Albums on Jazz of Japan | Brian McCrory

Yudo Matsuo Quartet: Songs in Motion

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Songs in Motion is a 2018 release from guitarist Yudo Matsuo that he recorded with a quartet featuring Junichiro Ohkuchi on piano, Yoshimasa Otsuka on bass, and Sota Kira on drums. While this album follows his previous debut release Bonanza (2012), there was a full six years in between, so the guitarist/composer surely had a lot to say. As a result, Songs in Motion is an album full of his stored-up musical ideas and performances, and that spirit is bursting forth as the quartet’s energy lets loose.

Otohito Fuse Trio: Thus Have I Heard

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This I Have Heard is a 2025 release from pianist Otohito Fuse, a second album as a leader quick on the heels of his Isolated from 2024. Joining him on this release are his regular trio members, Riku Takahashi on bass and Kaito Nakamura on drums. It’s a continuation and evolution of the trio sound created on their previous release, with an increased maturity and depth added to the new music. This music is patient and deep, and while there are intense tempos with free-flowing jazz improvisation and burning solos, the musicians do not hurry to get there, as if there is an abundance of confidence in building beautiful moments that will come together when the time is right.

Yuki Ito Trio: Semendo Sementes

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Semendo Sementes is a jazz piano trio album from bassist Yuki Ito released in 2021. While bassist and composer Ito has recorded albums with different forms and combinations of musicians, and even a solo bass album, this is her first physical full-album release where she leads a piano trio. Joining her in the trio is pianist Yuka Yanigahara and drummer Hiro Kimura, regular members who were also on her previous digital mini-album release. As the leader for this group and live recording, for this set Ito plays original compositions that she wrote and arranged. To this set list, Ito includes one cover song, the old jazz standard “Time After Time” that was arranged by drummer Kimura.

Koichi Hirata: Introducing Koichi Hirata

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Introducing Koichi Hirata is the 2024 debut release from jazz guitarist Koichi Hirata. Hirata is a young, up-and-coming player who has established himself as a popular musician in the live Tokyo circuit, playing live often as a support musician or a leader at his own gigs and popular jazz jam sessions. His style is unadorned with a comfortably warm sound and style that immediately brings to mind the much-admired jazz guitarists of previous generations.

Saki Ozawa: Cheers!

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Cheers! is the happy-go-lucky title of pianist Saki Ozawa’s debut release from 2023. It’s a fitting greeting as an introduction to this set as one that is pleasantly nimble and widely lighthearted in style. The merriment of this statement begins even from the front cover image: a fun shot of the smiling pianist in an illustrated setting with friendly-looking characters including happy drinkers, a cat on a couch, and a duck with a backstory.

Ochikochi: Ochikochi

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ochikochi is the 2013 album released from a trio of the same name consisting of Taiichi Kamimura on sax, Norikatsu Koreyasu on bass, and Manabu Hashimoto on drums. All songs are by the group’s front horn player Kamimura. It’s adventurous jazz music in the uninhibited hip style of rugged jazz legends like Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. Even through to the current day, when Kamimura plays live, he still often leads Ornette Coleman-style concerts and jam sessions at various jazz spots around Japan.

Ayumi Koketsu: Struttin’

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Struttin’ is saxophone player Ayumi Koketsu’s jazz quartet album released in Japan in 2010. This is her debut album, the first of over a dozen killer jazz albums that she has been releasing through the years, each filled with material ranging from straight-ahead, cool jazz, hard bop, ballads, bossa nova, and other themes. This first album features Koketsu on alto sax with her quartet of Yoshihiko Naya on piano, Masayuki Tawarayama on bass, and Mark Taylor on drums.

Maiko: Reminiscence

Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz violinist maiko’s new album Reminiscence is a milestone release for the Tokyo-based musician. It’s both a look back at her start 25 years ago when she moved to Tokyo and began to play jazz, as well as a gratitude-filled mark of appreciation to the many musicians she’s played with and the experiences she’s had through her years of development as live musician in Japan’s music scene.

This is her twelfth album spanning those many years, but her prior album Solo was released in 2018 so it’s been several years between that and this 2024 work. In her online notes for this album, she explains how the unsteady times for musicians during the coronavirus period sparked a period of reflection on her Tokyo-based musical life and introspection about her next musical statement. For this project, she choose nine new songs she had written during that period, and settled on the musical partners she would bring this new record to life with. The process involved thinking back over those formative years spent with these and other co-musicians, and especially her hometown of Kobe where it all began.

Rio Osawa: Rio

Sun, 03 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Rio is the first album from vocalist Rio Osawa, released in 2021 as a six song, 24 minute album of some favorite Brazilian and jazz bossa nova tunes.

With an organically rooted acoustic sound true to the honored form, vocalist Osawa is joined by guitar on all six tracks, with additional wind instruments (sax, flute, harmonica), hand percussion, and occasional backup voices from the band adding call and response dialogue and accents to the music. The songs selected for this album are from four names recognizable as leading songwriters and producers of Brazilian music: Antonio Carlos Jobim, Roberto Menescal, Milton Nasciemento, and Caetano Veloso. Rio includes two songs each by Jobim and Menescal, and one each by Nasciemento and Veloso.

Hitomi Aikawa & Masaki Hayashi: Ten To Sen

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ten to Sen is a 2025 release from the duo of percussionist Hitomi Aikawa and pianist Masaki Hayashi. On this album, Aikawa plays marimba, glockenspiel, hand drums, and other percussion instruments, and she composed most on the music as well. Hayashi plays piano on all songs and contributed one composition to the album.

Figure 1: Front cover

The duo’s music is harmoniously beautiful with an understated personality projecting a calm confidence, one that supports a balance of bold strokes and playful trepidation delivered by patient hands. The duo takes its time with gentle moments as well as the elevated dramatic energy of dots and lines swirling together on a canvas to create colorful stories. When not flowing free in rubato intros and sections, the duo locks into implied deep grooves and looped time-based phrases that repeat over one another, sometimes in offsets that create a crisscross of overlapping motifs combining simplicity and complexity all at once. It’s more soothing waves than sharp corners, still the playing is expert and precise.

Toshihiko Inoue: Fuse

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Fuse is a 1999 album from saxophonist Toshihiko Inoue and his fuse quartet made up of Inoue on sax, Nobumasa Tanaka on piano, Benisuke Sakai on bass, and Ken Tsunoda (Tsunoken) on drums. After growing up with jazz and accumulating years of experience with other jazz musicians’ bands and albums, Inoue started his own quartet in 1998 right before recording and releasing this album. With the album title fuse, it was also the name for his quartet, and in this way, a sort of self-titled album as his debut release as a band leader and composer.

