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The first time I wrote about the late great jazz fusion guitarist and composer Ryo Kawasaki（川崎燎）was back in 2020 when I posted an article on his "Raisins" from his 1976 album "Juice", and from listening to the song, I got the impression that he really liked the rock and funk side of fusion.
Well, a couple of years later, Kawasaki and American jazz pianist Joanne Brackeen collaborated on their own album of duets titled "Trinkets and Things". Brackeen composed all of the seven tracks except for the first track which was also the title track. Kawasaki handled this one and "Trinkets and Things" goes into a more tropical and jazzier direction which flows through the beaches and Tiki bars with much aplomb. Although it's mostly an instrumental, there are a couple of parts where a female singer provides some accomplished vocalese but for the life of me, I couldn't track down who she was.
What makes this adventurous piano–guitar post-bop duet. unusual in my opinion is that there seems to be no bassist or drummer. This seems to me to be close to jazz/post-bop, and the bulk of the record is harmonically and rhythmically even more adventurous. This album leaves me with a lot of food for thought! Thank you for introducing it here.
ReplyDeleteHello, Brian. Would you say that this could be something along the last vestiges of Cool Jazz or a predecessor of Smooth Jazz?
DeleteI’d place Trinkets and Things much closer to late-1970s post-bop with fusion coloration than to either Cool Jazz or Smooth Jazz proper. The Cool Jazz connection is understandable at the level of surface affect: spaciousness, elegance, restraint in places, and the absence of a hard-driving rhythm section can make it feel “cool.” But historically and musically, I wouldn’t call it a last vestige of Cool Jazz. Brackeen’s playing is too muscular, rhythmically elastic and harmonically restless.
ReplyDeleteHOWEVER, your Smooth Jazz predecessor idea becomes more interesting specifically with the title track. Kawasaki had already been working in fusion, jazz-funk and more groove-oriented settings—his mid-'70s work includes Juice, and shortly afterward he moved further into electric and guitar-synth textures. But the album as a whole is too knotty to be proto-Smooth Jazz.