About

Isao Suzuki’s Blow-Up is virtuosity and class all rolled up into one. A great combination of upbeat blues and mellow grooves! The album was awarded “Jazz of Japan” Award and the Jazz Disc Award of “Swing Journal” in 1973. Featuring Isao Suzuki (bass, cello), George Otsuka (drums), Kunihiko Sugano (piano), and Takashi Mizuhashi (bass). 

This adventurous set finds Suzuki and his band mates working through three originals and three classic standards ("Everything Happens To Me", "Like It Is", and "I Can't Get Started"), merging classic hard bop principles with unusual touches (scratching cello and found percussion sweeps on "Aqua Marine"), all captured with the kind of supreme fidelity Three Blind Mice would later be heralded for.

Few, if any, international audiophile jazz recordings have maintained the kind of deep and profound influence over techniques and even entire label repertoire as Three Blind Mice’s. The of-the-moment realism of Yoshihiko Kannari’s recordings and production aesthetic of producer and label head Takeshi “Tee” Fujii have been the benchmark to match. It is to their immense credit that Blow Up, Midnight Sugar and Misty have yet to be matched, even 40 years later. — (via Label)
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2024 Japan reissue
180g Vinyl Premium Limited Edition
Remastering & Cutting: Bernie Grundman
Original reprint liner notes

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Label: Three Blind Mice
Series: Three Blind Mice
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, Reissue, 180g
Reissued: 2024 / Original Release: 1973
Genre: Jazz
Style: Contemporary Jazz, Jazz-Funk

File under: Japanese Jazz
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