Greetings and salutations Hivers. Today let's go into another Evening Groove / Three Tune Tuesday post.

I might need to ditch the name "Evening Groove" for these posts. When I started these posts years ago on the network which must not be named whence Hive came I called it this because I posted in the evenings. Since then I started posting in the mornings to correspond with the start of the day UTC time. That is still evening in the US so I guess it works, but every time I post these and then look outside to broad daylight, I feel strange. Hmm... anyway!

As always, thanks to @ablaze for making this series. Lots of people participate in it! Follow the tags to find a ton of good music recommendation.

Today I want to focus on Japanese jazz again. This week I have a new artist to introduce you to: trombonist Hiroshi Suzuki. He was born in America and grew up in Vegas, but he moved to Japan in 1976 just in time to be part of the 70s jazz scene which in many ways introduced jazz to Japan and made it into what is still one of the most popular music genres in the country.

Many of his songs are always being rerecorded or samples. If you like jazz, you'll love him.

All of these are from Hiroshi Suzuki, so I'll just give the track title.

Romance

This is from his 1975 album Cat, which may be his most popular record, and this track may be the best. It's a nice easy-going groove. You can imagine sipping an adult beverage at a jazz bar, letting this song wash over you as you chill out.

Some of his trombone solos are simply heavenly.

Kuro and Shiro

I suppose the title might be black and white. It's more likely that Kuro and Shiro are cat names (one is black and one is white, no doubt), which would go with the album theme. At any rate, this track is more uptempo than the last. This starts with some nice percussion but then the horns jump in and it is fire.

I could easily share the other tracks from the album. They are all great. But I'll leave that for you. Here is the full album if you are interested.

Eleanor Rigby cover

Here he is a part of an earlier group, "Hiroshi Suzuki & His Happy Cats". This entire album is covers of classic songs, really funky jazz covers. I dig what they are doing here with the Beatles's classic. It starts simply replaying the main melody of the song, but then from there it spins towards pure magic.

I wonder what Paul thought of this.

If you liked that as much as I do, here is the entire album.

There are many other Japanese jazz players to introduce, so maybe I'll continue this sub-series next week.

What'd you think? Was that good or was that good?? Which was your favorite?

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.