Hidehiko "Sleepy" Matsumoto -- Rio Manhattan（リオ・マンハッタン）

 

From goodfreephotos

Well, I've ended up having the lion's share of beef today and I'd add that even a lion couldn't have touched me in my attack on meat today. Yes, I am exaggerating but for lunch, I met up with an old friend and we ate at the Five Guys burger joint where I ingested a baconburger and poutine. And then for dinner, I had the semi-traditional Friday night steak...about 300 grams worth of sirloin. As a result, my middle-aged metabolism took a big hit and I was treating hibernation as a major lifestyle choice during the news hour, just like any old Dad.

Anyways, sleepy J-Canuck is here to present Hidehiko "Sleepy" Matsumoto（松本英彦）, a jazz saxophonist who was given his nickname due to the way that he blew into his instrument as if he were asleep, according to a 2010 interview that he gave the Asahi Newspaper via J-Wiki. I'm not sure, but he sounded quite active enough to me here with his "Rio Manhattan", the title track from his 1981 album. It's quite the rumbly Latin-infused fusion piece that starts the LP.

Born in 1926 in Okayama Prefecture, he began playing professionally in the late 1940s as a bebop artist. In 1953, he helped form The Big Four jazz quartet which consisted of him, drummer George Kawaguchi（ジョージ川口）, bassist Mitsuru Ono（小野満）and pianist Hachidai Nakamura（中村八大）; Nakamura would become one of the most famous composers of the kayo kyoku era with hits such as Haruo Minami's（三波春夫）"Sekai no Kuni Kara Konnichiwa" (世界の国からこんにちは）. Matsumoto was also the first Japanese person to be invited as a participant in the Monterey Jazz Festival of 1963. As the leader of his group, he would release albums from 1960 to 1997, but he passed away in February 2000 at the age of 73.