Yuto Komatsu Quartet: Defune

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Trumpeter Yuto Komatsu released his second album Defune in 2025, introducing nine new songs performed by his quartet that includes Mikiko Nagatake on piano, Daisuke Ijichi on bass, and Makoto Rikitake on drums. This new album is a follow-up seven years in the making after his 2018 debut release Circle of Dreams, marking his journey through the pandemic years and noting what he picked up along the way. His love of music sustained him through that unpredictable period, one that was particularly hard on independent musicians, as he discusses a bit in the liner notes.

Wataru Hamasaki & Akane Matsumoto: Listen to My Blues

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Listen to My Blues is a 2025 jazz release from saxophonist Wataru Hamasaki and pianist Akane Matsumoto. The two musicians are known for performing together many times at live events and recording sessions, including as co-leaders of their Big Catch Quartet, a classy orthodox jazz unit with a soulful, big jazz sound. Additionally, each musician is popular individually as a leader of their own groups, like with Hamasaki’s Encounter quartet, Matsumoto’s jazz piano trios, and as members of many other bands and combinations.

Asuka Watanabe: Unaffected

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In Japan, Asuka Watanabe is a recognizable name for fans of old jazz standards and Japanese vocals. Her emergence in the live jazz scene in the early 2000s was elevated by her 2004 debut album, Unaffected. The album’s title fits the meaning of unpretentious sincerity, and that is what the music here is all about. Fans of classic jazz will appreciate Watanabe’s great selection of familiar tunes centered on her straight-forward singing without affectation, presented in the traditional format of a jazz vocalist backed up by a jazz piano trio. Her locked-in trio for this recording features equally Hideaki Yoshioka on piano, Koji Yamashita on bass, and Yoshitaka Uematsu on drums.

Akihiro Yoshimoto Quartet: Blending Tone

Sun, 15 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The jazz album Blending Tone is the 2012 debut release from the Tokyo-based Akihiro Yoshimoto Quartet. Saxophone player and leader Yoshimoto recorded this with a tightly bound group of musicians including Aaron Choulai on piano, Takuya Sakazaki on bass, and Shun Ishiwaka on drums, working together to blend their tones while staying on top of Yoshimoto’s music.

The CD version of this album includes ten tracks running at 54 minutes of mostly original music from Yoshimoto. The popular jazz standard “Body and Soul” is the sole cover tune, played as duo of piano and sax as a gentle closing.

Yukari Sekiya: Duets Till Now, From Here

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Yukari Sekiya released Duets Till Now, From Here fourteen years after her 2011 debut recording It’s Ordinary Love And…. This new album offers both a retrospective and a forward view of her music and musical partners through her years of playing. Duets is a two-disc album with 16 songs, and the temporal themes of past and future are reinforced by the label assigned to each disc, with disc one titled “Till Now” and two as “From Here”.

Yukari Sekiya Trio with Yuko Tanaka: It’s Ordinary Love And…

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Yukari Sekiya (Sekichu) is a jazz pianist, composer, and free improvisationalist who released her first album in 2011 with the group Yukari Sekiya Trio with Yuko Tanaka. The Japanese title of this debut is ありふれた愛なので・・・ translated on the cover as It’s Ordinary Love And… Sekiya’s trio is completed by Michihiro Morisada on contrabass and Tatsuya Hashimoto on drums, and Yuko Tanaka joins as guest vocals and voice.

This album is a live recording of seven of Sekiya’s original compositions, performed on one night in December 2010 at the jazz club Big Apple in Kobe. The four musicians all embrace spontaneous, simultaneous creation, and Sekiya’s music is wide open for creativity. Bounding several free jazz sections are the pianist’s composed musical themes and thoughts, written down on the page as clear melodies, structures, accents, and band signals that are coordinated parts of Sekiya’s musical design. At the same time, whole sections of several pieces are set free to allow the musicians to stretch out together. In those sections, the four members improvise freely but together as a group, reaching towards one musical mind, and building to wild crests of sound or subtle unified soundscapes as feelings and the moment dictate.

Shikou Ito Trio Syncretia: Kakusareta Guwa

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Kakusareta Guwa is a 2025 release from pianist Shikou Ito’s Trio Syncretia. A translation of the Japanese title, 隠された寓話, is also printed on the cover, and reads allegorical stories-shaded.

Ito’s trio is a piano-bass-percussion combo, and their music is robust and detailed, soulfully rugged. The sounds from Gen Ogimi’s percussion kit are a change from the regular drum kit that is de rigueur for jazz piano trios, and the sounds of hand drums alongside the snare, toms, and cymbals add a lot of character and color to the music. Intuitively linked to the pulse and beat is bassist Benisuke Sakai, who enhances the rhythms through his firmly connected upright bass with both grounded and adventurous playing.

Fumio Karashima: Great Time

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz pianist Fumio Karashima’s 2006 album Great Time scratches the itch for a straight ahead jazz recording, bringing with it the satisfaction of the promised enjoyment conveyed by the title. Joining Karashima are Drew Gress on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums, making up a trio of well-known and highly respected musicians in the jazz world. In particular, DeJohnette, who passed away in October 2025, was a worldwide legend whose influence has been immense. Fumio Karashima was also highly visible in the Japanese jazz world, and internationally to a lesser degree (admittedly, few musicians worldwide achieved DeJohnette’s level of fame). Yet, as an undeniable force and a recognized name in the jazz community, Karashima lived a life full of jazz, performing, touring, and recording for spans of years at at time with other jazz giants including American drummers Elvin Jones, Tony Williams, not to mention an abundance of amazing Japanese musicians.

Sumire Kuribayashi: Orbital Resonance

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The new album Orbital Resonance from Sumire Kuribayashi, released in September 2025, is the latest creative output from the popular Japanese jazz pianist and composer. This graceful album contains eight original songs performed by the trio of Sumire Kuribayashi on piano, Motohiko Ichino on guitar, and Kyrie Anderson on drums, with guest trumpeter Niran Dasika making it a quartet on three songs.

For this release, two prominent jazz players from Australia join Kuribayashi and Ichino, yet Kuribayashi is no stranger to international connections. In addition to her frequent concerts in Japan, she’s performed with many non-Japanese musicians for overseas tours and recording sessions, including this album’s guest trumpeter Niran Dasika, who has recorded several of his past albums with Kuribayashi.

Yuri Hirota: Magical Moonlight

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Yuri Hirota’s album Magical Moonlight was released in 2017 as a petite jazz gallery of some of her favorite songs and original compositions songs. These are played by pianist Hirota with her group,“Quartet Tsukino no Sampo” (月夜の散歩), which roughly translates to The Walk on a Moonlight Night Quartet.

Although this is a slightly older album, Hirota announced recently that this album and her earlier release Flea Circus (2015) were now available on streaming platforms, making this a good time to refresh this short article about the album.

