snobb After his studies in Berklee, Japanese pianist Masabumi Kikuchi returned back in Japan in 1969 with lot of experience and new musical ideas. Unlike some other Japanese former Berklee graduates of the time, he didn't import to his home country the spirit of free jazz. His passion was fusion.

In 1970 he formed his first whole-Japanese double-piano/double-drums sextet and released one of the very first fusion album in Japan - "Re-confirmation". Differently from dominated in Japan multi-national projects,where leading domestic jazz musicians played with world (mostly American) stars, Kikuchi Sextet was a rare example of whole-national band,developing still very new even for Western world genre of jazz fusion. As with many previous and later Kikuchi works, his-led band is deeply rooted in post-bop (especially rhythm section),with partial exception of freer sax player Kohsuke Mine.

Six Kikuchi originals are full of energy, not particularly aggressive, but tuneful and generally well balanced and executed. One can hardly find any specific "Japanese" taste here, the album sounds as if it was recorded by American jazzmen of the time. Rhythm section is obviously more traditional than the new sound and anchors the music to more mainstream jazz, while the use of a Fender piano(not Masabumi himself but Masahiro Kikuchi) brings the music towards more modern collectives of the time.

Year 1970 was most prolific in Masabumi's career (with almost ten albums released as leader/co-leader)and his successful career as one of leading Japanese fusion pianist started here. He will release more catchy and much more commercially successful albums later,but "Re-confirmation" is valuable as evidence of that rare inspired early fusion example which very soon will disappear from genre's recordings not only in Japan but everywhere in the world.