It's that time of year again.
#MWE 1: This sounded great on a Saturday morning. Vibrant, lyrical modal jazz and post-bop from 1973, made all the more interesting by the unusual twin-trombone lineup. 
#MWE 2: With different players on each track—not all of whom sound fully committed to Kanai’s radical program—this isn’t the most cohesive listen, but boasts some wonderfully jagged blends of free playing and composition.
#MWE 3: Itabashi proves he can do standards as well as anyone on this 1982 solo album, though he’s a little too feisty for that cocktail pianist gig. The highlights are the originals, esp. the radiant title track, which come on like a more strident Keith Jarrett.
#MWE 4: This early statement from Japan’s free jazz scene lives up to its title, balancing fevered outbursts with poised, textural playing that wouldn't sound out of place soundtracking a Teshigahara film.
#MWE 5: I’ve yet to hear a ‘70s Isao Suzuki album I didn’t like. Exquisitely recorded cool jazz that slips effortlessly into carnival mode when the spirit takes it.
#MWE 6: Japan’s own saxophone colossus is at his most expansive on this live double LP, leading an all-star ensemble through a set ranging from filmic lushness to spiritual jazz to samba (plus a brief free jazz detour).
#MWE 7: The itinerant skronker gets a gaudy, ill-fitting synth-fusion makeover from Kazumi Watanabe. The best bits recall Yasuaki Shimizu’s mid-80s work, and there are some very peculiar chamber music shenanigans on the B-side, but not much I’d go back to.
#MWE 8: Nobody’s holding back on this colourful, confident big band outing from 1974 — least of all pianist-composer Akiyoshi. The gagaku-inflected title track is a standout, but the whole thing swings like hell.
#MWE 9: The house pianist at the eponymous Tokyo jazz club more than earns his keep here, putting a distinctive spin on some familiar standards, in a recording so pristine it could be used to test audio systems.
#MWE 10: Sato’s debut LP as leader doesn’t fuck around. Endlessly inventive work from cohorts Masahiko Togashi and Yasuo Arakawa, on pieces that shift from free playing to passages with the poise and restraint of an ECM release.
#MWE 11: The (eponymous) debut release on Japan’s first specialist jazz imprint sets the bar high. Two side-long pieces of driving, muscular spiritual jazz that get better the longer they go on, given added rock thrust by drummer Eric Gravatt.
#MWE 12: Shakuhachi master Hozan Yamamoto picked the right companions for this jazz excursion. Sensitive, spacious playing by Masabumi Kikuchi, Hiroshi Murakami and Gary Peacock (no less), though the crepuscular mood is perhaps sustained a little *too* effectively.
#MWE 13: Masayuki Takayanagi’s late-career embrace of tabletop guitar and electronics is less harsh than I’d expected: the great axeman leaving the jazz stratosphere in a cloud of febrile metallic tones.
#MWE 14: Get past the soupy acoustics and there’s some neat stuff happening on this live date from 1974, especially when Messiaen student Takashi Kako takes charge in the second half, and maps out the common ground between fire music and modern composition.
#MWE 15: Never mind that she’s got Japan’s most incendiary free jazz group as her backing band: Maki Asakawa plays it as cool as ever here. Only the closing track comes close to working up a sweat.
#MWE 16: Who knew the TBM catalogue featured something so… prog? This trio's lone LP splices (middling) jazz-rock instrumentals with Heian-era poetry and kabuki-isms. Not quite freaky enough, but some fine moments.
#MWE 17: This kind of clean-cut jazz-funk isn't usually my thing, but Suzuki’s reunion with his old Freedom Unity bandmates is an album where everything—the grooves, the solos—just clicks: the sound of a group who know exactly how to push each other’s buttons.
#MWE 18: Even after a few plays, I’m struggling to join the dots between the opener—a startlingly abstract take on “Stella By Starlight”—and the closing, 28-minute spiritual jazz slowburn. A single LP live album that really needed to be a double.
#MWE 19: Sabu Toyozumi pays rambunctious tribute to his Art Ensemble of Chicago compadres, using the group’s tunes as a springboard for fiery improvisations that hit Yamashita Trio levels of intensity in places.
#MWE 20: Wada’s 1973 debut is a crisp, driving set that sticks mainly within the bop vernacular. Aside from saxman Kenji Mori’s heroically out reading of “Billie’s Bounce,” the invention is more in the details than the grander gestures.
#MWE 21: A pre-YMO Ryuichi Sakamoto joins percussionist Toshiyuki Tsuchitori for a session of scuttling free improv, wonky minimalism and general larking around. It's patchy, but the peaks are pretty wild.
#MWE 22: Kosuke Mine comes out swinging on his supremely confident 1970 debut, backed by a group of young musicians who sound just as hungry as he does. Bonus points for the incredible cover art.
#MWE 23: Uematsu is on commanding form throughout this fusion-heavy album from 1977, with sterling keyboard work from Mikio Masuda, but they're not helped by a rhythm section that desperately needs to loosen up.
#MWE 24: Featuring some standout contributions by Midori Takada, Kazutoki Umezu's music speaks in many tongues here: raucous klezmer-jazz, toy instrument whimsy, synth symphonies, and the kind of Fourth World optimism that might appeal to fans of Mariah’s Utakata no Hibi.
#MWE 25: Satoh goes the full Quincy Jones, recording in 1979 New York with a string section and all-star band. Get past the dodgy disco-jazz opener and there’s some fun to be had in the knotty arrangements and hectic flights of funk-fusion.
#MWE 26: I’ve really enjoyed Ichikawa’s playing on other people’s records, but there’s a stridency to this 1976 album—starting with the leader’s dazzlingly bright piano tone—that just didn’t click with me.
#MWE 27: Recently reissued by BBE, this is varied but consistently engaging, from the spiritual highs of the title track to the sloppy cool of the closer. There's a real nimbleness to the playing, and Ryojiro Furusawa’s drumming is a constant delight.
#MWE 28: Japanese albums from the ‘70s seldom get as legitimately funky as this. Suzuki and pals cook up a set of Headhunters-indebted jazz-funk and cosmic porno jams. Unabashedly cheesy in places, and a total blast.
