Masato Honda: How T-Square Changed in the 90's.

Masato Honda [本田雅人] and T-Square, a well-known Japanese jazz fusion band that began in 1976, are considered to be a staple in the history of Japanese jazz fusion. Takeshi Itoh would leave the group temporarily in 1991, and Honda would be in the spotlight for about 6 years. Woth the help of phenomenal musicians Hirotaka Izumi, Mitsuru Sutoh, Hiroyuki Noritake, and Masahiro Ando, they would improve their sound and energy, with some of the best Japanese jazz fusion out there.
The short documentary highlights some of their works, the new heights and chemistry achieved by the band had in the 90's, and glances over excerpts composed by Masato Honda in the band, and briefly concludes with Honda's impacts.
Chapters:
0:08 - T-Square History (Late 1980's)
2:25 - Masato Honda's Entrance (1990)
4:24- The Honda Saga (1991-1997)
5:55 - Honda's Excerpts Throughout the 90's
7:18 - The F-1 Side Story (1992-1994)
8:36 - Masato's Impact and Legacy
9:55 - Ending

[@ryumickey]

T-sqaure members were kinda at world famous skill level, BUT HONDA MASATO was in WORLD TOP RATED level.

[@joyjapan3504]

Although it was not featured in the video, "Moon Over The Castle", composed by Masahiro Ando, is widely known around the world as the theme song for the PlayStation game software "Gran Turismo" series. It is very unfortunate that Hirotaka Izumi, who was in charge of T-SQUARE's piano (keyboard) for many years, passed away in 2021 at the age of 62. His compositions "Omens of love" and "TAKARAJIMA" have been arranged for wind ensembles and are currently being performed actively in junior high school and high school brass bands in Japan.

[@user-qk5ho7zw5v]

なくなった友人がCDをゆずってくれました。😂

[@grumblekin]

I've seen T-Square live and we all would just scream SUTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH You need that beastly bass to counterbalance the rocket fuel that Honda blows from that saxophone. As an alto player, myself, he's just amazing. Incredible precision on tongue attack and pitch every single time.

[@JaehaPark]

Can't wait for the next episode with Dimension! Thank you so much for covering j-fusion in this documentary style! Not much is known about it in the western world.

[@amwilt04]

Indeed! The context is so important and helpful in exploring the large catalogs of acts like T-Square.

[@sexyangrykorean9171]

Thanks for the chronology cause besides other hardcore sax players (the world) not much is known about one the *greatest sax players ever.*

[@neozenshi9992]

I was looking for this for years because Honda really changed how the square plays until it became jazz fusion which ultimately changed my taste in music thank you for making this vid btw! Cheers!

[@jcuevasproductions]

Yeah I was wondering why there wasn’t a video on the subject, but here we are I guess. My musical taste had a similar change too

[@rafagxjunglezz]

Honda was musically on his peak in the early 2000s just listen to the live recordings, they are really something else. Thanks for the Video! Nice Work ❤

[@jcuevasproductions]

I agree. A second part to Honda’s albums is going to be made at some point, but I’ve been pretty busy 😅 so idk when that will be

[@orfeu25]

Excellent video!! I find very little informative material like yours about the Japanese Jazz Fusion scene here on KZbin, especially in English. The "western world" needs to know about these gems... Masato Honda, T-Square ...

[@Houlgravely]

1990's release Natural is, in my opinion, their best work as a band overall. Partly because Russ Freeman from The Rippingtons was involved, but it just has so many great songs - moreso than other records IMO. Blue In Red is a great album though, no doubt about it. As far as T-Square after 2000 goes, they have some strong albums like 33, Nine Stories, AI Factory and Horizon.

[@ZachNa]

I've heard that Russ Freeman is the reason it's not available to listen anywhere here in the United States.

[@Houlgravely]

@@ZachNa That's news to me. Never had trouble getting a copy.

[@jaredkhan8743]

His sound and fluency is exactly what I strive for on alto. Hopefully one day I'll reach there!

