2 more from Yoshio Otomo

After really enjoying Moon Ray I decided to see what else I could drum up from saxophonist Yoshio Otomo. Turns out, Moon Ray is the middle of a trio of late-70s  albums with Otomo as leader. We'll take a look at the other 2 today.

First up, we have a quartet album released on the Frasco label in 1976. Joining Yoshio on Oh! Friends we have Junichiro Oguchi on piano, Kosugi Satoshi on bass and Fumio Watanabe on drums. Mostly straight ahead stuff like we heard on Moon Ray. We start off with 2 great originals from the group: "Have A Nice Dream" from Otomo and "Pleiades" from Oguchi. A couple of covers follow in a Otomo solo version of Duke Ellington classic "In A Sentimental Mood" and "You're My Everything." This one closes with an excellent ballad from Otomo in "Quiet Blue" which might be the best tune of the album.


In 1978, Otomo released another quartet album on the Seven Seas label titled As A Child. Joining him this time around are Toshiyuki Sekine on piano, Satoshi Kosugi on bass with Akiyoshi Yoshino on drums. All originals from Otomo here aside from the closing Stevie Wonder tune, "All In Love Is Fair." This one starts of beautifully with the title track, featuring great play from Otomo and Sekine. "In A Spring Waltz" is also a very nice track with Otomo on soprano and if memory serves, I believe we've only heard him on alto until now. Otomo returns to the alto for the briskly paced "Sentimental Steps" before the group slows things back down to close with a very nice rendition of the Stevie tune mentioned above. 

Have a great weekend. I'm working on a few new series of posts, including: Mikio Masuda, Masaru Imada and Tsuyoshi Yamamoto, amongst others - so stay tuned.

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