Harumi Nomoto Trio: Anitya

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Anitya is pianist Harumi Nomoto’s fourth trio record, released in 2025. It’s been a decade-plus since the trio’s previous release Virgo (2014), with their earlier albums released as far back as 2007 and 2002, so it was a thrilling surprise when plans for a new recording were announced at one of their live shows early last year. The anticipation from their loyal fans rose in 2025 as the trio scheduled more concerts before the recording, to fine-tune the new songs and oil the performance gears at live concerts around Tokyo. Following that, Anitya was quickly recorded over two days in June and released in December 2025 right in the midst of a busy holiday season.

Hiroshi Fukutomi Quintet: Rings of Saturn

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Guitarist Hiroshi Fukutomi’s first album is Rings of Saturn from 2010. On this recording, the guitarist plays modern jazz compositions under the flag of his own quintet featuring Masahiro Yamamoto on alto and soprano sax, Koichi Sato on piano (also on Fukutomi’s 2014 followup Memory Stones), Hiroshi Ikejiri on bass, and Ryo Shibata on drums.

Fukutomi’s debut album runs for 54 minutes and features seven original compositions, six from Fukutomi and one from saxophonist Yamamoto. The songs are composed by Fukutomi to be platforms for interplay, where the front-most instruments of guitar, sax, and piano merge and relay with an intimate immediacy, rather than each musician stepping back to make room for longer periods of singular adlibs. As with great jazz combos, there’s close collaboration where all five members listen closely to one another, pick their moments to step forward or back, and raise or relax the tension with the right-timed notes and rhythms.

Mikiko Nagatake Trio: Breathe Beneath the Sun

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

From 2022, Breathe Beneath the Sun is pianist Mikiko Nagatake’s second release, a jazz piano trio recording that came out just one year after her debut album Into the Forest (2021). With the same members as on her first album, her trio includes Ryoji Orihara on fretless bass and Sota Kira on drums, two popular players in many Tokyo jazz groups. Another similarity between Nagatake’s first two albums is the addition of special guest horn players on a few songs. While the first album featured saxophonist Nami Kano on a bonus track, this album features two more saxophone guests well-known in the world of Japanese jazz, Kosuke Mine and Eiichi Hayashi, who join Nagatake as special guests for one track each near the end of the album.

Harumi Nomoto: I’ll Be Home for Christmas

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The 2023 release I’ll Be Home for Christmas is a pleasant holiday collection of seasonal music from Japanese pianist Harumi Nomoto. The 31-minute album is an unexpected departure from her usual releases, as her previous three trio albums are filled with her unique style of contemporary jazz, J Jazz, and various world genre influences that add interesting layers to straight-ahead trio music.

In contrast to her signature Harumi Nomoto sound, this holiday release offers shorter, simpler, and sincerely played versions of traditional Christmas carols, hymns, pop Christmas tunes, classical whimsy, and modern pieces. Whereas her trio albums have been filled with Nomoto’s original material, only one of her original pieces appears here, tying up the album as a set closer like a ribbon on a wrapped present.

Daiki Yasukagawa / Hitomi Nishiyama / Maiko: The Tree of Life

Sat, 13 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Tree of Life is a 2019 jazz release from bassist Daiki Yasukagawa, pianist Hitomi Nishiyama, and violinist Maiko. These are three musicians who are each leaders of their own projects in Japan with many recordings, side projects, and frequent live schedules. Bassist Yasukagawa and pianist Nishiyama have worked as a duo before and released two albums together, but this album, with Maiko on violin, is the trio’s debut as “The Tree of Life”, a band name that they will continue to use on their followup albums Mahoroba (2021) and New Hope (2022).

Toru Takahashi: Tokyo Groovin’ High!

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Drummer Toru Takahashi’s debut album is Tokyo Groovin’ High, a 2021 release that presents addictive jazz bebop favorites performed by long-time musical partners and friends. This is a drummer-led album where Takahashi makes the most of arranging the musicians in various forms. With three different rhythm sections, the drummer plays with quartet and quintet forms, the classic piano trio, and even a septet featuring two special guests known for rakugo storytelling performances and television appearances.

Kaoru Azuma: Footprints in New York

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Vocalist Kaoru Azuma’s Japanese debut release is Footprints in New York, recorded in New York in 2008 and released in Japan that same year. Coming two years after her independently released album The Water is Wide (2006), this was her first album to be released in Japan.

Azuma does something a little different from typical jazz vocal albums, selecting songs for Footprints in New York that are great modern jazz tunes known originally and primarily as instrumental compositions. She covers a nice sample of jazz genres — bebop, hard bop, classic, contemporary, and so on — in what could be called a “non-standards” vocal jazz album, or a vocal jazz album for instrumental jazz lovers. Through this selection she also pays homage to master instrumentalists and composers including Chick Corea, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans. And, of course, Wayne Shorter, through his composition “Yes or No” and the classic “Footprints” referenced in the album title.

Sumireiko: Decision

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Decision is a 2020 album from the duo of vibraphonist Reiko Yamamoto and pianist Sumire Kuribayashi. This is their second album together as the duo “sumireiko” and follows their 2013 debut release Blue Bird. The two musicians have been playing together for fifteen years since meeting and forming their group, and in that time have developed a deep friendship that permeates their music with this intuitive emotional bond. In fact, the name sumireiko was made by overlapping their first names, Sumire and Reiko, to create the name of their musical identity. Their first names, Sumire and Reiko, are even combined and overlapped to form their musical identity “sumireiko” (すみれ + れいこ = すみれいこ), another indication of their close musical affinity built on trust and friendship.

The Third Tribe: Nearly Dusk

Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Almost Dusk is a 2019 album from the duo of pianist Yoko Kobayashi and drummer Kazumi Ikenaga. Their beautifully imaginative music is flexibly arranged, somewhat abstract, but solidly grounded to the music they have written upon which they improvise with linked hands and minds. The duo’s playing roams across their compositions as they tune into to themselves and to one another for in the moment inspiration and stimulation, simultaneously creating, responding, pausing, and reflecting. The written notes of their compositions are also guided by the images and stories that bind the music to their visions, whether it’s signals from outer space, precious childhood memories, or the beauty uncovered in slow daily life.

Fumie Chiba Trio: Echoes

Sun, 09 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Echoes is the title of the second album from the Fumie Chiba Trio, made up of pianist and composer Fumie Chiba, bassist Tetsuji Koji, and drummer Kaoru Suzuki. This forty-nine minute album from 2013 contains ten original songs from Chiba and includes eight songs played by the trio and two for solo piano. Chiba’s trio playing style is modern contemporary jazz with rock-leaning straight beats and composed bridges, interludes, and heavy vamps that all add extra flair around melodies and jazz improvisation.

Hitomi Nishiyama: Astrolabe

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Astrolabe is an imaginative 2012 album from pianist and composer Hitomi Nishiyama. Nishiyama created the songs and this album with two goals in mind: First, she wanted to compose a story-like suite, a long-form composition that reflected the influence of guitar-based music she listened to as a youth, especially rock and heavy metal. Second, she wanted to record and release an album in a duo format with guitarist Takayoshi Baba, who joins her on this album.

