" data-original-title="" title="">Shinya Fukumori's S/N alliance is devoted to music and musicians outside of Japan, bringing idioms from classical music and improvised streams under one roof, to be shared across borders. And pianist Masaki Hayashi's Blur The Border fits right on the cusp of those idioms—too through-composed and arranged, with traits from European classical music, to simply be considered "jazz," and too spontaneously borne out of the moment, with free communication between the players, to be called "classical music."

On the album Hayashi is joined by a chamber sextet featuring Shinya Fukumori on drums, Hiroshi Suzuki on reeds, Takashi Sugawa on bass and cello, and with Atsuki Yoshida on violin and viola plus guitarist Kazuma Fujimoto. Ambient and deconstructed in one moment ("Flux"), atmospheric and sparse in the next ("Oneba"), Hayashi's composing proves of vast influences, ranging from the lullaby-esque melodiousness of Japanese folk over the big Romantic gestures of 19th Century classical music to modern-day jazz improvisation, all within a matter of minutes, but united within in a homogenous sonic surface. Much of the music has a cinematic quality to it, due to the wide atmospheric build-ups on the one hand, and because of the programmatically operating subjects on the other. Like themes to specific environments, or even people, the songs introduce different melodies and other motif-like elements with a strong sense of purpose, painting a precise portrait.

Opening cut "Yuragu" makes a dramatic entrance, placing long melancholy sighs at its core, framed by hovering strings. "Analogy," by contrast, is of a fiercer character, with deep saxophone leads painting a more threatening picture, before the ensemble breaks up and moves into more uncertain territory. All the while, Hayashi presents himself as a constructor-composer rather than a pianist —instrumental virtuosity couldn't be further from his mind. Instead, small patterns and harmonic outlines form waves, like ripples in the water, picked up by the other musicians and expanded upon with emphatic crescendo. The group occasionally picks up the otherwise delicate pace, and things get rowdy, as with "Cleanse"— demonstrating some of the group's more muscular soloist attitude. Just when one thinks to know what to expect, the next surprise comes around the corner, because Masaki Hayashi indeed very successfully "blurs the border." .

Dave Douglas Quintet
Songs of Ascent: Book 1—Degrees
Songs of Ascent: Book 2—Steps
Greenleaf Music
2022

Reviving the quintet-line-up from his Be Still-Time Travel-Brazen Heart album series, on Songs of Ascent New York trumpet institution