| Mint Jams | |
| Type: | Live album |
| Artist: | Casiopea |
| Cover: | CasiopeaMintJamsalbumcover.jpg |
| Alt: | The album cover of Mint Jams, depicting a spoon scooping out mint colored jam from a jar. |
| Released: | May 21, 1982 |
| Recorded: | February 23 & 24, 1982 |
| Venue: | Chuo Kaikan Hall, Tukiji Tokyo  |
| Genre: | Jazz fusion |
| Length: | 36:16 |
| Label: | Alfa |
| Producer: | Shunsuke Miyazumi |
| Prev Title: | Cross Point |
| Prev Year: | 1981 |
| Next Title: | 4x4 |
| Next Year: | 1982 |
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.
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 best songs from existing albums, but was later turned into a live album.
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, and other than the outro of "Time Limit" which was partially treated in the studio, no dubbing was done. 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 rag piano solo.
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.
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.
Casiopea:
Production:
| 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] |
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.