Davy Mooney & Ko Omura: The Word

Sat, 25 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Word (2025) is the second collaboration album from guitarist Davy Mooney and drummer Ko Omura. As with their previous release Benign Strangers (2018), each leader contributes five original songs to the album, interspersed in squence. The music is played by the same quintet of Mooney on guitar, Omura on drums and tabla, John Ellis on saxes and bass clarinet, Glenn Zaleski on piano, and Matt Clohesy on bass.

From first track, Omura’s “Sheep Wash”, you can immediately sense the great balance of dynamic energy and relaxed sweetness. The song’s bright swing and memorable melody initially seems simple but contains the subtle complexity of unexpected turns and rhythmic shifts. These qualities are found in all the superb writing and playing from Omura and Mooney, and the songs end up being finely crafted realizations of straight singable melodies that also act as reference ground for solo improvisations. While Omura plays drums on this first track, his devoted study to Indian tabla and music seem to be ingrained in his musical thinking as well, more so when he plays tabla and picks titles from Sanskrit words and concepts. (A different version of Omura’s “Sheep Wash” can be heard on Fe: Live at Virtuoso.)

Toshiki Abe Life Memory Project: The Simplicity

Sun, 19 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Saxophone player Toshiki Abe’s first album is titled The Simplicity. It was released in 2022 under the name of his band the Toshiki Abe Life Memory Project, a trio formed just one year early as a channel for Abe’s original music. This group features Abe on sax, Sayaki Kishi on organ, and Tetsunori Morinaga on drums, resulting in a funky sax/organ/drums sound that works perfectly with Abe’s soulful compositions.

While Abe’s band name “Life Memory Project” sounds as if it could be a type of memorial service product that adjoins death and melancholy (the mistaken assumption I originally had), it has a completely different meaning centered around life. The concept represents his goal of capturing and directing the daily events and life changes through his music. It’s similar to how a dairy is used to record the days’ happenings, but instead of capturing the past in notes, Abe directs his music and life forward by intention through his compositions, recorded music, and live events. It’s like a forward-looking planning system specifically constructed to pay attention to the immeasurably special value of each day.

Hitomi Aikawa: Sweet

Sat, 11 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Sweet is the title of percussionist Hitomi Aikawa’s debut album. It was recorded and released in Japan in 2018 and contains fourteen of her compositions. A multi-instrumentalist, Aikawa plays various instruments on the songs and is joined on many of them by special guests Masaki Hayashi and Eri Uenoyama on piano, Hiroshi Suzuki on woodwinds, and Megumi Hattori on vibraphone.

As for the instruments Hitomi Aikawa is using on each track, the details are not listed on the CD or in the liner notes. However, clues can be found on her website, where a list of her percussion collection is displayed, and it can be fun to use your ear to try and figure out which instruments are producing the sounds you hear as you listen to Sweet. Her large percussion collection numbers in the dozens and ranges from mallet instruments (vibraphone, marimba, xylophone, glockenspiel), hand drums (djembe, cajón, congas, bongos, timbales), tambourines, castanets, triangle, cymbals, chimes, blocks, Afro-Latin instruments, and many others.

Hiroyuki Yamaguchi Quintet: Mowna

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Mowna is a 2024 album from bassist and composer Hiroyuki Yamaguchi. For this release, Yamaguchi wrote and arranged all nine tracks, which he recorded with a quintet composed of several musicians that played on his previous album Inner Perception (2018) by his Thursday Night Sextet, a band formed through jam sessions at the Tokyo jazz bar and local institution Manhattan.

On Mowna, the returning members from Yamaguchi’s sextet are Hiroko Mase on soprano sax, Hinata Ishii on tenor sax, and bassist Yamaguchi, and newly added members for this release are pianist Toshihiko Kohno and drummer Tomoyuki Okabe.

Takako Yamada Trio: Live at The Moment

Sat, 13 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Live at The Moment is a new album from pianist Takako Yamada’s jazz trio. The music was recorded during a live performance at The Moment in 2024 and released later that year. The Moment is a relatively new Tokyo jazz club, a polished recording studio-styled spot designed to produce and capture high-quality live audio, as was done with this album (jazz improv in the moment is a winning concept). Here, this sixty-one-minute set includes seven tracks, six jazz standards and one original song from the pianist.

Sumire Kuribayashi / Kazuma Fujimoto / Takashi Sugawa: Tides of Blue

Sat, 06 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Tides of Blue is a 2025 release from the collaboration of Japanese jazz musicians Sumire Kuribayashi, Kazuma Fujimoto, and Takashi Sugawa on piano, guitar, and bass, respectively. On this album, the trio plays seven new songs, four composed by Kuribayashi and three by Fujimoto, for a total play time of 51 minutes.

The album brims with brilliant acoustic music full of clear harmonies and patiently developed melodies. The music reflects abstract themes represented by words in the song titles like movement (ways, roads), water (blue, dew, tides), and belonging and comfort (home, let me). The music is not abstract, however, but pinned down with the strength of conviction and personality that each player brings to the music. Each’s player’s identity does not dissolve in the trio but combines to create a new sound that is the sum of the parts. While there is, at first brush, a seemingly slow-moving surface that may describe meditative music as with a yoga playlist or a quiet church setting, there is an undertow of jazz, pop, blues, classical, free, and folk influences throughout. (It’s may be a high bar, but as a sound reference, think of concepts like Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert…). There is depth and nuance in the confident calm, in the ebb and flow. Quietness and patience allow for the trio’s delicate touches to be more noticable and emotionally powerful. It’s not overwhelming, not sparse, but comfortingly present, familiar, pervasive.

Chihiro Yamanaka: Abyss

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Abyss is a 2007 studio album from pianist Chihiro Yamanaka, recorded with bandmates Vicente Archer on bass and Kendrick Scott on drums. Like her previous albums, this is a jazz piano trio album featuring Yamanaka’s creative arrangements and impressive piano solos. With Archer and Scott as bandmates, the lineup on this album is a new one, as previous releases featured bassists Larry Grenadier and Robert Hurst, and drummers Jeff Ballard and Jeff “Tain” Watts, among others.

Ryosuke Hashizume Group: As We Breathe

Sun, 17 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As We Breathe is the 2008 release from the Ryosuke Hashizume Group, a sax-led ensemble of sax, guitar, drums, bass, and piano. This jazz-quintet combination of instruments and players forms the perfect medium for bringing Hashizume’s penned compositions to life. I’ve introduced this group’s other releases at earlier points, although in an out-of-order sequence, so this article completes the set of the group’s six releases to date.

As We Breathe, with nine tracks and about 70 minutes, is the second album out of the six released by the group. Despite the earliness of this and their previous album (their debut Wordless), their concept was already well-defined based on Hashizume’s compositions and musical direction, and the musicians show a cohesive personality with intuitively-linked playing and precise timing.

