Tone Momentum "Present"
“Present” Tone Momentum
津上研太Kenta Tsugami -- saxophones
小林洋子Yoko Kobayashi – piano
I’ve liked these two musicians for a long time. They always have an interesting take on the tunes they create, both compositionally and performatively. The music comes out with a deep sense of surprise and passion, two essential elements of music, but also with real ingenuity and thoughtfulness.
The first three songs, “Childhood Friend,” 「天気雨」(“Sun Shower” in English), and “Capricious Plants” search for their center with different approaches—contemplative, unhurried, and lively—and find a rich set of musical ideas. All three songs are powerful and calm, with Tsugami’s melody lines laid down clearly and directly. Kobayashi’s two-handed power wraps the melody with harmonic complexity and rhythmic energy. On “Capricious Plants,” especially, the two sync completely.
The ten-song CD has five originals from each, but it’s as if each contributes just as much to the other’s tunes. Tsugami’s “Autumn Waltz” ambles through a lazy autumn walk under the leaves, but gathers strength as it goes, pouring into the next tune “On Rainy Days.” This original by Kobayashi builds to a mighty downpour of lush chords and melancholy lines, until the delicate ending, the last note like the last drip of water from a tree.
“An Innocent Story” starts with lines of up-and-down, stop-and-go exploration before heading into rich, but again unhurried, music that feels bluesy and old but completely fresh at the same time. “Banal B” moves into bluesier territory, not with deft blues patterns, though they’re suggested, so much as blues feeling. The songs on the CD become more muscular one by one, with livelier soloing and experimentation, and “Banal B” is the liveliest of them all.
“A U N” is Kobayashi's last tune on the recording. It’s a playful song with a repeated motif that is both catchy and propulsive. Tsugami works on it first, and Kobayashi lets her feelings guide her deeper into the tune. The last song, “Present,” is the perfect closer, with a stately melancholy and a wistful end-of-night, or rather end-of-CD, feeling.
This is an album that deepens with each listen. The interplay of the two is both long practiced and unexpectedly new on each tune. They each know how to push the other to get more out of each musical motion, but know how to lay back, too, for the right balance of rich music.
https://www.piano-yokokobayashi-jazz.com/
https://kentatsugami.amebaownd.com/
other reviews
https://www.jazzinjapan.com/cd-reviews-posts/kobayashibeyondtheforest
https://www.jazzinjapan.com/live-reviews-posts/kobayashiliveaketa2004