Year : 1968
Label : Nippon Columbia
Genre : Jazz
Style : Big Band, Contempory Jazz
"Forest Flower" is an album recorded by the best known japanese Big Band outside Japan featuring guitarist Yoshiaki Masuo & trombonist Hiroshi Suzuki. Nobuo Hara was a band leader and saxophonist, one of the man who contributed to the Jazz expansion in Japan. He formed his "Sharps & Flats" in 1951, in which started some future japanese jazz greats such as Koji Suzuki, Norio Maeda or Hiroshi Takeuchi. The big band supported worlwide artists as well as on stage than on studio including Toshiko Akiyoshi, Hozan Yamamoto, Sadao Watanabe, Elvin Jones, Sarah Vaughan, Oliver Nelson, Yves Montand. Titles include Jazz standards from Herbie Hancock (Watermelon Man), Ramsey Lewis (The "In" Crowd), Lee Morgan (The Sidewinder), Joe Zawinul (Walk Tall, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy) and covers from Bobby Hebb (Sunny) and The Beatles (A Day In The Life). All tracks arranged by Norio Maeda.
MUSICIANS : Nobuo Hara - tenor saxophone - Koji Suzuki, Kazunori Taniguchi & Hajime Maekawa - alto saxophone - Nobuyuki Morikawa - baritone saxophone - Shuzo Morikawa, Teruyuki Fukushima, Kunitoshi Shinohara & Hiroshi Saba - trumpet - Tadao Taniyama, Hiroshi Suzuki & Haruo Ochi - trombone - Toshihiko Ogawa - piano - Yoshiaki Masuo - guitar - Hiroshi Takeuchi - bass - Yoshio Nakamura - drums
