TAKASHI MATSUNAGA

RIDE FIVE

Rode Five Label

Takashi Matsunaga, piano/composer; Christian McBride, bass.

Takashi Masunaga has developed as a pianist who closely connects his composer skills with improvisation.  His unique approach and style on the piano becomes a foundation for this duo album, featuring the legendary Christian McBride.  Clearly, the two musicians employ the premise of listening, reacting, improvising and growing as one.  Their music is completely improvised, but still has structure, harmonic integrity, and melodic beauty.

From the first strains of “Time in Motion,” Matsunaga’s opening composition, they capture my attention.  Beginning the first four bars with solo piano, Takashi establishes a direction.  Christian McBride smoothly enters the expressive improvisation, adding melodic bass lines to the structure.  Somehow their counter melodies blend like sugar and eggs whipped into a cake batter. The composition is sweet and rich with expression.

Takashi Matsunaga’s musical ideas become a starting point for this duet performance, that’s based on listening and response. The second track titled “Pure, Becoming” once again begins with the musing of melodies that grow from Matsunaga’s fingers on the ebony and ivory keys. McBride adds a rhythm and counter melody that is quite complimentary. The original idea that Matsunaga plays on piano grows and blossoms, a melodic orchid attached to the double bass stem. Together, they are rooted in creativity.

This music is experimental and creative.  They spend over four minutes and up to six-and-a-half minutes on tunes they spontaneously create.  Although these are long pieces, not once did I feel bored.  Each song peeled off my CD player, tantalizing my ears and surprising my expectations. All seven of these songs are listed as Takashi Matsunaga’s compositions.

Perhaps his publicist summed it up best when she wrote, Matsunaga’s authorship is heard, not through rigidly predetermined forms, but through the ideas that initiate and orient each performance. McBride deepens and redirects those ideas, and the duo turns seven acts of improvisation into seven distinct musical statements.

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

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