Depending on who you ask, by the 1980s Jazz had a) gone totally limp (hey Earl Klugh, you're a pussy), b) gone totally over-the-top-technical-wankfest (Chick Corea with a
Keytar?) or c) ceased to exist (Bill Bruford much?). Kazumi Watanabe's
Ganaesia, released in '83, touches on a bit of each manifestation of a aged genre struggling to accept extreme studio technology advancements coupled with the fact that Kiss had been outselling them for years by tapping into the minds and wallets of 16 year old boys; perhaps an early indication of the totally youth targeted music industry we see today (when was the last time anyone with a grey hair had a Top 40 Hit? I keep forgetting...). Anyway, this album rips dicks; most songs have at least 3,000 parts (...), the production is admirably and weirdly excessive, and despite being almost devoid of any improvisation, the compositions are way cool enough to make you stop being a fucking purist already. A more than decent companion album (which you might actually be able to find, as
Ganaesia was a Japan only release) is
Mobo 1, which features some tripped out surf/reggae rhythms not to be found within Ganaesia's wailing shiny metal vibes. Also check for
Ganaesia's cover art direction by Japanese poster-dude
Tsuguya Inoue, who did work for Ryuchi Sakamoto, Yellow Magic Orchestra and other big guns of the east.
"Riboji"
"Return of the Bolivian Soong Soong Man"
"Moenega"
