JAZU: Jazz from Japan. Review. Saori Yano. Answer

There aren’t so many musicians that at only 28 years have already recorded ten releases over a span of ten years. More, if we also add to this achievement the fact that this artist is provided with a musical technique and a lexicon that can compete with older colleagues, then we will have the complete portrait of an extraordinary musician such as alto saxophone player Saori Yano.


After her young debut in 2003 with an homonym record released by Savoy, becoming the second Japanese artist to sign for such an important label, Yano spent the last decade being appreciated for her energic performances, often collaborating with veterans of the international jazz scene.


This last release celebrates the important goal of her tenth release putting emphasis and collecting at her best all the musical peculiarities Yano owns, trough some of the most in-demand tunes. A real joy for those who followed this amazing saxophonist along these years.


Among the above-mentioned tunes are not missing the immortal jazz standards on which Yano has been mostly founding her repertoire: The Days of Wine and Roses, All of Me and Moon River are permeated with deep respect for the jazz tradition, always present in Yano’s playing, whether she ventures into serpentine improvisations or she plays essentially the main theme revising it trough her personal instrumental pronunciation.


It’s exactly on sound and intonation that Yano has been concentrating her attention, without never hiding the profound influence that the great jazz masters of the past, Charlie Parker above all, had on her.


The tribute that Yano chose to dedicate to one of them, the late saxophonist James Moody, who was also Yano’s teacher for a while, isn’t as nostalgic as one could expect, but provided with an unexpected reggae rhythm that confers a lively mood to the famous Moody’s Mood for Love, James Moody’s most representative ballad, to which Yano adds sincere spoken words of gratitude in the end of the tune.


Suna to Sukato is one of Yano’s earliest original compositions, written when the saxophonist was only 14 years old, become along the years one of her fan’s most appreciated tune. A Latin-tinged ballad, that focuses on one of the most appreciated and long-standing style of jazz, already been recorded in two of her previous releases.


The recording proceeds unrolling a balanced alternation between soft moments, offered by ballads such as Waltz for Debbie and La Vie en Rose, and vibrant ones as in the case of ellingtonian Sing, Sing, Sing, enriched by a short and intriguing vocal performance of Yano herself.


But this important achievement cannot be celebrated adequately without a special treat that definitely sanction its impeccable quality. It’s Terumasa Hino, legendary trumpet player of Japanese jazz scene, to hold the role of guest of honor of the session. In the first of the two tunes featuring Hino, the energetic trumpeter gives start to A Night in Tunisia, after a while finds himself face to face with Yano, pulled into the whirl of dynamic improvisational exchanges, then closes the tune with a brief, but intense, instrumental soliloquy.


To complete Yano’s “portrait of artist” also take part her extramusical interests for cinema. It takes shape in her rendition of Taxi Driver, theme of homonym renowned film directed by Martin Scorsese featuring Robert De Niro. In this playing is present a strong blues matrix that appears vigorously many times in the album. For example, in the title track Answer there’s a slow, but relentless climb upward an highly expressive climax that set free all the energy kept inside by Yano until that moment.


The same languor emerges in the final of Left Alone when the sound of her alto sax is blown to pieces while riding the emotional wave of this Mal Waldron’s touching composition, as if she was crying the despair, as title says, of who is left alone. Among the most inspired moments of the entire album.


Presenting the many facets of jazz always focusing on tradition is, without no doubts, among the merits of saxophonist Saori Yano, thus managing to keep alive the expressive charge and cultural value of jazz and create a connection between old and new Japanese jazz fans.