The road of life twists and turns, with lots of meetings. In the ten years since my book The Complete Thesaurus of Musical Scales was first published by Charles Colin, I received positive responses from hundreds of musicia... more »ns. Many asked where they could hear my work, so I made this recording to present my compositions, improvisations, and, of course, my sound. If you like what you hear and want to learn more, I invite you to explore my books, which are all available from masayamusic.com (amazon.com). My knowledge in this area was greatly helped by the legendary guitar player and inventor of multi-track recording, Les Paul. I was also inspired by listening to solo albums by my mentors: Yusef Lateef s Little Symphony and David Liebman s Picture Show.« less
The road of life twists and turns, with lots of meetings. In the ten years since my book The Complete Thesaurus of Musical Scales was first published by Charles Colin, I received positive responses from hundreds of musicians. Many asked where they could hear my work, so I made this recording to present my compositions, improvisations, and, of course, my sound. If you like what you hear and want to learn more, I invite you to explore my books, which are all available from masayamusic.com (amazon.com). My knowledge in this area was greatly helped by the legendary guitar player and inventor of multi-track recording, Les Paul. I was also inspired by listening to solo albums by my mentors: Yusef Lateef s Little Symphony and David Liebman s Picture Show.
CD Reviews
Cat's Meow!
Kurt H. | New York, USA | 04/12/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"New York guitarist/ educator Masaya Yamaguchi's "Solo" album was finally released and it will be an inspiration source to any advanced guitarists in the 21st century. A full spectrum of emotion and harmonic vision is chromatically expressed. The 9 songs (2 by Monk + 7 by Masaya) on the "Crossings" album are all perfectly realized gems of "ultra-modern" Jazz guitar playing in sound & non-diatonic phrasing, so beautiful and fresh sounding. aNaLoG.MaN's tone pedal (Boss FV-50H volume pedal mod.) was invented from the idea of Masaya and his sound is instantly recognizable. Masaya is the cat's meow!!!!"
Multi-dimensional Sound - perspective drawing of guitar soun
Kevin Greene | 07/09/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This recording was produced with Digital Audio Work (DAW) station by a talented guitarist. Unlike mono-dimensional Pat Martino (who puts the thickest 015 string on his guitar top string - results are no bending & breathless 8th notes), Yamaguchi's sound is versatile. The guitar solo sound on this album is continuously changing from dark and clear (and vice versa) because of his invention - passive tone pedal. It's rather multi-dimensional. It's like a perspective drawing.
It is clear that Masaya is not using an A/B switch box of two guitar amplifiers: "A: overdriven" & "B: clean" sound. His sound is always clean and it reminds us of Les Paul (who invented multi-track recording system & solid body guitar) a bit but his fat voice is completely his own.
I will check his aNaLoGMaN's tone pedal (BOSS FV-50H mod) available from aNaLoGMaN's website. It's a new generation sound of jazz guitar in phrasing and sound as well as non-diatonic harmonies and chromatic solo lines. One thing customers should care is that MP3 download version album does not include the highlight of this album, which is "Shuffle Boil" - I highly recommend the physical CD of "Crossings" if you wanted to check out the whole tracks.
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Great Reference .......
M. Kern | 06/07/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I've got all of Yamaguchi's books, and I always come back to this CD for sound reference. This CD will consistently sound fresh - great compositions, great solos, and inspiring music coming from his musical concepts. The tunes are pedal-point oriented and let him shine at his concept of playing "Giant-Steps-at-any-time-in-any-key" ideas. GET THIS!!!
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Must-Have CD
J. Wilder | Texas, USA | 04/27/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"It is often said that a jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. This author of The Complete Thesaurus of Musical Scales understands how things go together. For a reader, once you have that basis, that's when music is truly exciting. This recording will function as a starting point to deepen your musical concept and help your own balanced recipe which will in turn heighten the listening experience of audiences. This is a "must-have" CD for people who like Thesaurus book."
Lyricism & Excitement
John Davis | 04/21/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"It is an album worth having as well as books by Masaya Yamaguchi. His clean sound reminds me of Les Paul but his voice is completely his own. He has always been a harmonically forward thinking musician & this CD truly captures that spirit. Take a listen and see why he is considered a "player's player (Check out his books)." His unique use of pedal point, symmetrical scales (what he calls, The Subsets of Limited Transposition") & original double tritone intervals does more than just dazzle, it creates a very solemn harmonic atmosphere that's both lyricism & excitement at the same time. This is not just some "my chops" recording of guitar speed drills. Throughout this CD you can hear the sophisticated images of his musical concepts."
Track Listings (9) - Disc #1