Isao Suzuki - My Spare Time (1978/2026) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

On My Spare Time, Isao Suzuki steps out front on piccolo bass in a luminous set of standards and ballads, wrapping bossa, Ellington and songbook classics in a warm, conversational post‑bop glow with some of Japan’s finest players. Recorded in 1978 at Tokyo’s Onkio Haus studio, My Spare Time offers a beautifully unhurried portrait of Isao Suzuki away from the more hard‑driving, electric settings that made his name. Here the master bassist focuses on acoustic colour and song form, leading a small ensemble through a carefully chosen set of standards that range from Jobim’s “Wave” and Ellington’s “Solitude” to “A Child Is Born,” “Killing Me Softly with Her Song,” “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair,” “Good Morning Heartache” and “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life.” Across these seven tunes, Suzuki favours his singing piccolo bass, using its higher register not as a novelty but as a lyrical frontline voice, while Nobuyoshi Ino’s acoustic bass anchors the harmonic floor.

Arranged, conducted and framed at the piano by Masahiko Satoh, the session gathers some of the era’s key Japanese jazz voices, including alto saxophonist Sadao Watanabe, guitarist Sadanori Nakamure and drummer Motohiko Hino. Together they create a sound that is both spacious and deeply rooted: Satoh’s voicings leave air around the melodies, Watanabe’s lines glide and bite in equal measure, Nakamure’s guitar adds gentle shimmer, and Hino’s drums move from brushes to more assertive swing with effortless control. Suzuki, meanwhile, shapes the overall mood, his piccolo bass alternately shadowing themes, taking supple solos and weaving counter‑melodies that feel as natural as a horn.

What distinguishes My Spare Time is its combination of polish and intimacy. The repertoire could easily invite slick treatment; instead, the band plays with a quiet intensity that honours the songs without smoothing away their emotional grain. “Wave” opens the record with a light bossa sway, yet Suzuki’s phrasing and Satoh’s harmonic nudges keep it from drifting into background music. Ballads like “Solitude” and “Good Morning Heartache” are handled with restraint, letting tone and silence carry as much weight as notes, while “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” and “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life” unfold as miniature tone poems, full of subtle dynamic swells and retreats.

The album’s title hints at its character. This is Suzuki in his “spare time,” perhaps, but the phrase feels ironic: even away from headline projects, he is incapable of treating music as anything but serious play. There is a relaxed, after‑hours glow to these performances, yet beneath it lies deep craft and decades of listening. As later reissues have made clear, My Spare Time stands not just as a charming detour but as one of the most quietly enduring entries in his discography, a record where standards become personal statements and where a small group of musicians turn familiar material into a “beautiful new world” of their own.

Isao Suzuki - piccolo bass
Masahiko Satoh - piano, conductor
Nobuyoshi Ino - bass
Motohiko Hino - drums
Sadao Watanabe - alto saxophone (#2,3,5)
Sadanori Nakamure - guitar (#1,3)
Yoshihisa Tamano - concertmaster
Yoshitaka Fujiwara, Eiichi Tanaka, Takeo Tomeda, Yasutaka Watanabe, Koh Miyauchi, Gensei Nakayama, Hidehiro Sugawara, Ichiyo Anzai, Noriko Kuroda, Toshiko Mochida, Seiichi Waiki - violin
Noriyo Kitazume, Tatsuya Miyake, Yutaka Katsumi - viola
Susumu Tanaka, Seiho Natori, Vaclav Adamira - cello
Buzen Matsumoto - Arco bass
Keiko Fukui - harp
Katsuyoshi Kurosawa, Masayuki Yamashiro - French horn

Tracklist:
01. Wave (Jobim) - 5:36
02. Solitude (DeLange-Mills-Ellington) - 4:44
03. A Child Is Born (Jones) - 5:04
04. Killing Me Softly with Her Song (Gimbel-Fox) - 3:31
05. Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair (Trad.) - 7:08
06. Good Morning Heartache (Higginbotham-Drake-Fisher) - 6:21
07. What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life (Bergman-Bergman-Legrand) - 5:30


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