Toshiko Akiyoshi, Lew Tabackin Big Band

condition (record/cover): EX / EX- (minimal ring and edge wear)

Insert included. No obi.

In 1974 a Japanese soldier named Hiroo Onoda walked out of the Philippine jungle, having refused for twenty-nine years to believe the war was over. Toshiko Akiyoshi wrote "Kogun" - lone soldier - about him, and in doing so cracked open the entire language of big band jazz. Tsuzumi drums, noh-style vocalisation and Japanese modal material sit inside a Los Angeles orchestra that swings like Basie, with Lew Tabackin supplying tenor and flute work of genuinely startling power. It was the first time anybody had made this synthesis work without either half sounding like decoration, and it remains the record that established Akiyoshi as one of the most serious composer-arrangers in the music.

Japanese RCA pressing, the way this record was meant to be heard. Landmark on every level, and still shockingly fresh fifty years on.