Shigeharu Mukai - 1975 - For My Little Bird

Shigeharu Mukai

1975

For My Little Bird

01. For My Little Bird 6:35

02. Departure 15:25

03. Toppū 15:13

04. Nancy 3:20

Alto Saxophone – Hidefumi Toki

Bass – Mitsuaki Furuno

Drums – Ken-ichiro Kameyama

Electric Piano – Toshiyuki Daitoku

Percussion – Yuji Imamura

Piano – Kazuhide Motooka

Soprano Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone – Tomoki Takahashi

Trombone – Shigeharu Mukai

Beautiful work from trombonist Shigeharu Mukai -- and just the kind of record that shows how strongly he was pushing the development of his instrument in the 70s! The set's got a mix of sounds and shapes from the leader that are completely sublime -- soulful and thoughtful, carved out of space in this really magical way that holds us rapt from the very first notes. There's echoes of older trombonists -- particularly the JJ Johnson school -- but the setting is more modern, with inflections from the highly creative Japanese scene of the time.