Description
Randy Bellous, executive producer
Los Angeles City Commendation for “Yuko Mabuchi Plays Miles Davis”
Yuko Mabuchi plays Miles Davis took the jazz world by storm when it was initially released, winning NativeDSD’s coveted Jazz Album of the Year, earning a special commendation from the City of Los Angeles, and pleasing audiences and critics alike. Advances in SonoruS Holographic Imaging technology enabled engineers Steve Hoffman, Bob Attiyeh and Arian Jansen to remaster a fresh version of this album in honor of Yarlung’s 15th Anniversary.
Bob Levi, chairman of LAOCAS, wrote of the original “Oh my! Mabuchi, Breton, Atkins and JJ Kirkpatrick, the wicked internationally acclaimed trumpet player. Yuko Mabuchi Plays Miles Davis is much better than superb. It is historic! I listened to this concert performance over and over. It is compelling. It is lively. It is at times explosive. It is always original and filled with intensely new musical ideas from many old Miles favorites. Yuko Mabuchi plays so powerfully and rhythmically, like she owns this music, feels this music, believes this music. I could go cut by cut, but you understand if you like extraordinary jazz. This is the real deal.”
The society’s new president Mike Wechsberg was so happy with the new 15th Anniversary version that he asked for the album to be branded with the Society logo. Levi continues “This is Attiyeh’s best jazz recording effort to date. Van Gelder would have approved. The warmth and weight of the instruments are so real, so right. Yuko Mabuchi Plays Miles Davis has become an audiophile jazz lover’s reference. It is audiophile gold.”
Toyota Motor North America joined executive producer Randy Bellous in underwriting this project. Our heartiest thanks! Read more about Yuko’s and Yarlung’s connections with Toyota in our Producer’s Notes link above.
Yuko chose several Miles Davis favorites for this concert and recording, including Nardis, So What and Blue & Green. With underwriting support from Steven A. Block, Raulee Marcus and Leslie Lassiter, Yarlung commissioned Missing Miles, which Yuko created in honor of Miles himself. Missing Miles concluded the concert and we end with it on this album. Ann Mulally underwrote Ikumi’s Lullaby, an original composition by Yuko. Ikumi’s Lullaby opened our concert, but it comes as the fourth track on this release.
After hearing Yuko perform in this concert, Aaron Egigian from Segerstrom Center for the Arts asked Yuko to open for Branford Marsalis in January, 2019. Billy Mitchell Productions made a small-camera video of the concert which you can enjoy on the Yarlung Channel. Yuko performs some of her repertoire from her Miles Davis album, but notice how differently she improvises classics like So What. Rick Brown reviewed the performance for Yarlung News and for The Absolute Sound.
Thank you Yuko for giving us so much to celebrate!
—Bob Attiyeh, producer
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Mario Ussyk, Santa Catarina, Brazil –
Recebi o CD nesta quarta-feira, e já escutei e gostei muito .
Excelente !
Não só pela performance dos músicos, mas também pelo belo
trabalho de captura da apresentação e produção do disco.
Certamente um dos melhores, senão o melhor CD que eu tenho
considerando a qualidade de áudio.
Parabéns a todos pelo brilhante trabalho, o resultado foi magnífico !!
Bob Attiyeh –
Thank you Mario! What a pleasure to read your thoughts. Here is a rough English translation of your generous review:
I received the CD this Wednesday, and I already listened and like it a lot. It is great! Not only for the performance of the musicians, but also for the beautiful recording quality and production of the disc.
Just considering the audio quality, this is certainly one of the best, if not the best CD I have.
Congratulations to all for the brilliant work. The result is magnificent!!
Stewart Hall –
You have an amazing artist on your hands. All my
favorite music played to a definitive perfection.
Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Errol Garner – it is all there.
Can’t wait to attend a Live Concert.
Alan Bubitz –
Enjoyed the article about Yuko in the book by Mori Shima. Enjoyed his comments on how the stage was set up and on the music. I agree that the hall sounds a little more spacious on the Miles CD but both are wonderful recordings. Look forward to more jazz from your label. Regards, Alan.
Mori Shima –
Yuko’s playing is unbearably spectacular. This woman, a freak-of-nature talent, reminds me of how Dave Brubeck Quartet handles “Blue Rondo a la Turk” with 9/8 and 4/4 beats. Yuko’s talent is also similar to Brubeck’s in that her music’s entertaining character does not suffer even though she is such an intellectual player. In “All Blues” and “Milestones” Yuko’s solos and her deeply humorous subtleties makes both pieces great fun and encourage one to listen to them over and over again. Yuko’s gentler personality really shines in her solo section of Nardis where her horn-like melody evolves into a pianistic one.
“Missing Miles” is another Yuko original. It incorporates snippets from “Freddie Freeloader,” “Time After Time” and “TUTU.” Yuko’s 16-beat sensibility is outstanding. Together with a danceable solo based on the Latin beat of “So What,” this track shows how much influence Yuko has absorbed from contemporary Black music.
The soundstage presentation is truly the highlight of this recording. Compared to “Yuko Mabuchi Trio” album, the piano is even more upfront, and the whole sound stage offers a greater and even deeper sense of perspective. In a vast and deep space, four musical instruments are embossed with full body and weight. The New York Steinway boasts an elegant presence in the center of the stage. Behind the piano, which emits a beautiful shimmer in the mid to high registers and backed with powerful pitches in the lower register, the bass beats with its warm sound, and the drums continue to explode on the stage. No matter how the trumpeter plays, it sounds mellow and smooth like butter. This is a very rare recording of the instruments where the sounds are so vivid and lively with no signs of distortion.
Bob Attiyeh –
Thank you Mori-san! Great write-up. (For people interested in reading more by Mori Shima about Yuko Mabuchi please see his new book Jazz Masterpieces.
https://www.yarlungnews.com/yuko-mabuchi-in-jazz-masterpieces/