Mint Jams

Mint Jams is a live album by Japanese jazz fusion band Casiopea, released on May 21, 1982 by Alfa Records. The album's title is an arrangement of the band members' first and last initials. This album is widely considered to be Casiopea's best, as it combines their live dynamism and precision with careful studio work.

Mint Jams
Live album by Casiopea
Released	May 21, 1982
Recorded	February 23–24, 1982
Venue	Chuo Kaikan Hall, Tokyo
Genre	Jazz fusion
Length	36:16
Label	Alfa
Producer	Shunsuke Miyazumi Satoshi Nakao (assoc.)
Casiopea chronology
Cross Point (1981) Mint Jams (1982) 4x4 (1982)

Background and recording

As Alfa Records expanded into Europe, it was planned to produce an album for Europe by one of its artists, Casiopea. Initially, it was planned to be a compilation of songs from previous albums, but was later turned into a live album. Mint Jams was also Casiopea's first album to mainly feature the Yamaha GS-1 FM synthesizer, played by Minoru Mukaiya; this synthesizer was subsequently used in many of their live performances.

Live sound recordings from a two-day performance at Tokyo Kaikan were used and subsequently remixed at Alfa Studio 'A' by Shunsuke Miyazami, Satoshi Nakao, Norio Yoshizawa, and Atsushi Saito. The songs were arranged in advance with studio work in mind. To achieve the likeness of a studio quality sound, the audience noise from the Chuo Kaikan live performances were cut from the mix, except for during the bass guitar and drum solos in "Domino Line", and the latter-half part of "Swear" which include the drum and piano solo. There were many changes in the arrangements in post-production: "Tears of the Star" had a removed 30-second intro, "Domino Line" has bass and drum solos from both concert dates, the outro for "Swear" was cut by 40 seconds, "Midnight Rendezvous" had clap sound effects added, and "Time Limit" had more than a minute removed.

Besides the title of the album being an arrangement of the band members' first and last initials, it uses the word "mint" to imply a "mint condition" and "high performance". The word "jams" describe their live performance of which the source material was taken from.

The European version of Mint Jams was released the same year as the Japanese release. The following year, in 1983, when Casiopea visited London to record the album Jive Jive, a promotional live concert was held.

Track listing

All music is composed by Issei Noro.

Side one

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Take Me"	4:51
2.	"Asayake"	4:58
3.	"Midnight Rendezvous"	4:57
4.	"Time Limit"	2:38
Total length:		17:24

Side two

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Domino Line"	7:22
2.	"Tears of the Star"	4:29
3.	"Swear"	6:48
Total length:		18:39

Personnel

Casiopea:

• Issei Noro – electric guitar (Yamaha SG-2000), arrangement
• Minoru Mukaiya – keyboards (Yamaha GS-1, CS-70M, CP-35, Moog Source, Roland Vocoder Plus)
• Tetsuo Sakurai – bass (Yamaha BB-2000)
• Akira Jimbo – drums (Yamaha YD-9000R), percussion

Production:

• Shunsuke Miyazumi – producer
• Satoshi Nakao – associate producer
• Norio Yoshizawa – engineer
• Atsushi Saito – assistant engineer
• Toshinao Tsukui – art director
• Masao Hiruma – illustration and design
• Kouji Suzuki – remastering engineer (2016 reissue)

Release history

Region	Date	Label	Format	Catalog	Note
Japan	March 21, 1982	Alfa Records	30cmLP	ALF-85869[1]	stereo
United Kingdom	1982
Netherlands	1982
Sweden	1982	Sonet Records		SNTF-924
Japan	December 21, 1983	Alfa Records	12cmCD	38XA-5
	1984		30cmLP	ALR-20002
Sweden	1984	Sonet Records	12cmCD	SNCD 924
Japan	January 25, 1987	Alfa Records		32XA-112
	March 21, 1992			ALCA-277
	July 27, 1994			ALCA-9007
	July 23, 1998			ALCA-9202
	January 23, 2002	Village Records	remastered 12cmCD	VRCL-2207	DSD, LP paper jacket
	February 14, 2002			VRCL-2227	DSD
	May 27, 2009	Sony Music Direct		MHCL-20009	DSD, Blu-spec CD, LP paper jacket
	December 10, 2014		HYBRID SA-CD	DYCL-446	DSD, ORDER MADE FACTORY
	February 3, 2016		Music download	1076210122	iTunes Store[2]
				4582290414003	mora AAC-LC 320 kbps[3]
				A1003862351	Recochoku AAC 128/320 kbps[4]
				B01B5ATMFW	Amazon.com[5]
				Btqo2vsuzhatovitlmjn42qysey	Google Play Music[6]
	July 27, 2016			4582290419152	mora DSD 2.8 MHz/1bit[7]
				smj4582290419152	e-onkyo DSD 2.8 MHz/1bit[8]
				11188	HD-music DSD 2.8 MHz/1bit[9]
				4582290419145	mora FLAC 96.0 kHz/24bit[10]
				A1004668159	Recochoku FLAC 96 kHz 24bit[11]
				smj4582290419145	e-onkyo FLAC 96 kHz 24bit[12]
				11178	HD-music FLAC 96 kHz/24bit[13]
				9b1bb9ff260e89188f84	AWA 320kbps[14]
	November 10, 2016			23fddOrAvvFX0iJQL5vvZ4	Spotify[15]

External links

• CASIOPEA – Mint Jams at Discogs
• Mint Jams at MusicBrainz

Full Live

Aside from Casiopea Perfect Live II, all Casiopea lives officially released are cut.

Some songs are missing from the official release, some are not in the right order and some are shorter. "Galactic Funk" and "Tears of the Star" were played with special intros.

No.	Title	Music	from album	Length
1.	"Galactic Funk"	Issei Noro	Cross Point
2.	"Eyes Of The Mind"	Issei Noro	Make Up City
3.	"Take Me"	Issei Noro	Super Flight
4.	"Time Limit"	Issei Noro	Casiopea
5.	"Lakai"	Harvey Mason, Bob James	Eyes of the Mind
6.	"Smile Again"	Issei Noro	Cross Point
7.	"Sunnyside Feelin'"	Akira Jimbo	Cross Point
8.	"Midnight Rendezvous"	Issei Noro	Casiopea
9.	"Any Moment (We'll Be One)"	Harvey Mason	Cross Point
10.	"Domino Line"	Issei Noro	Cross Point
11.	"Swear"	Issei Noro	Cross Point
12.	"Asayake"	Issei Noro	Super Flight
13.	"Black Joke"	Issei Noro	Casiopea
14.	"Tears Of The Star"	Issei Noro	Casiopea

See also

• 1982 in Japanese music