Sadao Watanabe

[Rabshakeh]

Can anyone please explain to me why, no matter where one goes on the planet, Sadao Watanabe's records are everywhere? Singapore, Minneapolis, Guildford. The second hand jazz section always has some 'Nabe. 

He doesn't seem particularly popular now and hasn't received big name high gloss re-releases (even at a time when every other jazz or fusion artist from Japan is all over Instagram). I'm not sure I ever see him talked about, either artistically or as a historic commercial phenomenon. 

Was he really massive? What was the USP? There seems to be more second hand Watanabe stock than Chuck Mangione or Grover Washington combined, so I can only assume he was a very substantial seller. 

Edited 4 hours ago by Rabshakeh

[Dub Modal]

I'd hazard a guess that it's mainly his albums on CBS and Elektra, and those probably got excellent worldwide distribution. His wiki page is pretty interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadao_Watanabe_(musician)

 

[T.D.]

AFAICT, "Japanese jazz" is really hot these days, right up there with "spiritual jazz". I follow the "Coming Soon" page at The Bastards, and that's often loaded with Japanese releases. As one of the biggest names, Sadao Watanabe may be riding that wave. His 3 albums with Charlie Mariano are the ones I most often listen to.

 

[rostasi]

"What a knob, eh?" is what British people say when they don't like you.