Opening Night of a Seven-Day Tour in a Shimane Jazz Spot, a One-Album Label, Fewer Than 100 Copies, and a Leader Nobody Can Find

On October 8, 1978, saxophonist Hideyasu Terakawa's quartet played the first night of a seven-day regional tour at Jazz Spot DIG in Masuda, a small city on Shimane's Sea of Japan coast, and somebody taped it. Terakawa, on tenor and soprano, had Tetsuo Miura on bass, Akihiro “Thunder” Nakaya on drums and Hiroshi Fujii as guest vibraphonist. The tape became Introducing Hideyasu Terakawa Quartet Live, five long covers of Wayne Shorter, Frank Foster and Milt Jackson tunes, and the sole release of a label called Red Horison: by Fujii's account, it was sold at a few local record shops and off the bandstand, in a pressing of fewer than 100 copies. When the UK label BBE reissued it in 2023 as the first-ever reissue, Fujii said he had never played with Terakawa again, and the notes conceded that the leader's current whereabouts “remain a mystery.” The record introduced him, in other words, and then he left.