Soul Bossa Trio

by John BushFormed by Tokyo acid jazz maven Gonzalez Suzuki, Soul Bossa Trio recorded several albums of refreshing, exploratory jazz with a debt to fusion and Brazilian jazz but a sparkling sense of interplay often lacking in their club-centered contemporaries. Suzuki was originally a member of Tokyo Panorama Mambo Boys, Japanese jazz-pop favorites during the '80s. He founded Soul Bossa Trio in 1993 with Toshiyuki and Koichi Matsumoto, and produced the group's first record, 1994's A Taste of Soul Bossa, for Victor. Dancing in the Street followed before the end of the year, and the remix album Abstract Truth appeared in 1995. The third proper Soul Bossa Trio album, 1997's In Native, revealed '70s influences ranging from Herbie Hancock ("Wiggle Waggle") to the Meters ("Hey! Pocky-A-Way"). The next three years brought their third remix album as well as two more studio records, 1998's Nature Vision and 2000's Rad.2000. The hits collection Simply Sound: Best Tracks 1993-2000 earned a release through the CuBop subsidiary of Ubiquity, and 2003's Dolphins was issued through Italian specialists Irma.