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Mint Jams is the seventh album and the second live album by Japanese jazz-fusion band Casiopea, released on May 21, 1982. The album's title is an arrangement of the band members' first and last initials.

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Mint Jams
Live album by Casiopea
Released	May 21, 1982
Recorded	February 23 & 24, 1982
Venue	Chuo Kaikan Hall, Tukiji Tokyo
Genre	Jazz fusion
Length	36:16
Label	Alfa Records ALF-85869
Producer	Shunsuke Miyazumi
Casiopea chronology
Cross Point (1981) Mint Jams (1982) 4x4 (1982)

Description

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 specifically re-arranged with the studio work in mind, and no dubbing was performed in the studio for segments such as the outro to 'Time Limit'. 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 rag-time piano breakdown in 'Swear'.

Besides the title of the album being an arrangement of the band members' first and last initials, it derives 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.

Mint Jams was originally planned to be a compilation album with 'best-of' Casiopea songs

This album is widely considered to be Casiopea's best, as it combines their live dynamism and precision with careful studio work.

Mint Jams was also Casiopea's first album to mainly feature the Yamaha GS-1 FM synthesizer, operated by Minoru Mukaiya. This synthesizer was subsequently used in many of their live-performances.

The European version of Mint Jams was released in 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

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 320kbps[3]
				A1003862351	Recochoku AAC 128/320kbps[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" was played with a special intro.

References

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