[@AnthonyPaular]

Love this! Thanks for this look at T-Square's music and Masato Honda.

[@justani]

日本のスクエアには安藤まさひろが、アメリカのスクエアにはジョー・サトリアーニがいました 特集してくれてありがとう。CHASERはフジテレビのツール・ド・フランス中継のテーマソングでした🚲

[@BeadsArtBrasil]

Amazing video. Hugs from Brazil. I love Masato Honda and T-Square.

[@user-suica-fuefuki]

Jazz fusion has influenced Japanese video game music from its earliest days. "Magical Sound Shower", "Splash Wave", and "Passing Bleeze" are songs from OUTRUN, one of SEGA's most famous games. There is an influence of The SQUARE/CASIOPEA. SEGA's sound team used to form a band called "SST", and they produced an album called "Super Sonic Team" with Issey Noro of CASIOPEA. In addition, we can see that much of SEGA's game music in the 80's and 90's was heavily influenced by Jazz-Fusion.

[@samuelnerick]

Also, the latin jazz some from outrun was inspired by Naoya Matsuoka

[@inntedezante]

Uno de los mejores videos que he visto, Miyazaki igual se sacó buenos temas con t-square, pero todos los saxofonistas de ese grupo son excelentes.

[@457op661]

本田さんが1997年に退団して、Victor Entertainmentに移籍し、梶原順(g)、松本圭司(key)、青木智仁(b)、則竹裕之(ds)と活動開始。サントラをVictor Entertainmentから出していた菅野よう子さんと出会ってSeatbeltsに参加、"COWBOY BEBOP"のOP "Tank!"など担当。 青木さんが亡くなった後は、松本圭司(key)、須藤満(b)、則竹裕之(ds)で「本田雅人 with VOICE OF ELEMENTS」結成。近年はT-SQUAREに復帰参加

[@jcuevasproductions]

はい、忙しくなければ本田さんの旅の後半を動画にしたいと思っています. ご清覧ありがとうございました。

[@Crytoma]

Great video

[@Abayake]

Nice video! So happy to see content and popularity explode in the west for J-Fusion. For the ending, I’ll add that notably Shoji Meguro, of atlus fame, is one artist who openly exprimed his inspiration from TSquare/Casiopea (among others, like Tchaikovsky). I’ve read it in several intevriews, and that’s how I actually discovered the bands, and genre, in the late 00s/early 10s)

[@bassferkud4171]

I would put Prism too as one of the most influential J Fusion bands in Japan

[@jcuevasproductions]

Most definitely that video will eventually exist on the channel too 👍

[@Flornmonk]

Fellow t-square nerd here!

[@linwang3046]

awesome video! I've listened to T-square and other j-fusion bands over the years and to me, none of them beats the self-titled album of Casiopea, that fast, tight, technical early style of Casiopea rly does the job for me and I can hear several influences like Return to Forever on them haha. I'd love to see a video about Casiopea!

[@jcuevasproductions]

Yeah I’m hoping to make one at some point about them

[@EliTurp]

Ah bro I'm gonna miss your drumming videos but the channel reboot looks interesting! Good video :)

[@miguelruiz1122]

I would not say improve…But changed? Thanks for the video 🙏🏼🙏🏼

[@jemso245]

Thank you for this very good video, Mr. Jesús Cuevas. Great job. If you have time, I think you could make another video about Voice of Elements, with M. Honda, H. Noritake, M Sutoh and K. Matsumoto. Felicitaciones desde Lima.

[@jcuevasproductions]

Yes this is pretty much a part one. Masato did a lot of stuff after T-Square after all. Y muchas gracias. Espero que todo esté bien 👍.

[@jemso245]

@@jcuevasproductions Muchas gracias a usted, estimado Jesús.

