One Way Traveller

Japanese jazz masters and classic albums at times still need a translation for Westerners. But if pianist Masabumi Kikuchi’s closest parallels would be Herbie Hancock or Paul Bley, this 1982 album audaciously evokes Miles’ On the Corner. (The credits also give thanks to Balinese gamelan, and rain forest Pygmies, and “to all peoples whose music is inseparable from the ceremony of life itself.”) But Kikuchi is an electric keyboard eclecticist in his own right and One-Way Traveller thrills on its own merits, with Kikuchi’s “nightmare carousel” organ tone paired to a rhythmic onslaught of drummers, percussionists, and guitarists spinning everything into a frantic blur. The side-long “Alacalder” builds off of an eternal four-note bass motif, looping hi-hats, and rides it for over twenty white-knuckled rollercoaster minutes. And thanks to producer James Mason, it’s also relentlessly funky, to the point of leaving you breathless by the end of your trip.