''Mint Jams'' is the seventh album and the second live album by

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese

jazz-fusion Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and ke ...

band

Casiopea , now known in its fourth iteration as Casiopea-P4, is a Japanese jazz fusion band formed in 1976 by guitarist Issei Noro, bassist Tetsuo Sakurai, drummer Tohru "Rika" Suzuki, and keyboardist Hidehiko Koike. In 1977, keyboardist Minoru Mukaiya ...

, released on May 21, 1982. The album's title is an arrangement of the band members' first and last initials.

Description

Live sound recordings from a two-day performance at Tokyo Kaikan were used, and subsequently remixed at Alfa Studio 'A' by Shunsuke Miyazami, Satoshi Nakao, Norio Yoshizawa and Atsushi Saito. The songs were specifically re-arranged with the studio work in mind, and no dubbing was performed in the studio for segments such as the outro to 'Time Limit'. To achieve the likeness of a studio quality sound, the audience noise from the Chuo Kaikan live performances were cut from the mix, except for during the bass guitar and drum solos in 'Domino Line', and the rag-time piano breakdown in 'Swear'. Besides the title of the album being an arrangement of the band members' first and last initials, it derives the word 'mint' to imply 'a mint condition' and 'high performance'. The word 'jams' describe their live performance of which the source material was taken from. Mint Jams was originally planned to be a compilation album with 'best-of' Casiopea songs This album is widely considered to be Casiopea's best, as it combines their live dynamism and precision with careful studio work. Mint Jams was also Casiopea's first album to mainly feature the Yamaha GS-1 FM synthesizer, operated by Minoru Mukaiya. This synthesizer was subsequently used in many of their live-performances. The European version of Mint Jams was released in the same year as the Japanese release. The following year, in 1983, when Casiopea visited London to record the album 'JIVE JIVE', a promotional live concert was held.

Track listing

Personnel

Casiopea: *

Issei Noro is a Japanese jazz fusion guitarist who is one of the founding members and the main composer of the band Casiopea. He has released 6 solo albums and a compilation. He also works as an instructor of a guitar clinic, and as a producer. In 1983, ...

–

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

(

YAMAHA Yamaha may refer to: * Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company (below). ** Yamaha Music Foundation, an organization estab ...

SG-2000),

arrangement In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orches ...

Minoru Mukaiya is a Japanese musician best known as the former keyboardist of the jazz fusion band Casiopea and producer of the Train Simulator series of Japanese video games. Mukaiya joined Casiopea during its formation in 1977 (with guitarist Issei Noro, dru ...

–

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

(

YAMAHA GS-1 Yamaha may refer to: * Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company (below). ** Yamaha Music Foundation, an organization estab ...

, CS-70M, CP-35,

Moog Source The Moog Source is a monophonic Z80 microprocessor-controlled analog synthesizer manufactured by Moog Music from 1981 to 1985. The Source was Moog's first synthesizer to offer patch memory storage. The design was also the first (and only) Moog sy ...

, ROLAND Vocoder Plus) *

Tetsuo Sakurai is a Japanese bassist. To date, he has released a total of 37 albums as a member of Casiopea and Jimsaku and solo artist, and has also made 3 bass instructional videos. History Tetsuo Sakurai started playing bass when he was 13 years old. In ...

– bass (YAMAHA BB-2000) *

Akira Jimbo , is a Japanese jazz fusion drummer who combines electronic drum technology and acoustic drums. Aside from his solo work, he was the drummer for the Japanese jazz fusion band Casiopea and had participated in side projects with Keiko Matsui, Sh ...

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

(YAMAHA YD-9000R),

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

Production: * Shunsuke Miyazumi – producer * Satoshi Nakao – associate producer * Norio Yoshizawa –

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

* Atsushi Saito – assistant engineer * Toshinao Tsukui – art director * Masao Hiruma – illustration and design * Kouji Suzuki – remastering engineer (2016 reissue)

Release history

External links

* *

Full Live

Aside from ''

Casiopea Perfect Live II ''Casiopea Perfect Live II'' is the fourth live album and second live video released by the jazz fusion group Casiopea. On February 25, 1987, it was released with a laser disc from laser disc Co., Ltd. 7" single record "Asian Dreamer" was distribu ...

'', all Casiopea lives officially released are cut. Some songs are missing from the official release, some are not in the right order and some are shorter. "Galactic Funk" was played with a special intro.

References

1982 live albums Casiopea live albums Alfa Records live albums {{1980s-jazz-album-stub