Michiyo Matsushita Trio: Free

Sun, 10 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Free is the third album from the Michiyo Matsushita Trio. With the members active in their individual recording and playing schedules in Japan and internationally, they have continued to play together regularly as the Michiyo Matsushita Trio. Still, it had been 13 years since their previous 2011 release Prayer for Peace (and half that since Matsushita’s 2018 solo album Sally Gardens), so fans of the trio were pleasantly surprised to hear of this new offering coming out last year. As with the previous trio albums, old friends and long-running members Show Kudo on bass and Ryo Saito on drums join pianist Michiyo “Michiyon” Matsushita.

Yuji Ito & Koichi Hirata Duo: Two for the Road

Sun, 03 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Two for the Road is a 2024 album from bassist Yuji Ito and guitarist Koichi Hirata, working as a duo here on their first collaboration. Both musicians are young, still in their 20s and 30s, yet their style, vocabulary, and tone speak of a maturity born of attentive listening, devotion, and playing experience.

They fill the nine-track album with 58 minutes of beloved tunes from the standard jazz playbook and the ballad/swing/bop canon, mostly from the core 1950s and 60s jazz eras:

NHORHM: New Heritage of Real Heavy Metal

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

NHORHM is New Heritage of Real Heavy Metal. It’s not only a homage to the original NWOBHM abbreviation, but also an incredible initialism of the three musicians: N ishiyama H itomi (piano), O rihaya R yoji (bass), and H ashimoto M anabu (drums), with names in the last-name-first Japanese convention. (I include a brief diversion on “What is NWOBHM?” later, below…)

This debut album from NHORHM was released in 2015 and rereleased/remastered in 2024 when the first run was sold out, and both new listeners and fans who originally missed out were clamoring for copies. The album contains ten tracks, nine cover songs and one original by pianist Nishiyama. All arrangements are by Nishiyama, and this is not something to take lightly; the whole project hinges on the idea of a jazz piano trio covering heavy metal tunes, and the success of the endeavor relies a lot on bridging the gap between those distinct sounds, styles, and instrumentation, and on making the music appealing, listenable, and great, despite the obvious novelty aspect that may precede the experience. Yet, never fear, Nishiyama took the challenge seriously and put a lot of work into this project.

Koto ha, To: Shiro o Matoeba

Sat, 12 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“Koto ha, To” is a three-member musical project made up of vocalist Ayako Tsuchiya, pianist Kozue Tsukayama, and bassist Yuki Ito. Their album is titled Shiro o Matoeba and was released in 2017.

To begin, a quick overview of the Japanese words in the band name and album title gives a nice first impression of the phrases, poetically vague as they may be. A translation of their band name (ことは、と in Japanese) would be something like “The Thing Is, …” or “About That, …”, and the album title (白をまとえば) something like When/If I Wear White.

Taeko Kurita: Ko-tsu-ko-tsu

Sat, 05 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Taeko Kurita’s Ko-tsu-ko-tsu is a solo piano album from 2012 featuring eight of her original songs. In addition to being a member of other groups such as jazz trios, many of her earlier releases as a leader are showcases for her solo piano compositions and improvisation. In fact, one of her most recent albums is simply called SOLO 5, mentioned in the previous article on her piano-drums album DUO. Like that album, Ko-tsu-ko-tsu is another great pick from her past catalog.

Taeko Kurita & Akira Sotoyama: Duo

Sat, 28 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Taeko Kurita and drummer Akira Sotoyama present us with Duo, a 2024 live album recorded in 2023 at “Shicho Shitsu” (Listening Room), an experimental music venue in Tokyo’s Jimbocho district. In true improvisational form, the duo met with minimal prearrangements in order to let the mood, music, room, and audience guide their performance. The concert becomes a selection of ten of pianist Kurita’s compositions, framed by the piano and decorated by the drums.

Melodies: Melodies

Sun, 22 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The band Melodies released their self-titled debut album in January 2025, under the leadership of guitarist and composer Motohiko Ichino. Ichino’s music is rooted in his otherworldly compositions and full-bodied guitar tone, a structure that Melodies expands upon with two entwining saxophones and adventurously roaming drums.

This four-member group consists of Ichino on guitar and baritone guitar, Kenta Tsugami on alto saxophone, Minyen Hsieh on tenor saxophone, and Akira Sotoyama on drums. As this quartet has no bass player, they form a subtly floating, bass-less group sound. Yet Ichino’s guitar work fills up the space nicely, especially when he subs in baritone guitar. All of the songs on Melodies were written by Ichino, and the album was recorded at a live performance at Velvet Sun in Tokyo on June 24, 2024.

Mayuko Katakura: The Duality of My Soul

Sun, 15 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’m always excited to get my hands and ears on a new release from pianist Mayuko Katakura. Her latest trio disc, recorded with bassist Takumi Awaya and drummer Noritaka Tanaka, is titled The Duality of My Soul and was released earlier this year. It hits the spot as a sharply modern jazz piano trio album.

The album’s eight tracks consist of seven Katakura originals and one cover song to close the set, an instrumental version of singer Abbey Lincoln’s “Being Me.” Karakura’s music is pure trio propulsion, muscular, raw, and risk-taking. Other emotions and impressions generated while listening to this music include the words heavy yet facile, determined and pointed. Whatever the subjective descriptions imply, it’s completely enjoyable, straight-ahead J Jazz coolness.

Kunpei Nakabayashi Orchestra: Circles

Fri, 06 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Circles is a 2021 album from the Kunpei Nakabayashi Orchestra, a ten-member big band led by the group’s namesake leader and bassist. The CD has eight songs and runs for about forty-seven minutes, while the streaming version of the album includes six of the songs. This is Nakabayashi’s third release and the first with his orchestra.

It’s an exciting big band sound where the instrumental arrangements are a natural forefront highlight of Nakabayashi’s music written for alto sax, tenor sax, clarinet, flute (x2), baritone saxophone, trumpet (x2), trombone (x2), piano, bass, and drums. All of the players are well-known, hard-working musicians working in and outside Japan in various forms. Special mention is made for trumpeter Takuya Kuroda, the most famous name in this group who is known for major label releases, international jazz festival activity, and collaborations with international musicians in jazz, fusion, and other genres.

Yosuke Sato & George Nakajima: Longing

Fri, 30 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Longing is the title of a 2023 jazz duo album from saxophonist Yosuke Sato and pianist George Nakajima. This is an eight-song, forty-five-minute album of familiar jazz standards and two Japanese pop songs. Of the eight songs, the first six are played by the elegant hand-in-glove duo of saxophone and piano. To wrap up the album, the duo becomes a trio as vocalist Ema joins in for the last two songs, singing beautifully in English and Japanese. The album’s title Longing may lean into some unnamed persistent desire portrayed in their playing, the long ago brought to life through their selection of timeless songs.

