Sweet sound of sax

Veteran Japanese saxophonist Sadao Watanabe was back in Bangkok last Wednesday night and proved that advancing years have little effect on the quality of the music.

Indeed his only concession to his age – the sax player is now 82 – was to perform a slightly shorter show than Bangkok audiences are used to. But despite only running slightly over 90 minutes the “Sadao Watanabe Group 2015 in Bangkok” concert, his first here in seven years, was sweet on the ears.

Royal Paragon Hall was packed to the gills for the show, which served up 11 mostly instrumental numbers in a combination of jazz and bossa nova, with hints of Latin and African sounds. 

The silver-haired saxophone master certainly was the focus of the concert, but his five musicians – Akira Onozuka on piano and keyboards, Takashi Yofu on guitar, Kiichiro Komobuchi on bass, Masaharu Ishikawa on drums and Senegal-born percussionist N’diasse Niang – also wowed the audience with their excellent skills.

Watanabe, who is also a world-class jazz composer, greeted his audience with the Thai “wai” and talked to them in English and Japanese, which was much appreciation by the many expat Japanese who made up a large part of the audience.

Watanabe played his sax with grace and energy that belied his age. His fellow musicians helped keep the crowd fully entertained.

Niang won loud applause especially for his dynamic percussive tete-a-tete with drummer Ishikawa on “Tembea” and his powerful vocals on “Alalake-Lopin”, a medley that combined African music with bebop genres.

“Rendezvous” too, was a massive hit with the crowd and won Watanabe and his team long applause and loud cheers.

Other numbers performed during the concert came from Watanabe’s past albums and included “Passing By”, “Sangoma”, “Call Me”, “I Thought of You”, “Afrozil”, and “Chega de Saudade”.

The only blip came round at the end as the lights went on immediately after to 10th song and audience members started to leave. Those who chose to remain seated were the winners as after a relatively short while, the lights went off again and Sadao and his team returned to the stage for the encore, “Life Is All Like That, Smile”.

Sadao closed out with “khob khun krub” and “I hope to see you again.” His previous concert in Bangkok was in 2008 and his message left fans hoping they will not have to wait another seven years for his next concert.