{"id":458,"date":"2011-03-02T06:02:26","date_gmt":"2011-03-02T11:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=458"},"modified":"2011-03-02T06:02:26","modified_gmt":"2011-03-02T11:02:26","slug":"album-review-keiko-matsui-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/03\/02\/album-review-keiko-matsui-the-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Keiko Matsui &#8211; The Road\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/keiko_matsui_the_road.jpg\" align=\"right\" height=\"280\" hspace=\"10\" vspace=\"10\" width=\"280\" \/>Normally I keep a safe sonic distance from anything that might be described as a jazz\/new age hybrid. I generally like a bit of <em>oomph <\/em>in my music. But a disc that found its way into my inbox has also worked its way into my head. <em>The Road\u2026<\/em> is the latest album from pianist <strong>Keiko Matsui<\/strong>, and though it most decidedly falls into the aforementioned genre classification, there\u2019s a good bit more happening there. One needs to open up the ears a bit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Matsui has released more than twenty albums, yet I had never heard (or heard of) the Tokyo-born keyboardist. That\u2019s not altogether surprising, since she travels musical paths which I don\u2019t follow. Yet while her music may best be described as new-age jazz, her compositional and performance styles have clearly been informed by other types of music. The accompaniment alone provides clues of this; though all the songs are built around her acoustic piano, there is plenty of synthesizer work, fretless bass guitar, ethnic percussion and classical instrumentation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Keiko\u2019s Matsui\u2019s choice of musicians also makes it clear that she\u2019s not content merely to provide soundtracks for elevator rides: how else to explain the presence of <strong>Vinnie Colaiuta<\/strong> on drums (even if the liner notes don\u2019t spell his name correctly)? And sly little musical references abound on <em>The Road\u2026<\/em>; \u201cFalcon\u2019s Wing\u201d quotes ever-so-briefly from <strong>Edvard Grieg<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cIn the Hall of the Mountain King.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cBohemian Concerto\u201d features an introduction that (subtly) suggests progressive rock, and then heads into a catchy and straightforward melodic line. Elements of samba and Eastern European styles also figure into the song, but it all works somehow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Close listening is a rewarding experience. But of course the casual listener can ignore all that, and let the tunes \u2013 mostly instrumental but occasionally featuring unobtrusive vocals from multi-instrumentalist <strong>Richard Bona<\/strong>) drift placidly, tunefully by.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 9px\" align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/the_musoscribe\" class=\"body\">Follow \u201cthe_musoscribe\u201d on <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/icon_twitter_small.jpg\" valign=\"middle\" border=\"0\" height=\"18\" hspace=\"1\" vspace=\"0\" width=\"18\" \/> Twitter<\/a><br \/>\nand get notified when new features, reviews and essays are published.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 9px\" align=\"center\"> DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cmp.ly\/1\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/cmply_1.png\" alt=\"I have a material connection because I received a sample or review copy, or an item of nominal value that I can keep for consideration in preparing to write this content. I was\/am expected to return this item after my review.\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Normally I keep a safe sonic distance from anything that might be described as a jazz\/new age hybrid. I generally like a bit of oomph in my music. But a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}