Setagaya Trio: Progress

Fri, 16 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Yusei Takahashi, bassist Keigo Iwami, and drummer Sota Kira are the three co-leaders of Setagaya Trio, a contemporary jazz group whose band name was inspired by meeting in the hip Shimokitazawa neighborhood of Tokyo’s Setagaya ward. This trio’s second album Progress was released in 2024 and follows their 2017 album Introducing Setagaya Trio, a debut released two years after their formation in 2015.

Setagaya Trio’s concept is based on having all three players extend freely, rather than having one leader decide the group’s direction and style. This results in music that is freewheeling and fun with a risk-taking energy that is powered by their youthful, fresh attitude. The trio’s arrangements feel loose in a way, as if anything could happen, and they look forward to those unexpected surprises as challenges to meet head-on. At the same time, the tightness of their playing and arrangements is apparent, solid and effective. It’s an impressive bond arising from the extreme attention paid by each member to one another, no doubt paid off by their efforts and dedication to studied listening and practicing their art.

Kanoko Kitajima: Long Way to Go

Sat, 10 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Long Way to Go is the title of pianist Kanoko Kitajima’s debut album, recorded and released in 2019. The sound of her piano trio recalls the swinging, bluesy trios of pianists like Wynton Kelly, Red Garland, and others from the 1950s and 60s Blue Note era. Added to that rich background is a dedicated Japanese interpretation of classic American jazz with an exciting New York City vibe as shown in the album cover.

Layla Tomomi Sakai: Stolen Moments

Sat, 03 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Singer Layla Tomomi Sakai’s Stolen Moments is a 27-minute album from 2019, a follow-up to her two previous releases from 2016 and 2018 with a consistently pleasing and familiar core sound. That sound of Sakai, introduced on her debut album Whisper Not, is based on her intimate vocal/guitar/trumpet trio with Yuichiro Hiraoka on guitar and Ryuichi Takase on trumpet. Her second album The Island expanded the trio with more accompanying players, a pattern which continues here on Stolen Moments as her guest musicians create forms from duos to sextets on the different songs.

Shinya Fukumori Trio: For 2 Akis

Sat, 26 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

For 2 Akis is a 2018 release from the trio of Japanese drummer Shinya Fukumori, French saxophonist Matthieu Bordenave, and German pianist Walter Lang. This album from the Munich-based trio is the realization of Fukumori’s long-held desire to record for the German ECM label. The recording itself was made at a studio in the South of France, a location that evokes scenes of peaceful warmth and slow serenity. In addition to the music, it is perhaps this picturesque presence that was also captured in Fukumori’s concept and the trio’s playing on For 2 Akis.

Kaito Nakamura: Invisible Diary

Sat, 19 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Invisible Diary, released in March 2025, is the latest release from drummer Kaito Nakamura. On this sixty-three minute, nine-track album, Nakamura plays with his regular quartet of Riko Sasaki on saxophone, Otohito Fuse on piano, and Riku Takahashi on bass, and adds guitarist Ippei Kato on six songs. The trio of pianist Fuse, bassist Takahashi, and drummer Nakamura also played on Fuse’s album debut Isolated from last year.

This album is a follow-up to Nakamura’s first album Blaque Dawn from 2022. In contrast to his debut record, Invisible Diary is entirely self-produced by Nakamura and released on his own label, a move that allowed him the freedom to imagine and direct the project entirely as he saw fit. Although Nakamura does not give away too many details, the songs on this release are meant to tell one conceptual story, and the listener is invited to form their own interpretations. The songs are all original compositions by drummer Nakamura.

Akane Matsumoto & Ayumi Koketsu: Trust

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Trust is a 2024 release from the duo of pianist Akane Matsumoto and saxophonist Ayumi Koketsu. These two musicians are leaders of their own combos, members of other groups, and also friends and working bandmates for many years running. The pair have gathered a lot of performance experience from live shows and tours taken together and have developed a deep connection between their musical instincts. Surprisingly, Trust is the first album they’ve recorded together. This serendipitously timed release also commemorates twelve years of their working together, a number that is meaningful in Japan for its significance in cyclic durations and milestones, symbolizing the closing of loops and the start of new stages. Perhaps it can be said that trust grows over time, and it’s wise not to rush it.

Fe: Live at Virtuoso

Sat, 05 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The 2021 album Live at Virtuoso by the quartet Fe was released by the jazz club Virtuoso in the nightlife district of Akasaka in Tokyo, Japan. Virtuoso is a great name for a music venue. Aside from the word being a term for master musicians, fans of jazz guitar will immediately recognize the reference to jazz guitarist Joe Pass’s landmark series of Virtuoso albums. Naturally, Virtuoso features jazz guitar and guitar bands on many nights. The jazz club also occasionally releases albums such as this one on its in-house recording label.

Hitomi Nishiyama Trio: I’m Missing You

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Rewinding from the previous article on Hitomi Nishiyama’s Echo from 2024, and connecting the dots (re: Dot, 2023), relistening to Hitomi Nishiyama Trio’s I’m Missing You from 2004 provides a fascinating reflection.

I’m Missing You is the prolific composer’s first album, which quickly sold out as she was gaining recognition for her distinctive jazz piano compositional style, a novel approach that melded her Japanese classical musical training, studies in jazz piano, and her affection for European modern jazz. The original 2004 album contained eight songs, all composed by Nishiyama, and was re-released in 2007 with three bonus tracks from around the same period. It came to be regarded as her breakthrough first trio recording, released 20 years before her latest CD Echo, and with more than two dozen albums released in between.

Hitomi Nishiyama: Echo

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Echo, from 2024, is pianist/composer Hitomi Nishiyama’s latest album and a response to her previous release Dot from 2023. The music on this album was made with the same group and during the same recording sessions and as such, there are many similarities in sound and direction. In aura and conceptually, however, the differences are effectively portrayed by the separate covers and designs: Where Dot shows a monochrome sketch-like grid of hand-drawn dots, Echo places the pianists’ subtly Mona Lisa smile into a vividly abstract gauze of lilac and cobalt swirls and hues.

Hikari Ichihara Group: Unity

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Unity is the sixth album from trumpeter Hikari Ichihara and the second album from the Hikari Ichihara Group band name, following their excellent debut release Move On from 2010. Unity, released in 2011, features nine original songs and a playtime of fifty-six minutes.

The music on this album is straight-ahead jazz built on the familiar format of trumpet-sax-piano-bass-drums hard-bop quintets. The playing style has a modern jazz feel with a mix of swing beats and straight-eights that is rooted in an energetic, soulful style, the kind that fans of Jazz Messengers and similar classic Blue Note era albums will find immediately appealing.

