Tetsuo Sakurai's Jaco Pastorius Tribute Session
Tetsuo Sakurai has been doing Jaco tributes for a few years. Indeed, this was his ninth. We witnessed his third or fourth, then, a few short years ago. Today was particularly special, and I hadn’t even realized. It was September 21, the 30th anniversary of the (premature) death of Jaco Pastorius. Jaco was thirty-five years old when he died. Hearing of his death, when I was twenty-five, was a terrible shock. I had been following his music since the mid-1970s, when, on a visit to New York with my parents I bought his debut album. It was a black vinyl record I cherished and played endlessly: his black and white portrait looking out at me, those tender, if somewhat mysterious, eyes staring at me. I would also listen to him avidly with his Weather Report recordings, and then his miraculous Word of Mouth music: his turbo-charged big band, a kind of re-booting of swing jazz, and then some. Jaco's playing was unique & ground-breaking, his compositions expansive, bold & beautiful.
Tonight, I was able to travel back to Jaco’s world, thanks to Tetsuo Sakurai and his fellows. I experienced Jaco's music in full swing on the 30th anniversary of his passing. It was like time, and death, were, for once, in a non-dominant position. Here, Jaco was alive. He had never died, because his music was there, alive, happening right in front of us, on the stage at Motion Blue, Yokohama.
Songs covered? And adapted? It's a bit of a haze now. The Chicken, as an opener. Then, appropriately, Invitation. Used to be a Cha-cha was in there, too. Punk-Jazz. Teen Town. Three Views of a Secret. Weather Report's signature tune, Birdland. What a cheer that got! Portrait of Tracy, once, when the others had left the stage and it was just Tets showing his love for Jaco directly and without support. That became a medley, if I recall correctly, segueing into Donna Lee. Some other songs did too, morphing here and there, or maybe that was my imperfect recollection coupled with a feeling of abandon, hardly conducive to serious recording of data. The encore was Liberty City, which is probably my favourite Jaco composition, a masterpiece of collective play, building to an intensity and a glorious sense of joy. From the Word of Mouth album, it is a rolling, swinging carousel of big and bold jazz, a tune and a melody which grabs you and just won’t let go. I’m not sure I should go into the effect it had on me, but there was one moment when I actually got out of my seat, stood up, and started dancing. By the end, I was high-fiving with the bloke at the table adjacent to ours. Funny how, even in Japan, music obliterates social stiffness!!!
Another thing which I thought was funny was that the punters on either side of us had come primarily to see Tetsuo, and were not particularly, or at all, knowledgeable about Jaco’s music, beyond his work with Weather Report. Now I knew I wasn’t in New York, to paraphrase Dorothy… However, it is noteworthy that it was so. Tetsuo Sakurai is Japan’s premier jazz, or jazz-fusion, bassist. He used to play with the high profile Casiopea, a jazz rock group which started in the 1970s and kept on till the late 80s. He let us know that he’s approaching the big Six Oh, but you wouldn’t know it from his appearance, or the energy of his play. Tetsuo has played and recorded with all the best players in Japan and many of the best players overseas, too, including Dennis Chambers, Randy Brecker, David Sanborn, Toots Thielemans, Marcus Miller and a host of others. One wonders if his work with Thielemans was Jaco music, as Toots’ genius harmonica-playing was essential to the Word of Mouth sound. I have so many questions I want to ask this man.
