eFreydut: Fairway

Mar 30, 2024

Fairway is a new Japanese jazz album recorded last year in New York and released in Japan just last month. Drummer Ko Omura, pianist Mikiko Nagatake, and bassist Kanoa Mendenhall form a trio known as eFreydut for this album. The gorgeously recorded music contains ten tracks of innovative and in-control original jazz with a running time of fifty-three minutes.

As is natural for these creative jazz musicians, this album features mostly original music stamped with individuality. There are five contributions from drummer Omura, three from Nagatake, and one group improvisation from all three musicians. The one covered song is the beautiful ballad “Touch Her Soft Lips and Part” by Sir William Walton, played with exquisite clarity and sweetness, and reminiscent of the gentle interpretation on drummer Peter Erskine’s 1996 trio ECM album As it Is with John Taylor and Palle Danielsson.

As for the compositions, Nagatake herself describes Omura’s songs on this album as being like a philosophy book, while her songs take on more of a fairy-tale atmosphere. These songs may be coming from different directions but they are all unified by a romantic quality.

From Omura’s titles and notes, it’s clear that the drummer puts a lot of thought into what he wants to convey with his music. His melodious and carefully crafted #1 “Savichara”, #2 “Accismus”, and #10 “Liquidity” expand on introspective thoughts with deep musical phrases that rise and fall like a boat on unpredictable waves.

His other two songs, #6 “Petrichor” and #8 “Melt Dough”, are down-to-earth appreciations of fine things in life: sensing the richness of transient environments, and gratitude for simply-transformed, delicious food.

A superb thing about Omura’s compositions is that they have a tangible “Ko Omura style”, multi-faceted with boundary-pushing elements. It’s a style also apparent in his music on Polyglot Talk, Vol 1, his several recordings with Bungalow, and his own leader album Introspect.

Pianist Nagatake’s compositions share similar qualities to Omura’s in being dynamic, creative, and distinctive. These are energizing modern jazz songs with exciting time signatures and arrangements, and the music never strays from being appealing to listeners, as well as just being fun and stimulating for the musicians who play these songs together.

On this album, Nagatake’s three songs are each focused and special. #3 “Le Petit Prince” is a tenderhearted melody of childhood and growth colored with playful chromaticism. #4 “Glow” is a challenging piece with an elaborate meter and Mobius strip-like melodic traversals. #7 “Not Sure” is a free jazz collaboration bracketed with ornate bookends, like imposing and modern skyscrapers looming over the chaotic streets contained between them.

Throughout, the music is ultra-clean and immediate. The artistically recorded sound is comforting with an immensely ambient presence like ECM contemporary jazz albums. Much of the rhythmic ride is set in straight-eights territory, with subtle swing beats surfacing and reliably strong basslines surging, pounding, or setting the bottom of the frame as suits the music.

This album is further enhanced by Omura’s tabla drumming on a few tracks, as with his other bands and recordings. While he plays jazz drumset on most of the songs with expert sonic control and delicate finesse, his earthy-yet-astral tabla drums are also always a pleasure to hear.

Omura and Mendenhall improvise a spiritual dance of rhythms and bass tones in the second half of #5 “Whispering Clouds / Nimbus”, and tablas also awaken the senses on the positively-charged adventure of #6 “Petrichor”, both unique and very different highlights on this colorful album.

Liner Notes

(A translation of the original Japanese liner notes.)

It’s so cool!

I was so moved the moment I heard Steven Sacco, one of New York’s top recording engineers, exclaim “It’s so cool!” while the trio performed at central Manhattan’s Sear Sound Studios. From deciding then to record them, the days that followed passed like a flash before my eyes.

I was fascinated by Mikiko Nagatake’s lively performances and positivity. Wanting to support her overseas activities more, I resolved to record her in New York. We finalized the schedule in March 2020 with the participation of the internationally active Ko Omura. Immediately after that, the coronavirus pandemic broke out.

As I paused for three years, Nagatake was active with incredible energy, releasing many CDs, performing at top clubs, and achieving great success as is widely known. Omura, in addition to his drumming work, wove his way through gaps in the pandemic to travel to India and study tabla drumming zealously.

This three-year wait also gave me the opportunity to meet Kanoa Mendenhall, a talented young bassist who was attracting a lot of attention and performing with top musicians. While she is small in stature, her bass sound is both supple and strong and became an essential foundation for this trio.

The performance from these three extremely talented musicians unfolding right in front of me… “It’s so cool!”

We would like to express our deepest gratitude to everyone involved in the production of this CD.

January, 2024

Tommy’s Record (representative) and Tommy’s By The Park (owner)

Tomoyuki Wada 和田知行

Savichara

In Sanskrit, the meaning of thoughtfulness and prudence. It refers to the act in meditation when focusing on the object of meditation, looking in deeply, and observing.

Accismus

This refers to the act of feigning disinterest or indifference in something despite really wanting it.

Le Petit Prince

I was so moved by Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince that I came up with this song immediately after reading it.

Glow

During the coronavirus pandemic, the downcast days somehow just went on and on. But sometimes, when unexpectedly encountering great music, the perspective suddenly widens and everything sparkles. "Glow" is a soft light, a feeling of happiness.

Whispering Clouds / Nimbus

This was captured on the first day of recording. It is the only completely improvised take on this album.

Petrichor

This is a word that refers to the scent of soil and grass after the rain.

Not Sure

There is a melody at the start and end with improvisation in between. Three people’s wavelengths get tuned in to each other, and it became a really interesting take.

Melt Dough

When naan (Indian bread) is placed in a tandoor (Indian stone oven), the dough is baked deliciously as if it has melted.

Touch Her Soft Lips And Part

A short piece from a suite composed by English composer William Walton for the film Henry V (Shakespeare). This song is a request by Tomoyuki Wada, the producer of this album. The famous melody is clear, straightforward, and sinks in smoothly.

Liquidity

In the field of economics, it refers to the liquidity of value. This song was written with while reflecting on the concept that each person is an existence whose values expand like an infinite universe, so such a value system probably requires fluidity and flexibility.

◆eFreydut: Our group name is based on an anagram of Duty Free.

◆Fairway: The name of a long-established supermarket in Manhattan that was close to the hotel where I stayed and that I visited many times.