Album Review: City Jazz by 4te!

City Jazz by 4te!, featuring Tsang Tak Hong on Bass

City Jazz by 4te!… I love the universal nature of music in that it is a language that can be understood and enjoyed by anyone around the planet. In “City Jazz”, past Cantonese and Japanese classics are brought to us in a Jazz Pop Fusion mode. It is so cool that musicians can translate these two very diverse cultural and musical genres into a tasty blend of contemporary music. I found myself looking for familiar musical patterns and discovering phrases that were entirely new to me. It really does give new meaning to the term “Fusion” in a jazz sense. I wonder if people from the originating countries easily recognize the melodies?

We are treated to 10 tracks from a very tight four-piece combo. The arrangements are crisp and precise with a lot of variety from track to track. KRIZ B plays piano and keys, Hang Tau “Fish” Yu plays drums, Alan Kwan plays guitar, and Tsang Tal Hong holds down the low-end on bass. There are some tracks where Tsang plays a fretless and it lends itself perfectly to the underlying cultural feel of the music.

This album is where East meets West in a Jazz Pop Fusion way.

If you are a Jazz fan looking for something very new and unique, this album is for you.

City Jazz by 4te! is available at Amazon.com