Ghost Peak: The Goat on a Peak

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Goat on a Peak is a 2023 album from Ghost Peak, a band formed in 2022 by guitarist Shinji Miyazaki with Natsuki Tamura on trumpet, Taeko Kurita on piano, and Hiroaki Mizutani on bass. Guitarist and leader Miyazaki combines his background of modern jazz, improvisation, and a four-year stay in New York, with his jazz, rock, and avant-garde influences on his second Ghost Peak album.

Ghost Peak’s The Goat on a Peak contains five of Miyazaki’s original compositions and was released on the heels of their first release Ghost Peak 1. The audio for these two albums was recorded at a live concert in Kobe in 2023. While the first release was an online-only streaming/digital download, this second album was released as a compact disc with a different set of songs.

Emiko Voice & Yuka Yanagihara: Enyana

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Enyana is the first collaboration album from vocalist Emiko Voice and pianist Yuka Yanagihara. Their new group and album name, Enyana, merges the EMI of Emiko and YANA of Yanagihara. There is also a bit of wordplay on the Japanese phrase en ga aru /(縁がある) which can mean there’s a connection or linking of fates between people or things in a certain situation. One variation of the phrase is “/enyana!/” (縁やな! /or えにゃな!), a playful Kansai-dialect version with a meaning like “It must be fate!”

Hideaki Hori & Wataru Hamasaki: Encounter

Sun, 23 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Encounter is the first album from co-leaders pianist Hideaki Hori and saxophonist Wataru Hamasaki, released in 2008. Since then, in addition to their other bands and activities, the two jazz musicians have continued to perform together and release many albums under the group name Encounter.

This first Encounter album is bursting with energy, and it feels like the inspiration that each player gets from the others irresistibly drives them to reach for the stars. The four members of Encounter—Wataru Hamasaki on sax and flute, Hideaki Hori on piano, Hiroshi Takase on bass, and Junji Hirose on drums—are always busy touring and playing in this regular group lineup for their live shows. In addition, as a special guest on their first album, Satoshi Takino plays electric guitar on three tracks.

Ami Fukui Trio: MCY

Sun, 16 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It was a surprise when Ami Fukui released even more new songs and arrangements with her trio on her release MCY (2023) so soon after her previous trio album Nova Manhã (2022). It does fit well, though, when considering the two albums as a set, as if they were a double album released in two parts. In fact, the songs for both albums were recorded during the same two-day recording session in November 2011. It was an opportune time, as the trio had plenty of live experience together, along with a nice batch of Fukui’s original songs to work with.

Miyuki Moriya: Beyond the Sea

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Beyond the Sea is saxophonist Miyuki Moriya’s fourth album as a leader, which she released in 2024 with her regular quartet of Mamoru Ishida (piano), Junichi Sato (bass), and Sohnosuke Imaizumi (drums). This album contains nine tracks over sixty-eight minutes and features mostly originals from the saxophonist, with two specially selected cover songs from Japanese jazz musicians that influenced her most in her jazz life.

One of those personal heroes is saxophonist Kosuke Mine, who joins the group as a special guest and adds his engagingly vibrant tenor sax sound on five of the nine tracks. Those include two of the album’s peaks for excitement (the edge-of-your-seat #2 “Flip a Coin” and the funkily thrillseeking #5 “Maverick”) as well as Mine’s introspective ballad #7 “After the Checkout” where the two saxes converse over melancholy piano chords to set a dramatic scene.

Magnolia: El viento y las flores

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Magnolia is a trio made up of vibraphone, piano, and percussion, and their debut album, El viento y las flores was released in 2022. This fifty-six-minute album contains ten tracks of all original compositions, four from vibraphonist Reiko Yamamoto and three each from pianist Yuka Yanagihara and percussionist Hitomi Aikawa. Despite having three independent composers, their tight interplay and musical personalities seem tightly bound together, as if their collective music just blooms out intuitively unified.

Motoi Kanamori: The Live

Sat, 25 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Bassist Motoi Kanamori released his third album The Live in 2023. This is a double CD album with a title that aptly reflects the energy of his group captured in a live concert recording. The two discs are divided between one set from his trio (with pianist Hiroyuki Takubo and drummer Akira Yamada) playing rearranged versions of classic jazz standards, and a second set from his trio with strings, featuring a four-piece string section of two violins, one viola, and one cello.

Daiki Yasukagawa New Trio: The Three Roses

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Renowned jazz bassist Daiki Yasukagawa is actively engaged in a variety of fascinating projects within the Japanese jazz scene. One of those, the Daiki Yasukagawa New Trio, released their first recording with this 2022 album, The Three Roses.

The trio’s music and production are in good hands, being led by the veteran bassist and lecturer who consistently appears in live performances and recordings. Yasukagawa has also been running his own music label, D-musica, for many years, uniquely spotlighting select musicians from the Japanese jazz music scene, including some of his albums as well.

Nobie & Takayoshi Baba: Owari to Hajimari

Sat, 11 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Owari to Hajimari (The End and the Beginning) is a new album from the duo of vocalist Nobie and guitarist Takayoshi Baba. Released in 2023, this disc features forty minutes of music written and adopted from the duo’s repertoire and experience playing jazz, pop, and Brazilian music together.

The two have released their own leader albums and recordings with other groups, but this is the first album to be released under their co-named band partnership and builds on their vast experience playing together in various settings.

Megumi Yonezawa / Masa Kamaguchi / Ken Kobayashi: Boundary

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Boundary is the 2018 release from the trio of pianist Megumi Yonezawa, bassist Masa Kamaguchi, and drummer Ken Kobayashi. This album is the result of a suddenly booked recording session in Brooklyn while bassist Kamaguchi was temporarily in town and playing with the New York-resident pianist and drummer. Their live performance inspired a producer to arrange a trio recording while the opportunity was available.

Open and experimental, the music on the album is 66 minutes of improvisation. The songs are a loosely-structured dialogue between the three members as they play freely using prompts and suggestions to one another, responding in the moment to what they are hearing from others and imagining within themselves.

Akane Matsumoto: Oh, Lady Be Good

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Oh, Lady Be Good is a piano trio album from Tokyo-based jazz pianist Akane Matsumoto. She’s been releasing trio recordings since 2008, along with albums playing with quartets and quintets, although her recent albums have featured her in small ensembles rather than her regular combos. In fact, since this record (recorded and released in 2019), her latest releases have focused on solo and duo formations, such as her piano album Little Girl Blue (2022), her duo with trombone on For My Lady (2023, with Nanami Haruta), and her latest piano and saxophone duo release Trust (2024, with Ayumi Koketsu). All of which is to say that this album, Oh, Lady Be Good, is her most recent jazz piano trio release.

Hiro Kimura: Trees

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Drummer Hiro Kimura’s debut album from 2022 is Trees, a 61-minute modern jazz album recorded with two of his regular rhythm sections. The album was recorded over two days in the studio, the first with Naoko Tanaka on piano and Yuji Ito on bass, and the second with Mamoru Ishida on piano and Keisuke Furuki on bass.

