There are many notable American guitar players that have made their marks throughout history, becoming largely recognizable musical figures. Just mention the names Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan or B.B. King and someone is guaranteed to label them as monuments in the world of music. Unfortunately, as far as foreign guitar players go, we as American’s really only recognize guitarists as far as the European nations (with the exception of Angus Young from Australia). Whenever I am asked who my favorite guitar players are, I always include the name Takahiro Matsumoto in my list and to this day, no one recognizes the name.
Tak Matsumoto is a Japanese guitarist best known for his use of a unique blend of genres, ranging between blues, jazz, classical, metal, soul and ska elements. He began in Japan as a solo artist, gaining popularity quickly with his song “99.” As he continued to produce solo projects, Matsumoto wanted to form a band, but needed to find a singer fit for his ideas. While fishing through random unknown singer demo tapes, he stumbled upon a boy by the name of Koshi Inaba. Matsumoto fell in love with Inaba’s singing abilities instantly and they went on to create the band B’z (pronounced Bizu) in 1988. The duo went on to becoming one of the most successful bands in the history of Japanese music.
Over the years of Matsumoto’s career he has been very good at adapting to almost any genre of music. As far as B’z is concerned, Matsumoto’s favorite genres differ greatly from Inaba’s, but mixing the two clumps of genres together makes for an amazing product. Matsumoto will find himself playing guitar to anything from intense pop rock to interesting combinations of ska and metal. This week’s Shuffle Sunday piece however is a composition framed with one of Matsumoto’s most well performed genres, blues.
“One for the Road” is definitely one of Matsumoto’s tamer recordings, strongly incorporating elements of jazz, blues and soul. The song has very simple instrumentation and structure almost coming off as a smooth jazz jam session. The song begins with the main riff of the refrain and continues with a solos on both guitar and synth separated by the refrain in a very A-B-A-B pattern. The refrain itself is put together almost as a quiet call and response between the two instruments. Matsumoto uses a very small amount of reverb in his presentation which extends the length of the notes just long enough to make them appear slurred together, giving a very soulful sound. This soulful sound makes the guitar refrain very memorable and heartwarming. The use of an electric drum kit in this recording also helps intensify that bluesy soul feel, giving the whole song a very clean sound. This clean sound also helps bring out the almost sliding bass line behind the synth and guitar.
If I had to categorize the song I would more than likely say it falls under the smooth jazz genre, but with the addition of strings and piano in some portions, it almost presents itself as its own sub-genre somewhere between slow rock and modern blues. But rather than get technical with it, “One for the Road” is a great guitar piece that really defines the amount of soul (no pun intended) that Tak Matsumoto puts into his guitar playing. If you are looking for some great guitar playing outside the U.S. and Europe, I strongly urge you to check Takahiro out; he will not let you down.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find the original recording of the song online anywhere, but I did find one of his more recent albums, "Hana," on Napster. It's not the same style exactly, but if you are looking to see if you like Tak Matsumoto's work, I'd check it out. Here's the link...
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