On September 25, 1971, Toshiba's Express label issued Infinite (ETP-9038), the first album by Kazumi Watanabe, then seventeen and three weeks short of eighteen. He had started guitar at twelve at the Yamaha Music School; the session, on May 19 at Teichiku's Toranomon studio, put him in front of players who were not waiting for him to grow up: Takao Uematsu on tenor, Hideo Ichikawa on piano, Yoshio Suzuki on bass and Motohiko Hino on drums. Side one opens with his own title track, eleven minutes of long modal lines; side two turns to Joe Henderson's "Isotope," Kenny Dorham's "Blue Bossa" and a Jimmy Van Heusen standard the sleeve lists as "Here That Rainy Day." The whole LP runs about 32 minutes. Discogs notes the first pressing wore a different cover from later ones. His next leader date, for another label, was four years off.
Kazumi Watanabe in performance, May 2011, forty years after his debut. (Photo: Helgi Halldórsson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Sources: Infinite (渡辺香津美のアルバム) — Wikipedia (Japanese; release date September 25, 1971, ETP-9038, recording date May 19, 1971 at Teichiku Studio, Toranomon, personnel, track list and sleeve titles) , Kazumi Watanabe – Infinite (Express, ETP-9038, 1971) — Discogs (released 25 Sep 1971, recorded at Teichiku Studio May 1971, personnel, engineer Yoichi Namekata, first press with a different cover) , インフィニット〜渡辺香津美ファースト (SHM-CD reissue) — diskunion (recorded May 19, 1971 at Teichiku Studio; released at seventeen; personnel and track list) , Kazumi Watanabe — Wikipedia (English; born October 14, 1953, guitar from age twelve at the Yamaha Music School, first album 1971, next leader date Endless Way, 1975) , Kazumi Watanabe — jazzprofiles.com
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