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BLOW UP

Japanese Music / Jazz, fusion & film music · 1973

BLOW UP

鈴木勲

Why listen

Cello melody, bass pulse and piano conversation make a compact ensemble feel unusually spacious.

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Tracks · previews

English editorial edition

Album story

A low string sound need not stay at the back of a jazz group. On Blow Up, Isao Suzuki makes the distinction between a foundation and a melodic voice worth listening for. The pleasure lies in following those functions as they coexist, rather than treating everything below the piano as accompaniment.

Released by Three Blind Mice in 1973, this is a small-group record with a large range of internal perspectives. Start with Aqua Marine, then let Everything Happens to Me shift your attention towards the piano. You do not need to identify every chord to notice how the foreground changes.

An ensemble with movable roles

The sessions took place on 29 and 30 March 1973. The personnel include pianist Kunihiko Sugano, drummer George Otsuka, bassist Takashi Mizuhashi and Suzuki on bass and cello. That last pairing matters: a sustained melodic line and a pulse underneath it are different jobs, even when both come from strings. Listen for the way the piano fits between them. Its contribution can be a reply, a push forward or a moment of open space, not simply the next solo in a queue.

Six pieces, changing focus

The sequence moves from Aqua Marine through Everything Happens to Me to the title piece, then continues with Like It Is, I Can’t Get Started and Low Flight. Hearing these as interchangeable relaxed jazz misses the changing balance of melody and rhythm. Try remembering a phrase before an improvisation develops. Its return can orient you without requiring an analysis of every intervening note. The group becomes easier to follow when attention moves between the person speaking and the musicians keeping that speech in motion.

Recognition and later editions

Takao Ogawa’s historical account records the album’s 1973 Swing Journal Japanese jazz award. Kozo Watanabe’s 2024 reassessment foregrounds Suzuki’s individuality as a cellist; it is a later perspective, not a contemporary verdict. Sony’s 2024 LP and hybrid SACD are also later editions of the recording. The Japanese digital programme presented here retains six tracks. Keep that distinction in mind, but let the musical conversation take priority over format prestige: the interaction is the reason to return.

The album through its tracks

Separate the melodic string line from the pulse beneath it, then follow the piano’s response.

  1. アクア・マリーン

    Aqua Marine offers a useful first exercise: follow the line that seems to sing, then repeat the passage while attending to the pulse underneath. Those are separate musical functions, not one undifferentiated bass sound. The cello invites attention to the length and shape of a phrase; the surrounding players give that phrase somewhere to land. When the strings pause, notice whether the piano fills the opening or leaves it available. A watery image suggested by the title is optional. More rewarding is the audible relationship between weight and movement, and the way a small group can leave room without losing its sense of forward travel.

    Reference · Sony TBM: original credits, programme and 2024 reissue

  2. エブリシング・ハプンズ・トゥー・ミー

    Here the familiar standard provides a different point of entry: the piano’s way of speaking a melody. If you know the tune, silently sing its outline and compare that expectation with the placement of the phrases. If you do not, hold on to the first recognisable line and wait for its return. The interest is not only in fast passages but in the time allowed around a single note. Listen underneath those spaces too: quiet accompaniment still shapes the performance. Following Aqua Marine, the piece changes the balance of attention, reminding us that this is an ensemble album rather than a demonstration of one unusual instrumental colour.

    Reference · Sony TBM: original credits, programme and 2024 reissue

Listen next

Compare CASIOPEA’s MINT JAMS for another small ensemble whose shared timing makes individual lines cohere.

MINT JAMS ↗
References & editorial note

Written for English readers. Album facts are referenced below; listening suggestions are editorial interpretations. AI-assisted editorial review; not independently human-reviewed.