Ryo Kawasaki Tribute
As if 2020 couldn’t get any worst with the current health crisis and loss of influential musicians from Manu Dibango, Bill Withers and more. Jazz-Fusion and guitar synth pioneer, 川崎 燎 (Ryo Kawasaki) has joined them, passing on 13th April 2020 at the age of 73.
My first experience listening to him was somewhere in 2016 back while working for another local record store, The Analog Vault. It was his 2016 compilation “Selected Works 1979 to 1983" that we had ordered in and curiously decided to listen to one afternoon. Admittedly I had thought his tracks sounded way too much like early Santana for my liking and hadn’t given it much thought after. Attempting to collect every John Coltrane release was my choice of poison at the time.
Today, years after, reading up his extensive discography has made me realise how far reaching his impact had been. From playing with jazz’s finest from Gil Evans, Bobbi Humphrey to Chico Hamilton and learning to code to create some of the first ever synthesiser programs. He has truly pushed the limits to what was possible at the time to create the music he imagined in his mind.
Unknowingly since then I’ve picked up two albums which he’s appeared as a sideman, Jiro Inagaki & Soul Media’s “Head-Rock” and Takeshi Inomata’s “Sound of Sound Limited”. Tarika Blue’s sole dual LPs, on which he plays, have been holy grail wish list pick ups for a long time as well.
I’ll leave this with a song off his compilation which you can check out along with his latest 2020 album (Yes, he was still releasing music!) on NuNorthern Soul.
Rest in paradise Kawasaki-san.