[@dinomcnish]

安藤正容 伊東たけし

[@sheola72-violet-]

日本人的にこのバンドはMARIO KARTよりGRANTURISMOのほうが印象深い

[@osirisgolad]

Big mistake bringing Itoh back to replace Miyazaki in my opinion. While Miyazaki was not quite as technical as Honda, he was still more than proficient and made up the difference with his soulful note squeezing, especially in live performances. I guess they were stuck in a bit of a rut when it came to composing new material after all those albums, and this was wrongly attributed to Miyazaki and Matsumoto.

[@jcuevasproductions]

They apparently disbanded shortly but I have yet to find any info about why it happened. I kinda wish Miyazaki had more time officially other than their live concerts. I feel he’s underrated especially when listening to him in Satoshi Bando’s albums.

[@joyjapan3504]

@@jcuevasproductions The reason why Takahiro Miyazaki, Mitsuru Sudo, and Hiroyuki Noritake left T-SQUARE at the same time is because of Masahiro Ando's "retirement declaration." Ando told the members that he wanted to leave T-SQUARE. "Ando must remain in the band. That's why we're leaving the band," he persuaded Ando, and Miyazaki, Sudo, and Noritake left the band. After that, Takeshi Ito rejoined, and T-SQUARE began to operate as a unit of Ando and Ito. Ando eventually left T-SQUARE in 2021. The reasons are as follows. "I started to feel like it was hard to compose for the new album that I release every year." T-SQUARE fans say, "There's no need to release a new album every year, so I want Ando to remain the band's leader forever."

[@MiniRubio]

@@joyjapan3504 Do you know something about what went wrong between Masato Honda and Masahiro Andoh?

[@joyjapan3504]

@@MiniRubio I think there was probably some kind of feud between them. For example, the story goes something like, ``Every time Honda produced an album for T-SQUARE, Honda created four new songs, but only two of them were accepted.The reason was that Andoh rejected them.'' Another thing is that when Honda and Andoh sat together for the first time in about 20 years (probably at Izumi's funeral), Andoh said to Honda, "What is your name?" This source is Honda's official KZbin channel. I don't know if this episode is a joke on Andoh's part, but no matter how much we haven't seen each other, there's no way I'll ever forget the faces of my former band members. In other words, I believe that Honda felt that Andoh hated him at the end of his tenure with T-SQUARE, and that he completely distanced himself from T-SQUARE (Andoh) after the 25th anniversary concert. SStill, Honda participated in the ``45th Anniversary Concert'' held last year for the first time in 20 years after leaving the band, and performed with Andoh for a short time. What follows is entirely my personal opinion. I think Andoh felt that the style of Honda's songs didn't suit T-SQUARE. Some of Honda's songs have only a prominent saxophone and no solo performances by other instruments. I think Andoh did not like such songs.

[@MiniRubio]

@@joyjapan3504 Oh, that's kinda sad :( Thanks for the quick answer!

[@gidaltisouza1436]

Entendi tudo para dizer ao contrário.

[@oscaryiu3329]

What’s the song on 3:10?

[@jcuevasproductions]

Big City by T-Square

[@gdgdtamatamazzz]

❌門松🎍 ◎角松

[@jcuevasproductions]

グーグルや他のサイトで「門松」という名前を見ていました。間違っているのではないでしょうか？彼のアルバムにも彼の名前が「カドマツ」として示されています. 私はグーグル翻訳も使ってコミュニケーションしているので、悪い翻訳をお詫びします。

[@solavajayurofusion5248]

​@@jcuevasproductionsKadomatsu Toshiki is spelled 角松敏生, not 門松敏生! Nice vid btw

[@JohnSmith-hs1hn]

Did Takeshi play on the Katsumi albums? I thought it was Hidefumi toki, another great sax player. I think Takeshi is better than Honda, though.

[@jcuevasproductions]

Not to my knowledge no. Honda played on a few albums from the Katsumi band, as well as a few other saxophone players like Toki.

[@luyaomusic]

Thank you for collecting and sorting out the information to make this video. I am very pleased because of the recommendation of KZbin, I have listened to music from YMO, casiopea, and T-square in the past five years.😊