Every once in a while, I hear an album that makes me fall in love with the piano all over again. Usually it’s a classic record—some Garner or Waller disc I hadn’t come across before—or an old master who had entirely escaped my notice until then (the previous two being James Booker and Winnifred Atwell). These relatively rare experiences make me sit up and think, “Yes, this is what the best of all the instruments sounds like in the right hands—this is how I want to play piano.”
Only occasionally is it a more modern musician who monopolizes my attention like this, dragging my weekly practice average up—for a while, at least—from a measly ten hours or so to a more respectable twenty-plus. Last time it was New York boogie woogie queen Doña Oxford, this time it’s Osaka’s Yoshitaka “Z2” Tsuji. The Japanese jazz piano maestro has been plying his trade for two decades now, one in Japan and one in New Orleans, but has only just crossed my radar—and it’s lighting up like Christmas.
His 2020 album From the Beginning celebrates a twenty-year career in ten songs which have defined it. The first track alone, a keyboard-heavy rendition of Sonny Rollins’ “Doxy,” was enough to make me holler, its first few bars being so rich in harmony that there could easily be two pianists present. Tsuji then settles into a steady melodic groove—as satisfying rhythmically as
