Osamu Kitajima "Sei (Essence)" 1978 Japan

Osamu Kitajima "Masterless Samurai" 1978 Excellent Prog-Japanese

Masterless Samurai is probably the best effort by Osamu Kitajima, a japanese multi instrumentalist better known in the West for his later New Age albums.
In Masterless Samurai, Kitajima combines traditional Instruments of Japan (Koto, Sakuhashi, Sho) with a western jazz-rock ensemble thus obtaining excellent results. The album is immersed in the serenity and poetics of the Samurai, but it also expresses a brilliant and explosive vitality, in rythms, epic moments like the sonic background of multicolored swordsmen spinning and fighting around their destiny.
Masterless Samurai can also be seen as a concept album inspired by the traditional story of the Ronin,(17 samurais that had lost their master in the hands of a traitor and whose only purpose was to recover their dignity to be able to die with honor). I have never tired of listening to this album. I recommend it to those who like prog and fusion with exotic touches. An excellent and very much forgotten work...

Osamu Kitajima: acoustic guitar, composer, producer, arrangements, koto, biwa, synthesizer, mini moog, shamisen, suzu gong
Geoffrey Hales: drums, percussion, co-producer
Abraham Laboriel: bass
Victor Feldman: fender rhodes, synthesizer, piano
Russell Kunkel: drums
David Mansfield: violin
Stix Hooper: drums
Dennis Belfield: bass
Brian Whitcomb: organ, whistle
Bobby Hutcherson: vibraphone, marimba
Tsun L.: erh-hu
Alex Acuña: drums
Masayuki Suzuki: whistle
John Klemmer: saxophone
Clare Fischer: string arrangements