Terumasa Hino

May Dance is the breakthrough fusion session. With a New York quartet featuring John Scofield, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams, Hino announced his arrival on the American scene with music that was both sophisticated and viscerally exciting. There is no keyboard player: the absence of a chordal instrument opens the music up, giving Scofield's angular, blues-inflected guitar and Hino's brighter, more lyrical trumpet room to stretch across the full harmonic field without a safety net.

Carter and Williams need no introduction: they are two of the most important rhythm section musicians in jazz history, and their playing here has the relaxed authority of musicians who know exactly how good they are and have nothing to prove. Williams drives the uptempo tracks with ferocious energy, while Carter's bass lines anchor every piece with walking figures that are both precise and deeply swinging.

Scofield's solos are characteristically inventive, his tone slightly distorted and his lines full of the chromatic surprises that would become his signature. Hino matches him idea for idea, their trading passages bristling with competitive energy that never tips into aggression. The title track is a buoyant, rhythmically complex piece that showcases the band at its most joyful. A pianoless quartet record of real ambition, and one that holds up better than most fusion sessions of the era.

Hip Seagull is a two-continent production, split between Victor Studios in Tokyo and Sound Ideas Studio in New York, and the music reflects both cities. The Tokyo sessions bring Kohsuke Mine's tenor saxophone into the front line alongside Hino, while Scofield's guitar returns from May Dance to bridge the two worlds. Mikio Masuda's Fender Rhodes gives the harmony a warm, pulsing center that the pianoless May Dance deliberately avoided.

The rhythm section is deep: Clint Houston's bass anchors every track with fluid, singing lines, while the drum chair rotates between Motohiko Hino (on the title track) and George Ohtsuka on the remaining pieces. M'tume's percussion adds a layer of polyrhythmic complexity that pushes the music toward jazz-funk territory without abandoning the improvisational core. The vocal contributions from Kimiko Kasai and Tawatha add a further dimension, their voices woven into the arrangements rather than spotlighted.

Mine's tenor work is commanding, his tone full and hard-edged in contrast to Hino's brighter trumpet. Their unison lines on the title track have a crackling energy, and their solo exchanges are among the most exciting passages in either musician's discography. The production is clean and punchy, the Flying Disk sound leaning toward the commercial end without losing the improvisational heat. A high point of the late-1970s Japanese fusion movement.

City Connection is the most ambitious record in the discography: a large-ensemble production recorded at A&R Studios in New York with a cast that reads like a who's who of late-1970s session royalty. Randy Brecker and Marvin Stamm join Hino in the brass section, Dave Liebman and Ronnie Cuber anchor the reeds, Anthony Jackson's electric bass and Howard King's drums lock into grooves that are both heavy and precise. Harry Whitaker and Leon Pendarvis split the arranging duties and play keyboards throughout.

The arrangements are sophisticated, layered with horns and strings that give the music a cinematic sweep without burying the improvisational core. David Spinozza's guitar work is subtle and effective, his rhythm playing providing texture while his solos cut through the orchestral density with clarity. Nana Vasconcelos's percussion adds a Brazilian inflection that lifts every track, his berimbau and vocal sounds threading through the mix like a second melody line.

Hino switches between cornet and flugelhorn, his tone warm and centered even in the thickest passages. The title track and "Radio" are standouts, the full ensemble hitting with the precision of a big band but the looseness of a funk group. Janice Pendarvis and Lani Groves add vocal textures that tip certain tracks toward smooth jazz territory, but the improvisational heat from Liebman, Brecker, and Hino himself keeps the record honest. A lavish production that never loses sight of the music at its center.

Horizon marks Hino's return to a major Japanese label and a clear pivot toward commercial fusion. The production is polished, the arrangements layered with studio sheen, and the overall sound is more accessible than anything since Mas Que Nada. CBS/Sony wanted a crossover record, and Hino delivered one, his trumpet riding atop sleek, groove-oriented backing tracks that would not have been out of place on a contemporary R&B album.

The playing, as always, is excellent. Hino's tone is gorgeous, and his melodic sense ensures that even the most commercial tracks have moments of real beauty. The flugelhorn work on the slower pieces is particularly fine, with a warmth and richness that the studio production complements rather than obscures.

But the energy and risk-taking of the live recordings, the Enja sessions, and the Scofield-Carter-Williams dates is largely absent. This is music designed to please, and it does, but it does not challenge, surprise, or move in the way that the best Hino records do. Within the discography, Horizon serves as the closing bracket on a decade of extraordinary growth: from the Columbia debut to the New York fusion band, with stops at every point along the artistic spectrum. The horizon the title references was the 1980s, and Hino would meet them fully prepared.