Keyboardist Matsui Brings Good Melodies to Temecula

For Japanese light jazz keyboardist Keiko Matsui, the melody’s the thing.

“A sound can get old, but a good melody always sounds new,” said Matsui, who plays Sunday afternoon from 4 to 6 in Temecula at the John Culbertson Winery’s Champagne Jazz series.

Matsui composes all her music, which blends vocals and her husband Kazu’s earthy Japanese flute with more conventional jazz instrumentation. Matsui’s understated compositions for her last album, “Under Northern Lights,” which featured an all-star cast including Robben Ford, Eric Marienthal, Brandon Fields and Leland Sklar, found a responsive radio audience. The dreamy New Age/jazz album sold 50,000 copies.

“No Borders,” her new recording, was released last week, and features many of the same musicians. Matsui’s own work on synthesizers and acoustic piano are more prominently displayed.

Matsui grew up in Japan, where her mother’s record collection included several jazz albums. She studied at the Yamaha Music School in Japan, and came to the United States at 19 to compose a sampler album for Yamaha. She began heading in the light fusion direction she continues in today.

Two videos came out of “Northern Lights,” and last week, Matsui was in the California desert near Joshua Tree working on eight videos for Pioneer for Japanese release. She also expects to have at least a couple of new videos available in the United States.

There’s a growing San Diego contingent of Matsui fans. She played three times here last year, and her music is heard often on KiFM (98.1).

Fluegelhorn player Luis Gasca, known for his salsa and straight-ahead jazz with Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, George Duke and Joe Henderson, and his ‘60s and ‘70s work with Janis Joplin, Van Morrison, the Grateful Dead and Santana, is floating in Coronado in the aftermath of kicking some bad habits.

“I was in the Veterans Administration hospital in Los Angeles for two months for alcohol and drug abuse,” said Gasca, who’s renting a yacht here while he gets back on his feet. “I started using cocaine when I was 19, and I’m 50 now.” Gasca lost just about everything, including his wife, career and $135,000 he made from one Santana album.

“I haven’t been productive in 14 years,” said Gasca, who released his last album, “Collage,” in 1976.

Now on the verge of a comeback, he is shopping around an album recorded last year with such name players as Tito Puente, Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Clarke and Ronnie and Hubert Laws.

Friday and Saturday nights, you can usually hear him at the jazz jams at Kelly’s Pub in Old Town. Gasca is especially proud of a new fluegelhorn; he forfeited an $1,800 horn to a pawn shop for drug money before he quit.

He expects to be in town for at least another month.

The Jazz Link, the San Diego-based jazz journal, has changed its format from tabloid to magazine size with the April issue, a healthy 32-pager. Publisher/editor Jude Hibler is gradually transforming the publication’s focus from regional to national. She already has correspondents in San Francisco and Philadelphia, and is talking to writers in New York and Florida.

Musicians are among the most enthusiastic readers, she reports. Trumpeter Red Rodney paid tribute to the Jazz Link on stage at Elario’s recently. Guitarist Kenny Burrell sat for an interview in which Hibler focused on his long and productive relationship with Duke Ellington; the resulting text appears in two parts in April and May.

Advertising is picking up, with a summer ad from the Chicago Jazz Festival and a New York jazz music label about to buy space, too. There are other national jazz publications, but Hibler says she sees her journal as a threat to them, not the other way around. Next month, the Jazz Link celebrates its second anniversary.

RIFFS: Canceled: Sunday night’s performance at Diego’s Loft in Pacific Beach featuring former John Coltrane bassist Dr. Art Davis. . . .

Fattburger appears at the Club Double Eagle at the Carmel Highlands Golf & Tennis Resort in Rancho Penasquitos this Sunday night at 8. Admission is free. . . .

Guitarist Peter Sprague teams up with his reed-playing brother Tripp this Friday and Saturday night in the Horton Grand Hotel’s Palace Bar downtown. . . .

Sax and flute man Bud Shank is featured on KPBS-TV’s “Club Date” jazz show Saturday night at 11, with a repeat Monday night at 11:30. . . .

Friday and Saturday nights, flutist Holly Hofmann plays the Hyatt Regency Hotel in La Jolla with a quartet including pianist Randy Porter, bassist Gunnar Biggs and drummer Jimmie Smith. . . .

May 2, the Mark Lessman Band hits the Catamaran Resort Hotel’s “Jazz Trax” concert. . . . This Friday night from 8 to 10, Marimba Mike Madundamela plays Uptown Sound in Hillcrest. His extended compositions mix marimba, percussion, computerized voice and assorted African instruments to create a thickly textured sound where primitive and modern collide. . . .

Hollis Gentry and Most Valuable Players will provide the live jazz for a “Jazz Weekend” at La Casa del Zorro in Borrego Springs this Friday through Sunday, produced by KiFM and Lites Out San Diego. Information: (800) 824-1884.