[Cool & thrilling]
No.190EX "Across from the sky" by Keizō Kawano
Hi. Today's song is "Across from the sky" by "Keizō Kawano".
This is a cool, thrilling & slightly wistful pop instrumental music in a moderated up-tempo rhythm.
The performer "Keizō Kawano" is a known keyboardist, who had been a member of a famed pop-instrumental, (or fusion), group "T-Square" until recent.
If you like, please listen.
We have no particular intention for the selection of the song for posting, besides the seasonality & the flow of posts.
So, the repeating pick of "T-Square" musicians more precisely "Satoshi Bandō" & "Keizō Kawano", for instrumental category is just a coincidence with no meaning at all.
But as it turned out, it might have been a good timing, since "Keizō Kawano" announced his leaving from "T-Square" in August 2020, and their self cover album "Crème de la Crème", which is planned as a farewell album for "Kawano", has just released in October this year.
Links to the music shops, offering song samples, are located on the bottom of this page.
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Cover art today
Song data
| Title | Across from the sky |
|---|---|
| Artist | Keizō Kawano |
| Album Title | Dreams |
| Catalog Number | VRCL-4017 |
| Track No. | 2 |
| Duration | 5:31 |
| Released | 2011 |
| Publisher | |
| Lyricist | Instrumental music |
| Composer | |
| Arranger |
About the creators
Instrumental musicLyricist
This is an instrumental music with no lyrics.
Keizoh Kawano Composer & Arranger
The composer & arranger "Keizō Kawano" is also a performer of this instrumental music, and we would like to come back to him later, in "About the artist" section.
Song image & Lyrics
Open
Link to the lyrics
Copyright notice on the lyrics link
Sound impression
Cool & stylish
This seems to be a cool, urban, and stylish pop instrumental music in a moderate up-tempo.
Thrilling
After an opening signal from the drums, bass, alto sax, polyphonic synthesizer, acoustic piano and the electric guitar join, then start a thrilling introduction.
Like a call & response, "Kawano"'s acoustic piano first plays a impressive melodious phrase, then the saxophone responses with a cool & sharp passage.
In the bridge, "Kawano"'s acoustic piano, and "Yoshii"'s electric guitar perform 16 bars solo play individually. Then, the alto sax takes over the role, and continues to show funky solo until the end of the track.
Players
The performing musicians on this track are as follows.
- Alt Sax
- Tetsuya Heike
- Bass
- Toyoyuki Tanaka
- Drums
- Daisuke Okano
- E.Guitar
- Toshimichi Yoshii
- Keyboards
- Keizō Kawano (ex T-Square)
Reference
About Google translate
About the artist
Keizō KawanoMusic commander
"Keizō Kawano" is a keyboardist, synthesizer player, composer, and arranger active since around the `90s.
He had been a member of a popular Pop-instrumental group, "T-Square" until very recent (August 2020), and known as one of the longest serving player of the band, excluding the band's founders "M. Andō" & "T. Itoh" who have been members since its creation in 1976.
As a member of "T-Square", Keizō Kawano had participated in 19 albums of theirs, namely, from "Spirits" (2003) to "Crème de la Crème" (2020).
As a solo musician, he's released his only leader album "DREAMS" in 2010 so far.
(Ref: Wikipedia-en, Keizō Kawano)
Early times
"Keizō Kawano" stated learning the piano when he was six years old.
In high school, he studied the piano from a known Jazz pianist "Daisuke Iwasaki", and also had a lessons on rock keyboard from a master player "Yasuo Inada", and brushed up his keyboard skills.
On the other hand, he joined an amateur band as a side and backing guitar, and were playing instrumental music like "Joe Satriani".
Begin as a professional
"Keizō Kawano" started his professional career by joining a Jazz-Fusion group "TIME SPIRAL" lead by a saxophonist "Hisao Tanoshiro".
"Kawano" then worked with various Japanese popular singers as a backing musician, and in 2000, he participated in a famous progressive rock band "KENSO", and performed in PROGFEST 2000 in Los Angeles, as a support keyboardist.
Joining T-Square
About the same period, "Kawano" had an opportunity to work with a bassist "Toyoyuki Tanaka", who was an ex-member of "T-Square".
One day in 2000, "Tanaka" introduced "Kawano" to the members of "T-Square", and "Kawano" began to work with the band as a support keyboardist.
