Shigeharu Mukai

Live at Body and Soul
January 17, 2003

Shigeharu Mukai--trombone
Hidenori Midorikawa--alto sax
Masaaki Imaizumi--piano
Shinichi Satoh--bass
Hiroshi Murakami--drums

Shigeharu Mukai’s Friday night gig at Body and Soul was a hard-working blowing session. With this quintet the main aim was soloing, though not just that. As a leader of several differently arranged groups in Tokyo, Mukai has a strong sense of how to keep a group driving forward in energy and also outward in improvisational directions. Most of the audience were regulars, so Mukai and company didn’t need to win over any converts, but instead were pressured to show what new ideas they could pull from the standards and Mukai’s originals. A lot, as it turns out.

The trombone seems to be one of the most cumbersome instruments, but Mukai’s technique is graceful and fluid. His solos zip along the chords with a fleet, unstopping power. He pushes the direction in order to create both a space and a challenge for the others. Midorikawa, a regular member of Mukai’s Super 4 Brass group, took up the challenge and answered Mukai with fast, neat solos. Imaizumi’s piano moved from dense chords to elegant rolls and full-flight bop lines with ease. His comping also kept everyone on track, varying the textures and forcing the solos faster and farther.

Body and Soul is the right place to hear this group. You can get close enough to see, but far enough back to relax. The sound mix, though, was a little off on Friday, so that the drums overpowered many of the solos, with Imaizumi’s piano in particular too soft to hear at times. Many clubs around Tokyo, though, could use with an updated mixing board and nightly sound specialist with good ears.

That issue aside, the crowd went home satisfied with the hard bop workout they received. Shigeharu Mukai is the elder statesman of cool in Tokyo’s jazz world. His hip energy directs itself into the music rather than getting lost in tangled layers of jazz bravado and showmanship. That’s perhaps a small distinction, but an important one. He’s “old school” in putting the music first, and letting everything else flow from there. Unlike younger and less seasoned jazz players, he’s impressed by the music, not by himself. Mukai’s groups are consistently excellent, whether on CD as with the recent Hakkohzan recording, or live, as on this night.