Japan Dulce: Terumasa Hino 80

Terumasa Hino Quintet - Rock for Altena II (excerpt)

Has it really been 9 years? It's been a long, long time... hasn't it?

If you'd have told me when I started this thing I'd still be at it almost a decade hence, I'd have asked you to pass whatever you were puffing upon.

I share a birthday with quite a few superstars of the musical firmament, but there aren't any more luminous than today's milestone guy.

One of the touchstone figures of Japanese Jazz, he's been on my playlist for many's the moon.

If I had to describe him, I'd say he was sort of like the Japanese equivalent to Herb Alpert, if that makes any sense.

He started at the beginning of the 1970s in a sort of free-funk, hard-bop energy music bag, and then progressed into smoother and more accessible stuff as his career developed.

His records from his first phase are among the hottest and wildest of any that exist, anywhere.

Born this day in 1942, he's turning the big 8-0 today and is, thankfully, still around to enjoy it.

Let's commemorate another great from the slate with this, his burning quintet set from one of those famous New Jazz festivals they used to hold at that castle in Germany back in the days, can we?

This comes from a giant box set that's one of a series of them dedicated to this festival's long run... I don't think it's official because B. Free is a notoriously awesome bootleg reissue label out of Luxembourg.

This 64 minutes of wtf sounds just as much like some sort of sacred musical ritual than it resembles your run-of-the-mill concert, and whoever the percussionist is is operating on another plane of existence entirely.

Terumasa Hino Quintet

International New Jazz Meeting 1973

Altena Castle

Altena, Germany

6.24.1973

01 Akubai

02 Rock for Altena I

03 Rock for Altena II

Total time: 1:03:54

Terumasa Hino - trumpet, cornet & percussion

Yoshi Ikeda - bass

Motohiko Hinio - drums

Yuji Imamura - percussion

Mikio Masuda - piano

mixing desk recording, sourced from the 2016 grey area 8CD box set "International New Jazz Meeting Burg Altena 1972-1973" on the B. Free label

Track 02 on the CD was actually performed as two distinct tracks, and was split by EN, October 2022
416 MB FLAC/direct link

That should be it from me for the month of October, but November is only a click away.

Happy 80th to Mr. Hino here, and a hearty hug of happythanks to everyone who's read this page over these last 9 (!) years! I go celebrate my 56th now.--J.