jizue, "Gallery"

Piano-forward jazz fusion that changes its form but never its character

Being in a band isn’t often compared to being on a sports team, but maybe it should be. It at least seems true for the Japanese jazz/rock/pop project jizue, whose founding members – guitarist Norimasa Inoue, bassist Tsuyoshi "Gou" Yamada, and drummer Shin Kogawa – met while playing soccer in grade school. The Kyoto-based band rounded out their roster in 2007 with pianist Kataki "Kie" Nozomiyo, whose fast-flowing melodies interweave so well with Inoue‘s swung-time guitar that you’d think the two had grown up connecting passes on the pitch together as well. Their inexplicably uncapitalized band name even references the sport, repurposing the nickname for French footballer Zinedine “Zizou” Zidane. So titled, the band has released a prolific run of records over the last dozen years, refining an inviting style that mixes jazz, post-rock, classical, and other instrumental musical forms. Their 2019 album Gallery is a particularly dynamic showcase.

As their influences imply, jizue generally approaches music as a wordless medium, which makes describing Gallery in words a tad more challenging. Analogies help, and the band is kind enough to provide a ready metaphor in water. They do this most explicitly on “river,” whose white-rapid rush of notes and dramatically fluid transitions make it clear that jizue doesn’t select song names at random. But even when not established in nomenclature, the comparisons write themselves. The melodic bob of “junction” invokes the lazy float of lily pads that line the banks of tranquil streams. The unruly free jazz on “ambivalenz” splashes across the track like a sudden downpour blanketing a puddle-filled street. The piano-pelted guitar crashes on “W” sound like tsunami swells making landfall in a hurricane, while the directionless fury on “rage against the music” conjures that same swell farther from shore, a landscape of chaotically cresting waves that don’t know which way to break. 

It’s nice to know exactly what you are, but it’s also nice to have the freedom to be whatever you want. Water is one of the few symbols that’s able to do both, and on Gallery, jizue proves that they’re one of the few bands able to as well.

Bonus Pick: Looking for more piano-based, genre-blending jazz? Armenian jazz artist Tigran Hamasyan has you covered.

Or, if you’re looking for something more experimental, check out Colin Stetson, who I recently had the chance to cover for a feature on Bandcamp.

…and a quick PSA: If you live in the U.S., make sure you vote this coming Tuesday! This newsletter doesn’t have a paid subscription option, but even if people could pay me money each month, I’d still prefer that everyone reading this voted instead.