Sunday Brunch at The Blue Note

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The Blue Note has expanded its New York jazz club worldwide: there are three nightclubs in Japan (in Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo) and one in Milan. For a time now, the New York club has been hosting a series called the “East Meets West Jazz Brunch,” and I had the opportunity to check it out on Sunday, June 24, 2007.  Featured guitarist Yoshiaki Masuo was born in Tokyo, but has been a resident of New York City since 1971.

Masuo has played with everybody, not only the finest Japanese musicians (his father was a jazz pianist), but also people like Lee Konitz and Chick Corea. His most famous association has been with saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins, culminating with five recordings, including The Cutting Edge.

At the Blue Note, Masuo was backed up by the Bill Mays Trio - Bill Mays on piano, Martin Wind on bass, and Matt Wilson on drums. Bill Mays has a new CD coming out on Palmetto Records, called Fantasy. His recordings on that label consist of: Live at the Jazz Standard, Going Home and Summer Sketches, among others. One of his originals was featured at the brunch gig – a romantic ballad called “Sho Ho Love Song,” which is a play on words, as he and his wife live in Shohola, PA. Bill started this one on solo piano, playing tremolos and holding down the soft pedal, subsequently Masuo picked and strummed the beautiful melody on the guitar.

The brunch audience was made up of tourists and families with children, mixed in with musicians and music lovers, making it totally different from the nighttime audience. The atmosphere was pleasant, and to top it off, the omelets were delicious!

Masuo has a smooth easy swing on the guitar, but can also tear it up when necessary.  In addition to his great guitar playing, he is a prolific composer, and the set was made up of some of his tunes:  the opener “Part of the Deal,” “No More Dreams” (a bossa-nova which Masuo sang in Japanese) and “Small Steps,” a fast bebop swing.  The composition “Part of the Deal” had the guitar and the piano playing in unison, and the bridge contained some fast-moving chord progressions. One could sense that everyone in the band felt comfortable with the easygoing groove.

The standard, “Mona Lisa,” was one of the highlights of the set, with Masuo and Mays playing at ease together - they’ve known each other for twenty years, and the musical conversations they had were delightful to hear.  At one point, Masuo used mostly single lines and octaves, while Bill harmonized with passing chords and substitutions.

In the last number of the set, which was called “Bird Blues in the Key of C,” each musician played one of Charlie Parker’s blues melodies – including “Back Home Blues,” “Cheryl,” “Perhaps” and “Visa.”  All four instrumentalists were playing them simultaneously! Martin Wind showed his virtuosity on bass, both as a soloist and accompanist.  The music got more and more complex rhythmically and harmonically as it built up to a final drum solo.  This was a fun and exciting way to end the set. I thoroughly recommend the Brunch Jazz at the Blue Note.