo who has worked with some of my favorite musicians from Japan. Namely, saxophonist Kosuke Mine  and pianist Masahiko Satoh .  But what really put me on to this album is when I learned he is a founding member of the amazing band Native Son . In 1978,  under the moniker of Hiroshi Murakami & Dancing Sphinx,  he released a one-off album on Showboat Records named Dancing Sphinx . Joining him on the album are the aforementioned Kosuke Mine, multi-instrumentalist Takehiro Honda , (2 of the other founding members of Native Son), and excellent guitarist  Kiyoshi Su