I don’t have enough knowledge to say much about the other players, except that they were superb. You would have to be a superb musician in order to play this kind of music, and they played it brilliantly. There was one special moment as Carlos Kanno on congas became the sole accompaniment to Tetsuo’s rendition of Donna Lee, just in the way Don Alias fills in on the opening song of Jaco’s debut album. That song had sent a message to the music world: Jaco showed that bass could be just as fluent and complex as Charlie Parker’s saxophone. He changed the history of jazz bass (and jazz), because Jaco made it a lead instrument. Here, Carlos and Tets provided us with a calming moment of quiet groove in an evening of dramatic and spectacular highs. Many of those highs were provided by Toshiyuki Honda on saxophone, his lines were bold and fluid, energetic and powerfully right to capture the feel of the music, as Weather Report and Word of Mouth do require a kind of sustained muscularity of approach. Ken’ichiro Shinzawa provided wonderful Zawinul-esque keyboard work, and the twenty year old Senri Kawaguchi (a true prodigy!) provided ecstatic drumming, too, but my attention, because I play guitar, was taken rather with Yuya Komoguchi. He often took the major solos and therefore held a kind of special place on the stage. Well, what can I say? Yuya’s guitar work is simply astounding. He struck me as one of the very best guitarists I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen them all. (Yes, all.) He would take the melody of each piece and play it for all it was worth, and then re-work the melody and keep re-working it until the crowd were cheering and hooting with delight. Guitar pyrotechnics for sure, crowd-pleasing rocky-jazzy licks, full of invention and timbred with the most judicious use of right-hand fingernail micro-dampening of the strings. Each solo was supremely satisfying and raised the intensity of the music to unexpected heights. He seemed to be getting almost as much stage time as Tetsuo, and at one point I started feeling, OK, fantastic Yuya, but now let the Master play, c’mon! Yes, so while I play and love guitar, and was blown away by Yuya’s work, I really wanted my attention to be trained on the bass tonight. No problem, Tetsuo took care of that, re-gaining the musical centre of gravity with his masterful and powerful re-iteration of Jaco.
I could see Tetsuo's love for Jaco was not slavish, but loving and respectful, in that, while he perfectly captured the essence of Jaco’s world-famous playing, he was also creating and playing around with Jaco’s original pieces. Because Jaco is Jaco, and Tetsuo is Tetsuo. And they are both brilliant!!! I have such a deep love for the music of Jaco Pastorius that my eyes were filled with tears on many occasions. Like when Tetsuo came back on stage, just him, after the encore proper, and just played a beautiful and tender ballad, as his heartfelt love for the man who we all love.
Jaco Pastorius, I’m sure, was looking down with great satisfaction and joy.
He has an avatar on earth, and his name is Tetsuo Sakurai.
Musicians are actually magicians.
Notes:-
Motion Blue Photo Gallery of the occasion can be accessed here: here
Tetsuo Sakurai released a CD of his Jaco music in 2013, and it's available on Amazon: here
It was my pleasure and delight to have met Tetsuo and his band back in 2013, with my wife. They all kindly signed the CD. (Toshiyuki, Yuya & Keni'chiro on this CD!) It's a wonderful record of their collaboration. But we have been blessed now to have seen them live twice. Unforgettable. Music lives in them!
September 21, 2018 Tetsuo Sakurai's Jaco Tribute, a note
Just in the door after watching our third Tetsuo Sakurai Tribute concert to the great Jaco Pastorius.
Yet again, it was a brilliant evening of astounding music. These guys are music.
Different drummer, a very young bloke, Ryuga, who wowed us all with, in the middle of his thundering solo, twirling his drumsticks, and smiling his head off. And a different guitarist from last year, but equally wowing and rocking and rolling, too. Just what were some of those sounds??? Of course, the other musicians who are the regular members were outstanding, too.
Just wanted to pencil in this: Tetsuo's playing was astounding. OK. These adjectives become annoying after a while. How can one really do justice to a piece of magic by a genius? Hyperbole in words has a shelf-life etc.. But, I kid you not, it wasn't because of the cocktails or the flashing lights I came three times to see these guys, or to listen and feel some remote echo of Jaco. NO! I came because Tetsuo's interpretations are so good, his -and their- playing is so good, and what they do is take that music which you grew up with, if you were lucky enough to do so, and make it this three or four dimensional experience which affects your emotions and your body and your mind. You witness individuals executing some of the most challenging and complex music on the planet with not merely ease, but with nothing less than JOY.
