Yasumasa Kumagai & Ryu Kawamura: Ol’ School Jazz

Aug 30, 2024

In the style of classic apostrophe-bearing jazz album titles, pianist Yasumasa Kumagai and bassist Ryu Kawamura offer up Ol’ School Jazz, a collection of beloved jazz standards played with authenticity and a love for the era with their pared-down duo format.

(Aside: Following this apostrophe trail, this album’s bluesy first track may be no accidental serendipity but an intentional pick. Starting with the album title Ol’ School Jazz, the first track “Driftin’”, and that song’s origin on Herbie Hancock’s Takin’ Off, that’s three apostrophes already. Did the friendly informality of this “jazz apostrophe” as used in the day carry a similar effect — particularly for the “jazz atmosphere” of certain albums, laid back but highly skilled, casual but serious — as emojis and internet abbreviations do today? A prototype for the simple, effective, and immediate impact of quick slang like LOL, OMG, WTF? BRB…)

Ol’ School Jazz is a 14-track album loaded with unforgettable tunes from several eras of jazz history. Kumagai and Kawamura’s duo project honors that history with integrity and love by selecting familiar but excellent songs from the swing, bebop, and hard bop eras of the 1930s-60s, mainly. For fans of jazz classics and honest playing, it doesn’t get much better than Thelonious Monk’s “Evidence”, Benny Golson’s “Stablemates”, and Dizzy Gillespie and Kenny Clarke’s “Salt Peanuts”.

Jazz jam session favorites are also represented: “Caravan”, “All the Things You Are”, “If I Were A Bell”, “Alone Together”, and even “Cherokee”, no doubt a speed challenge when played by a drumless duo. One mood outlier among the straight-ahead swing and bop is Wayne Shorter’s “Sleeping Dancer Sleep On”, the tender highlight of the album and a beautiful melody played lovingly by the duo.

Filling out the package is one original song, the comfortable home base of a groovy jazz blues simply titled “Blues”. Each player also gets their own spot alone: Kawamura plays a brilliant bass solo on “Up Jumped Spring” in a relaxed midtempo swing, and Kumagai wraps up the album with a gospel blues piano solo for the last track, the spiritual and expressive “Amazing Grace”.