Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio
Misty.

The piano he nearly walked away from

Tsuyoshi Yamamoto nearly left the Misty club after his first week. He was comfortable playing Yamaha pianos, he recalled, but struggled with the club’s New York Steinway. Asked to give it time, he returned during the day to practise. In Yutaka Suzuki’s 2021 PHILE WEB interview, Yamamoto also remembered listening to Erroll Garner records during that period.

His regular partners at the club were bassist Isoo Fukui and drummer Tetsujiro Obara. The same three musicians recorded Misty at Aoi Studio in Tokyo on 7 August 1974. The shared name links the album with their working life, but the recording came from a studio session, rather than a live performance at the club.

Misty was Yamamoto’s second album as a leader, following Midnight Sugar earlier in 1974. Both appeared on Three Blind Mice. Before these recordings, his work had included touring Europe with Micky Curtis’s band, taking him to France, England and Switzerland. By the time of Misty, he was recording with musicians he also played with nightly.

Garner’s melody and Yamamoto’s own Blues

Erroll Garner’s “Misty” opens the seven-track programme. Yamamoto begins alone before the trio joins, the moment at the centre of the reel’s introduction to the record. His own “Blues” follows. Those are the two selections highlighted in the narration, setting a composition by a pianist he admired beside one of his own.

The remaining titles come from several songwriting partnerships. Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach wrote “Yesterdays” and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”. “Honeysuckle Rose” is credited to Fats Waller and Andy Razaf, while “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was” comes from Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Matt Dennis’s “Angel Eyes” closes the original running order.

The session and its later masterings

The album credits name Takeshi Fujii as producer and Yoshihiko Kannari and Masayoshi Okawa as engineers. Its original Three Blind Mice catalogue number was TBM-30. Impex’s account of the recording reports Swing Journal recognition for engineering and a Jazz Disc Award in 1974, placing its recording history alongside the repertoire and trio personnel.

A later Impex edition, IMP30-45, presents those seven performances over two 45rpm LPs. Tohru Kotetsu mastered that edition and RTI pressed it. The title track occupies the first side on its own; “Blues” and “Yesterdays” share the second. These are format and mastering details for that reissue, separate from the original session credits.

Returning to a familiar title

Yamamoto revisited the repertoire for 2021’s Misty for Direct Cutting, a new four-track recording that also includes “Midnight Sugar”, “The In Crowd” and “Girl Talk”. The original seven-track album joined Sony’s worldwide digital programme in July 2026. Through those later releases, the distinction remains the same: the 1974 Misty preserves the trio’s Aoi Studio performances, with Garner’s tune and Yamamoto’s “Blues” opening the programme together.

Track list

Album details

Original release	1974
Label	Three Blind Mice · TBM-30
Genre	Jazz
Recording	7 August 1974 · Aoi Studio, Tokyo
Trio	Tsuyoshi Yamamoto: piano; Isoo Fukui: bass; Tetsujiro Obara: drums
Producer	Takeshi Fujii
Engineers	Yoshihiko Kannari · Masayoshi Okawa
Tracks	7