I even thought that Tetsuo's playing had actually improved on last year's. That may be untrue, more simply, that I could notice more of what he was doing... OK, so last year I drank a bottle of wine as we watched and this year it was Ginger Ale. That's it. This year my antenna were more sensitive. What did I see? I saw Tetsuo playing the tunes perfectly and then, suddenly, without warning, breaking them, creatively, or flying off in a direction that I hadn't anticipated. It was like he had imbued his playing with Jaco so much that he was now free-forming in Jaco mode, or Jaco/Tetsuo mode. You see a really great musician, like Jaco, doesn't want imitators; he wants people to learn, but to then jump off on their own.
I don't know how else to say this but Tetsuo is clearly one of the greatest bass players in the world, and that is a fact which I would hope was more widely disseminated. He did things tonight which showed immense confidence and flair and guts and joyfulness and pizzazz and grit and genius. I started thinking: if JACO were in the audience, his jaw would drop in admiration. This is perhaps what Jaco would be doing now if he hadn't passed away so terribly in 1987 at the tender age of 35. I remember that time well. I was a Jaco fan long before that. When I heard he died I cried and felt grief. That grief has never really gone away, but when I have experiences like I had tonight, all sadness is immensely mitigated by the sheer awesome love of those voices he left behind. Thank you, Tetsuo Sakurai, and your daring band of players.
Play on!
Yet again, it was a brilliant evening of astounding music. These guys are music.
Different drummer, a very young bloke, Ryuga, who wowed us all with, in the middle of his thundering solo, twirling his drumsticks, and smiling his head off. And a different guitarist from last year, but equally wowing and rocking and rolling, too. Just what were some of those sounds??? Of course, the other musicians who are the regular members were outstanding, too.
Just wanted to pencil in this: Tetsuo's playing was astounding. OK. These adjectives become annoying after a while. How can one really do justice to a piece of magic by a genius? Hyperbole in words has a shelf-life etc.. But, I kid you not, it wasn't because of the cocktails or the flashing lights I came three times to see these guys, or to listen and feel some remote echo of Jaco. NO! I came because Tetsuo's interpretations are so good, his -and their- playing is so good, and what they do is take that music which you grew up with, if you were lucky enough to do so, and make it this three or four dimensional experience which affects your emotions and your body and your mind. You witness individuals executing some of the most challenging and complex music on the planet with not merely ease, but with nothing less than JOY.
I even thought that Tetsuo's playing had actually improved on last year's. That may be untrue, more simply, that I could notice more of what he was doing... OK, so last year I drank a bottle of wine as we watched and this year it was Ginger Ale. That's it. This year my antenna were more sensitive. What did I see? I saw Tetsuo playing the tunes perfectly and then, suddenly, without warning, breaking them, creatively, or flying off in a direction that I hadn't anticipated. It was like he had imbued his playing with Jaco so much that he was now free-forming in Jaco mode, or Jaco/Tetsuo mode. You see a really great musician, like Jaco, doesn't want imitators; he wants people to learn, but to then jump off on their own.
I don't know how else to say this but Tetsuo is clearly one of the greatest bass players in the world, and that is a fact which I would hope was more widely disseminated. He did things tonight which showed immense confidence and flair and guts and joyfulness and pizzazz and grit and genius. I started thinking: if JACO were in the audience, his jaw would drop in admiration. This is perhaps what Jaco would be doing now if he hadn't passed away so terribly in 1987 at the tender age of 35. I remember that time well. I was a Jaco fan long before that. When I heard he died I cried and felt grief. That grief has never really gone away, but when I have experiences like I had tonight, all sadness is immensely mitigated by the sheer awesome love of those voices he left behind. Thank you, Tetsuo Sakurai, and your daring band of players.
Play on!
Yokohama, September 21, 2018, just after the gig. A beautiful scene. This is where Jaco's spirit happily resides.