About

The first part of the Three Blind Mice "Great Three" is bassist/cellist Isao Suzuki's inventive, hard-swinging debut Blow Up.

This adventurous set finds Suzuki and his band mates (drummer George Otsuka, pianist Kunihiko Sugano, and bassist Takashi Mizuhashi) 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. - Impex

“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. …

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 the 'Jazz of Japan Award' and the 'Jazz Disk Award' from Swing Journal in 1973.” – MusicDirect

Musicians:

• Isao Suzuki, bass & cello
• Kunihiko Sugano, piano & Fender-piano
• George Otsuka, drums
• Takashi Mizuhashi, bass

 Tracklist:

A1. Aqua Marine

A2. Everything Happens To Me

B1. Blow Up

C1. Like It Is

C2. I Can't Get Started

D1. Low Flight

About the Three Blind Mice label:

“Three Blind Mice is a Japanese jazz record label founded in June 1970 as a showcase for Japan's emerging jazz performers. It has produced more than 130 albums have been released since. So far they have won the Jazz Disc Award five times in Japan. Produced by Takeshi Fujii and often recorded by the Yoshihiko Kannari, TBM created jazz records by Japanese players since the 1970s and became known for its audiophile sound quality. TBM's records captured a very important, vibrant era in the development of Japanese jazz. Stars like Isao Suzuki, Tsuyoshi Yamamoto, George Kawaguchi, Terumasa Hino and Mari Nakamoto recorded their very first albums with the label. Artists also include Shuko Mizuno's "Jazz Orchestra '73", Toshiyuko Miyama and Masaru Imada.” – Wiki

About Impex Records:
“Impex Records is the exciting audiophile label from the team that brought you Cisco Music. With more than 20 years experience and 150 titles released, Cisco Music developed many of the techniques used by other labels to make higher quality 180-gram LPs, SACDs and Gold and aluminum CDs. We brought definitive editions Jennifer Warnes' The Well, The Hunter and Famous Blue Raincoat in multiple formats, including a 45 rpm box set that Absolute Sound magazine declared "defines the state-of-the--art in vinyl playback." Other classic reissues we nurtured to fantastic rebirths include the jazz-rock perfection of Steely Dan's Aja, Joan Baez' Farewell Angelina, NathanMilstein's poetic interpretation of Dvorak's Violin Concerto and four exquisite 45-rpm Three Blind Mice LPs. Even in our humbler origins we were trusted with the distribution and production of The Super Analogue Disc, the original audiophile 180-gram LPs. King Records recognized, from the very beginning, that Cisco Music brought unflinching passion to the music and unflailing dedication to the process of bringing that music to the most discerning listeners in the world.” – Impex Records

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