These two music lovers from the unbeatable team of The Manafonistas come to mind first after some deep listening of Masabumi Kikuchi‘s final recording. (Playing solitaire is nice, but I like sharing my enthusiasm from time to time.) Guys, you should listen to „Hanamichi“ in the next blue hour available (this album might suit your taste for the unknown in the well-known). „Poo“ (as he was called by friends) had his influences reaching from the spheres of classical music to the phenomenal horizons of Keith Jarrett‘ s solo flights, but, with a very distinct, personal touch, he had never been just strolling old venues. I think you know some of his ECM recordings. This album, produced by Sun Chung in December 2013, is the pianist‘s final recording and has only now seen the light of day, being the first release on Red Hook Records. And what a beautiful one that is. Freewheeling and lyrical in equal measures, the music draws me inside, and even an old tune like Gershwin‘s „Summertime“ makes me stop in the tracks. Every solo piano album comes along with a decent amount of cultural baggage – a joy to hear Masabumi Kikuchi handling the weight of tradition with a perfect balance of forgetting and remembering. The sound is perfect, too, intimate, warm, and crystal clear. In my next radio night I will probably play a sequence of five tracks in a row – Masabumi‘s performance of that old movie tune, „Ramona“ at the centre, surrounded by two songs from the latest „Mountain Goats“ album, and two solo bass pieces by Marc Johnson, from his forthcoming album „Overpass“. Excellence guaranteed!