Jiro Inagaki

In the Groove is where Inagaki finally arrives at the music he was built for. The soul jazz framework of this record, groove-based, funk-inflected, and rhythmically insistent, fits his tenor playing like a glove that had been waiting for his hand. The commercial jazz-pop years were the training ground; this is what the training was for.

The band here plays with a tightness and a shared sense of purpose that the CBS/Sony studio sessions rarely achieved. The rhythmic foundation is deep and consistent, Inagaki's tenor riding the groove with the ease of someone who has found the right vehicle, and the overall sound is harder and more direct than anything in his earlier catalogue.

In the Groove is the record that tells you who Inagaki actually was: not a commercial covers artist or a pop-jazz chameleon but a soul jazz musician with a strong groove sensibility and a tenor voice built for sustained intensity. Everything before this was preamble.

A Sunflower in Greece has a Mediterranean quality in its melodic material that distinguishes it from the harder funk direction of its 1973 companions. The compositions draw on Greek folk scales and modes in a way that filters through the soul jazz framework rather than displacing it, creating something genuinely hybrid and genuinely original.

Inagaki's tenor playing here has a different tonal quality from the funk records: warmer and more lyrical, the phrasing longer and more song-like. The Greek melodic material seems to bring out a different aspect of his playing, one that was less visible in the covers years and not always present in the harder groove records.

A Sunflower in Greece is one of the more distinctive records in Inagaki's catalogue precisely because it doesn't fit neatly into any of his established modes. It's an experiment that largely succeeds, and it's the kind of record that makes you wish he had explored the hybrid territory more systematically.

The Underground Rulers is the peak of Jiro Inagaki's recorded output and one of the most collected Japanese jazz-funk records in existence. Recorded with the Soul Media band in full cry, it's a record of sustained intensity: every track locked in the groove from the first bar, Inagaki's tenor sitting on top of a rhythm section that sounds like it was built specifically to carry him.

The title track is one of the great Japanese jazz performances: a driving, modal groove that goes on for the better part of ten minutes without losing a single degree of its tension. The Soul Media rhythm section plays as a unit with a tightness that only comes from sustained practice, and Inagaki improvises above them with a freedom and confidence that three years of commercial work apparently hadn't diminished.

What makes The Underground Rulers more than a collector's trophy is that the music holds up on repeated listening rather than just on the first impression of the groove. Inagaki's improvisations have genuine harmonic content, his phrasing is as sophisticated as anything he did in the more obviously jazz-oriented contexts, and the whole record has a depth that separates it from the pure funk dates that Japanese labels were producing in parallel.

Funky Stuff is the immediate sequel to The Underground Rulers and loses nothing in the comparison. The Soul Media band returns at full strength, the rhythmic foundation is as deep and precise as on the previous record, and Inagaki's tenor playing has the relaxed authority of a musician who knows exactly where he is and how to work the space he's been given.

Where The Underground Rulers had a more concentrated, almost confrontational energy, Funky Stuff is slightly more expansive: the tunes breathe a little more, the improvisations allow for more variety of texture, and the overall feel is of a band that has learned to trust its collective judgment. The result is in some ways more sophisticated than the more purely intense predecessor.

Funky Stuff and The Underground Rulers are the two essential Inagaki records, and together they establish him as one of the most important figures in the Japanese soul jazz and funk tradition. The combination of jazz improvisation quality and groove commitment on these two records is rare in any national tradition.

Funky Best is credited to "J. Inagaki & His Friends" rather than Soul Media, and the personnel reflects the change: a studio band assembled specifically for these sessions, with Kentaro Haneda on keyboards and a different rhythm section from the Soul Media core. The material draws on the funk vocabulary Inagaki had developed over the preceding years, arranged by Hiromasa Suzuki and Inagaki himself.

For listeners familiar with the Soul Media records, Funky Best is interesting as a parallel document: the same musical instincts channeled through different musicians, resulting in a more polished and slightly more commercially oriented product. The groove foundation is solid throughout, and Inagaki's tenor playing is characteristically direct and rhythmically assured.

Funky Best doesn't replace the Soul Media studio albums, but it captures the Nippon Columbia funk aesthetic from a different angle. For collectors, the individual Soul Media records are the priority; this stands as a worthwhile companion piece with its own distinct character.

Blockbuster is a departure from the Nippon Columbia Soul Media records: released on Eastworld (Toshiba EMI's jazz-funk imprint) and credited to "Jiro Inagaki & Chuck Rainey Rhythm Section," it pairs Inagaki with American session musicians including bassist Chuck Rainey, guitarist Mitch Holder, and drummer Paul Leim. The production is polished and LA-influenced, disco and fusion both audible in the arrangements.

Inagaki's tenor playing remains strong throughout, and the groove foundation is professional if less raw than the Nippon Columbia records. The American rhythm section brings a different feel: tighter, more controlled, and more obviously commercial than the Soul Media band's loose intensity. The result is a compromise between Inagaki's funk instincts and late-seventies production values.

Blockbuster is a good record from a musician who had made essential ones. The transition it documents, from the underground funk period toward a more internationally oriented approach, is a familiar story in jazz of the era, and Inagaki navigates it with more dignity than most.

Memory Lane is Inagaki's farewell to the full Soul Media period, a record that looks back as much as forward. The title is apt: this is music with a retrospective quality, more mellow than the hard funk of the mid-seventies, more sophisticated in its production than the raw early-seventies records.

The playing throughout is accomplished and warm, but the urgency of the peak period has been replaced by something more reflective. Inagaki sounds like a musician taking stock rather than pushing forward, and that mode produces different but not lesser music: more introspective, more carefully shaped, and less immediately exciting.

Memory Lane closes the most productive creative period of Inagaki's career on a note of quiet dignity. The underground funk records had established him; this one shows him at peace with that establishment, looking back at the road he'd traveled with something like satisfaction.