Hiromasa Suzuki -- First Flash

 

Hiromasa "Colgen" Suzuki（鈴木宏昌）was a jazz pianist, composer and arranger that I hadn't known about until I found his contribution to the 1979 compilation album "Hi-phonics, Hi-phonics". A couple of tracks are already included as postings on KKP including Haruomi Hosono's（細野晴臣）tropical "Jamaica Ginger".

Suzuki's "First Flash" starts off Side B of the original LP as a naturally jazzy progression of horns, percussion, electric guitar and keyboards. It comes off as a classy jam session among the instrumentalists, and I get this New York City vibe as the song rolls on. Listening to the three tracks from "Hi-phonics, Hi-phonics" so far, although perhaps this may not be a pure City Pop album per se, I think that this is something that's worthy of purchase by fans if it's readily available.

The Tokyo-born Suzuki (b. 1940) was the son of a dentist and while attending Keio University, he got into jazz piano, and joining with a couple of other jazz pianists, Yuji Ohno（大野雄二）and Masahiko Sato（佐藤允彦）, became known as the Keio Sanba Garasu（慶應三羽烏...The Three Ravens of Keio）, a riff on the enka Gosanke（御三家）trio known as the Sengo Sanba Garasu (戦後三羽烏) that Noelle Tham had posted about back in February this year. Along with Ohno, Suzuki also collaborated with the other bright lights of Japanese jazz including trumpeter Terumasa Hino（日野皓正）and alto saxophonist Sadao Watanabe（渡辺貞夫）. He also arranged a number of other artists' songs including Junko Ohashi's（大橋純子）big hit "Silhouette Romance"（シルエット・ロマンス）. Unfortunately, Suzuki would succumb to cancer in 2001, just shy of his 61st birthday.