From 2000 to 2004, "T-Square" was not performing in a band form, but they were calling themselves a "unit", and flexibly changing the participating musicians.
Even the timing he joined was such an irregular period, "Kawano" continued to be a support keyboardist for 4 years. And in 2004, "T-Square" announced that they will go back to the band again with fixed members. And from this day, "Kawano" formally became a member of "T-Square".
Music commander
A music group like "T-Square", which keeps core members for more than 30 years, usually has established their own sound style, which everyone can quickly recognize.
But on the other hand, such distinctive tone of the band could be a shackle for the group when they wish to musically evolve.
In this sense, "Kawano" was actually the best person to be a new member. Because, not only he had a brilliant music sense, but more importantly, he had been a native fan of "T-Square", and had hundreds of ideas to re-arrange "T-Square"'s historic instrumental numbers.
The participation of "Kawano" brought a fresh perspective to the band.
Like his predecessor, and a famous keyboardist, "Hirotaka Izumi", "Kawano" also acted as if he was a music commander of "T-Square", and made a significant contribution to the band.
"Kawano" took part in 18 albums of T-Square, namely from "Spirits" (2003) to "AI Factory" (2020), except "HORIZON" (2019), which he had to be stay in bed during recording.
And refined "T-Square" sound working together with an other excellent young colleague, "Satoshi Bandō".
Life's challenges
It was a really sudden happening, but in Feb 2019, "Keizō Kawano" was urgently hospitalized due to stroke.
Mercifully, his condition didn't require to go through brain surgery. However, the damage left a partial disability on him, and he is not able to play the keyboards like he was doing before, at least at the moment.
In August 2019, "Kawano" was discharged from the hospital, after stayed there for 6 months.
Soon afterwards, he posted a message on twitter about the development this time.
In the message, he explained that the left side of his body has been still paralyzed, and he was expecting more rehabilitation for him to play the keyboards like he was doing before.
But he also voiced that there are zero change on his passion to music, and he will focus on other important roles in music until his body is recovered up to the satisfactory level.
New start
In August 2020, "Kawano" announced his leaving from "T-Square" to concentrate on rehabilitation.
Since the last August, "Kawano" was participating in the works of "T-Square" as a composer & arranger. And he was even appearing on the live stages to play the keyboards.
But paralyze on his left arm, still persists, and he was not very happy to show his play in half power mode to the audience.
So, "Kawano" decided to put his priority on recovery at the moment, to start new career for himself as a musician.
Crème de la Crème
It's not particularly a generosity of the band, but "T-Square" hastily planned to launch a new self cover album, as a farewell gift for leaving "Kawano", and to wish his good luck.
9 popular tracks were selected by the members, and "Kawano" was named as a main arranger.
And all songs were newly played, and recorded.
In 28th October 2020, this new self cover album, Crème de la Crème" was released in 2 formats, namely [2xSACD hybrid + 1DVD], and [Digital music (Hi-res 96kHz)].
For the CD-set, 2 extra disks are attached, such as,
-
" Keizō Kawano works CD"
contains 9 instrumental numbers of "Kawano" during his "T-Square" era.
And,
"Making DVD"
filmed an atmosphere of the album recording this time.
All disks are proving "Kawano"'s sense of music, and masterly skills of the members of "T-Square".
If you like, please have a look.
Video clip
Finally, we would like to introduce a T-Square's cool track "Rondo" selected from their album "33" released in 2007.
The composer of this lovely melody is "Keizō Kawano".
The video was filmed and uploaded as a part of their promotion of "T-SQUARE 40th Anniversary Celebration Concert", which was gorgeously held in Yokohama in 2018, by gathering quite a few of old and new members of "T-Square", and some 5000 audiences.
Players appearing on this video clip are,
- E.Guitar
- Masahiro Andō (T-Square)
- Bass
- Shingo Tanaka (Regular support)
- EWI (Electronic Wind Inst.)
- Takeshi Itoh (T-Square)
- Drums
- Satoshi Bandoh (T-Square)
- Keyboards
- Keizō Kawano (T-Square)
If you like, please listen.
Music Samples
2
(試聴する)
Amazon JP(en)
recochoku.jp
itunes.com track02
2
Japanese Letters
| Song Title | Across from the sky |
|---|---|
| Artist | 河野啓三(Keizō Kawano) |
| Album Title | Dreams |
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