Hidefumi Toki Quartet - Toki (1975) [vinyl]

Deeply personal work from Japanese saxophonist Hidefumi Toki - a player who manages accomplish a great deal in a fairly stripped-down setting - filling spare space with gentle notes on alto and soprano sax, often delivered with a nicely raspy tone! The group here is a quartet - with Kazumi Watanabe on guitar, Nobuyoshi Ino on bass, and Steve Jackson on drums - and the setting is laidback and mellow, often moving at a pace that's slow, but always flowing with a great gentle swing. Tracks are long, and titles include the great originals "Darkness", "Lullaby For The Girl" and "Old Song Blues" - plus nice takes "When Sunny Gets Blue" and Ornette Coleman's "Blues".  © Dusty Groove, Inc. 

Three Blind Mice, TBM-46, 1975
Recorded 17th May, 1975 at AOI Studio, Tokyo, Japan 

Musicians:
Hidefumi Toki - Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone
Kazumi Watanabe - Guitar
Nobuyoshi Ino - Bass
Steve Jackson - Drums 

Tracks:
A1. Lullaby For The Girl {Hidefumi Toki} (11:09)
A2. Darkness {Hidefumi Toki} (10:03)
B1. Blues {Ornette Coleman} (8:17)
B2. When Sunny Gets Blue {Jack Segal, Marvin Fisher} (5:58)
B3. Old Song Blues {Hidefumi Toki} (5:40) 

Total Time: 41:07 

Credits:
Producer - Takeshi Fujii
Recording & Mixing Engineer - Yoshihiko Kannari
Recording Engineer [Assistant] - Masayoshi Ohkawa
Engineer [Cutting] - Makoto Nakamura
Art Direction - Ben Nishizawa
Liner Notes - Takeo Fujii 

Wonderful Record! Hidefumi Toki is a pure genius. His saxophone sound is so deep and intense, in the vein of Coltrane. Tremendous spiritual jazz reminding me sometimes the Joki Freund's Yogi Jazz. The rest of the lineup is killer. Gorgeous... ~ kestudy, discogs.com.