Tomomi Fukui, piano, Stanley Gilbert, bass, Tokyo, 2007
The sounds you'll hear while you visit our site are the sounds of West Coast jazz--but West Coast jazz with enough of a difference that we decided to start the Pacific East label. (If the music player hasn't started, click here .)
Pacific East Music is a natural and inevitable development of the long, productive and cosmopolitan career of co-founder Stanley Gilbert--bassist, producer, arranger and composer. There's a full profile of Stan on our artist profiles page, but to introduce the label we need to say a little about the development of Stan's musical concept.
Stan Gilbert on the West Coast Stan, who is a native New Yorker, moved west and became a mainstay of the West Coast scene. You can trace Stan's career through a series of recordings that begins with Les McCann's 1963 Gospel Truth through late-70s sessions with Kenny Burrell, including Ellington is Forever. You can also find jazz fans who remember Stanley's performances with, among others, Cal Tjader, the Gerald Wilson Orchestra, Oliver Nelson, Chico Hamilton, Gene Harris, Andrew Hill, Freddie Hubbard, Thelonius Monk and the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta... and Japanese jazz fans who remember Stan's performances in that country beginning in 1968 when he was the bass player in Chico Hamilton's band.
Stan Gilbert in Japan In the late '70s Stan found that his muse was responding to something in the Japanese jazz scene, and even
though his career in the US was at its busiest, Stan moved farther west to get to the East. Stan played with Japanese musicians, but he also kept in touch with his West Coast compatriots, including Kenny Burrell, Hubert Laws, and Buddy Collette, performing with them when they toured Japan.
Beginning in 1991, Stan began to produce recordings for Japanese release that featured his long-time associates on the West Coast and talented young musicians he had met in Japan. Stan also works works with young Japanese American players who are interested in crossing the ocean with their sounds.
Pacific East Music--Sounds that cross the Pacific Pacific East Music expresses Stanley's mature concept, or sensibility. This is something not easily put into words. It is certainly not a quick appropriation of eastern sounds, but a kind of depth that comes from exploring the world as Stan has, and perhaps a concept of musical space that has been influenced by the Japanese aesthetic and sense of space.
Later in 2010, Pacific East Music will begin releasing albums that have, until now only been available in Japan.