Osamu Kitajima "Masterless Samurai" 1978 Excellent Prog-Japanese <br /> <br />Masterless Samurai is probably the best effort by Osamu Kitajima, a japanese multi instrumentalist better known in the West for his later New Age albums. <br />In Masterless Samurai, Kitajima combines traditional Instruments of Japan (Koto, Sakuhashi, Sho) with a western jazz-rock ensemble thus obtaining excellent results. The album is immersed in the serenity and poetics of the Samurai, but it also expresses a brilliant and explosive vitality, in rythms, epic moments like the sonic background of multicolored swordsmen spinning and fighting around their destiny. <br />Masterless Samurai can also be seen as a concept album inspired by the traditional story of the Ronin,(17 samurais that had lost their master in the hands of a traitor and whose only purpose was to recover their dignity to be able to die with honor). I have never tired of listening to this album. I recommend it to those who like prog and fusion with exotic touches. An excellent and very much forgotten work... <br /> <br />Osamu Kitajima: acoustic guitar, composer, producer, arrangements, koto, biwa, synthesizer, mini moog, shamisen, suzu gong <br />Geoffrey Hales: drums, percussion, co-producer <br />Abraham Laboriel: bass <br />Victor Feldman: fender rhodes, synthesizer, piano <br />Russell Kunkel: drums <br />David Mansfield: violin <br />Stix Hooper: drums <br />Dennis Belfield: bass <br />Brian Whitcomb: organ, whistle <br />Bobby Hutcherson: vibraphone, marimba <br />Tsun L.: erh-hu <br />Alex Acuña: drums <br />Masayuki Suzuki: whistle <br />John Klemmer: saxophone <br />Clare Fischer: string arrangements
