Naniwa Express - No Fuse (2016)

The debut work of the Japanese group, assembled in 1977 in the form of a trio "keyboards-guitar-bass" and two years later carried out its first tour in the United States. In 1981, the band expanded to five members with the addition of a keyboardist./saxophonist Makoto Aoyagi and drummer Rikiya Shigashihara, and in the recording of their opening album, attracted five more brass players and six percussionists. They play a very professional, although not too abstruse fusion-very listenable, sometimes even too combed, there is a bit of funk (clearly standing out in the opening disc of Believin'). In general, their music did not make a big impression on me: apart from the fairly decent and bright tracks Between The Sky And The Ground and The Koya-Samba (the latter I liked, even though I did not like the Latin rhythm too much), the rest did not seem particularly original, and some of it was too sentimental and designed more for a smut-jazz audience. Nevertheless, at the end of 1982, the band, having performed more than 160 shows across the country, achieved recognition as one of the best in the style of jazz/fusion, and continued a series of successful performances, among which were very large – scale-for example, a joint concert with the famous trumpeter Terumasa Hino at the Budokan in 1984. In 1986, this team disbanded, and in 2003 was revived in the same composition.....