Masabumi Kikuchi + Gil Evans

2022 reissue

Masabumi Kikuchi first visited and met with Gil Evans in spring of 1972 when Masabumi had been traveling to New York City to join in Elvin Jones' group. Masabumi and Gil hit it off to organize hybrid orchestra from Japan and US. Toshinari Koinuma had managed to coordinate the personnels, hired twenty one Japanese players except for Masabumi, and Gil visited Japan for the first time with Billy Harper and Marvin Peterson. The three men arrived at Haneda Airport on June 22.

The concert was named "Kikuchi Masabumi Recital", and held at four cities; started from Tokyo on 27th, Osaka, Wakayama and Nagoya. Although the original plan was to do live recording at Tokyo concert, Masabumi and Gil insisted studio recording after all the concerts. The three men had attended and experienced another studio recording of Kimiko Kasai's album Satin Doll at CBS/Sony 1st Studio in Tokyo on 26th. All the orchestra members came together at Victor Studio in Tokyo again on July 4, and the recording took all night long.

    Masabumi Kikuchi – electric piano
    Gil Evans – conductor, piano
    Billy Harper – tenor sax, flute, chime
    Marvin Peterson – trumpet, flugel horn
    Kohsuke Mine – alto sax, soprano sax
    Shigeo Suzuki – alto sax, flute
    Kiyoshige Matsubara – French horn
    Nao Yamamoto – French horn
    Shozo Nakagawa – piccolo flute, alto flute, bass flute
    Takashi Asahi – piccolo flute, alto flute, bass flute
    Yukio Etoh – piccolo flute, alto flute, bass flute
    Kunitoshi Shinohara – trumpet, flugel horn
    Takehisa Suzuki – trumpet, flugel horn
    Hiroshi Munekiyo – tuba
    Kikuzo Tado – tuba
    Tadataka Nakazawa – bass tuba
    Michiko Takahashi – marimba, vibraphone
    Masayuki Takayanagi – electric guitar
    Sadanori Nakamure – electric guitar
    Yoshio Suzuki – bass
    Isao Etoh – electric bass
    Masahiko Togashi – drums
    Yoshiyuki Nakamura – drums
    Kohichi Yamaguchi – timpani
    Hideo Miyata – percussion