Joining Kimura’s rhythm sections are the front-line members consisting of three horn players who alternate and unite on different tracks. Alto and soprano saxes are played by Akiha Nishiyama and Kohei Ando, and trumpet by Mao Sone, who also switches to piano and Fender Rhodes for two songs.

Seiji Endo: Piano Pieces Collection II

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Piano Pieces Collection II is pianist Seiji Endo’s follow-up to his 2021 release Piano Pieces Collection. Continuing in the same mood and mode, Endo plays solo piano music of his own hand, compositions that are infused with his motivation to move and support listeners through his music. Although the two recordings are separated by a few years, it wouldn’t be too far off to consider this sequel the second half of a double-album record.

Seiji Endo: Piano Pieces Collection

Sat, 30 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Piano Pieces Collection is a 2021 album from pianist and composer Seiji Endo. For this album, Endo plays 19 solo piano pieces, a similar concept to some previous albums such as his Genji Monogatari Volume 1 (2018), which evoked the drama of that classic early Japanese literature through depth and shading. On Piano Pieces Collection, Endo’s message is simpler and direct, uplifting and motivational.

At first glance, another comparison could be made to the great Chick Corea’s Children’s Songs album. Each album has 19 to 20 tracks, all short solo piano pieces. Also, both albums showcase the respective pianist’s sketches of minimal, memorable, melodic music. Beauty through simplicity. Corea’s compositions might edge towards more complex and rhythmically stimulating music, and similarly, Endo’s pieces also carry his own personality. His compositions are delicate, graceful, and subtle. More miniature than minimal, Endo aims to create moods of gentle understanding and welcoming calmness.

Yuka Yanagihara Trio: Beloved Ones

Sat, 23 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Like pianist Yuka Yanagihara’s previous album Inner Views from 2019, her songs on this year’s release Beloved Ones are also focused on both external vistas and inner reflections. It is as if the inner-outer boundary is balanced, permeable, and transferring the trio’s music and inspiration from in to out and back again, fluidly.

From the previous album to this one, the imagery shifts from close (raindrops on a window) to far, with natural scenery in theme for both. A second link to her previous album is found in a track on the Beloved Ones, “Rainy Song #3 In Winter”. This song continues the story started in the opening two tracks on Inner Views, “Rainy Song 1: At Midnight” and “Rainy Song 2: In the Forest”. Comparing the two album covers and the pieces’ progression, the rain has stopped and the eye’s focus has extended further into the world, onto meadows, trees, and mountains.

Fumie Chiba: Rougequeue

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Rougequeue is a 2015 mini-album from pianist Fumie Chiba that features five of her original songs, three with jazz combos (septet, sextet, and trio), and two solo piano tracks. The uncommon word used for the album title is a French word for redstart, a small, colorful bird with a reddish-orange tail. Once the title is parsed and read as roozh-kew, it becomes easier to see and hear, but it maintains its aura of mystery and beauty. Even the word’s letters themselves seem to align, dip, and extend with a certain intentional pattern. The bird image and concepts are also easily applied to the five compositions contained under that title, music that is wonderfully vivid and that can take flight.

Ryosuke Hashizume Group: Side Two

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Saxophonist and composer Ryosuke Hashizume has released six albums with the Ryosuke Hashizume Group over nearly two decades. These albums feature Hashizume’s uniquely original compositions played by his long-running group. This group has mainly been a quintet (of sax, guitar, piano, bass, and drums) with many of the same members present throughout the years.

In particular, guitarist Motohiko Ichino and fretless electric bassist Ryoji Orihara have been a constant and large part of the sound of the group. They are brilliant electric partners to Hashizume’s breathy and sawtoothed acoustic sax sound (Hashizume also dips into electricity a bit when playing his sax as cycles and drones looped through a device, occasionally).

Makiyo Sakai: Silver Painting

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

For many people, classical music can be very relaxing, a soothing balm at certain times, or in uncertain times. Some jazz music is regarded in the same way, and there is even smooth jazz, after all.

What about both classical and jazz, together? Classical jazz, or jazz classical? Jazz-classical crossovers, fusion, or merges? (Pianist Ethan Iverson recently shared an engaging article on the “Jazz Brain/Classical Brain” divide, which aligned serendipitously with what I had been thinking about this week.)

Chie Nishimura: Virtual Silence

Fri, 25 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Virtual Silence (2022) is a 38-minute experience in five chapters, a project born of a moodily lit and ambient concept from bassist Ryoji Orihara and vocalist Chie Nishimura. On their first album, the pair are joined by guests May Inoue on guitar and Tamaya Honda on drums, an addition that marvelously decorates the simple but evocative themes with ethereal dimensions and deep textures. Throughout, Nishimura’s voice is used as a melodic instrument alongside guitar and bass, singing minimalistically on all five tracks with no lyrics or words.

Mabumi Yamaguchi: Viento

Fri, 18 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Like Mamoru Ishida’s Afterglow introduced previously, Mabumi Yamaguchi’s Viento is a 2023 jazz release from the Japanese jazz label Days of Delight which is doing a wonderful job of delivering the sound of authentic modern-day Japanese jazz in impeccably produced and attractive packages.

Viento is saxophonist Mabumi Yamaguchi’s second release on Days of Delight following his chord-less trio recording Trinity (2022), but he’s been playing and releasing albums for over five decades. In that time, he’s worked with stellar domestic and international musicians including drummers Motohiko Hino (“best jazz drummer in Japan” award winner throughout the 1970s) and George Otsuka for a landmark 1978 tour with Kenny Kirkland (piano), John Scofield (guitar), and Miroslav Vitous (bass). His recording Mabumi (1981) also featured Kirkland and Vitous with Tony Williams (drums) joining the lineup.

Mamoru Ishida: Afterglow

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Afterglow is the latest recording from pianist Mamoru Ishida, released in 2023 and recorded in 2022 with his trio featuring Ryohei Komaki on bass and Kaito Nakamura on drums. The sixty-four minute, ten-track album is filled with his original compositions and is his first leader album in twelve years, although he’s stayed active with live shows and other recording sessions throughout. Days of Delight, the new Japanese record label, set the direction of having a trio format with Ishida’s originals and describes the situation glowingly in the liner notes.

Hitomi Nishiyama: Dot

Fri, 04 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Dot is the 2023 album by pianist/composer Hitomi Nishiyama. Until this week’s release of Echo, Dot was her latest album; Echo is Dot ’s twin, recorded with the same members and during the same sessions.

Nishiyama has released many great albums since 2004, and yet it is tempting to call this significant Dot her masterpiece. As a prolific composer with consistent album releases over two decades, many peaks have been reached. Dot forges into some bold new territory, and successfully so.

Sumire Kuribayashi Trio: Toys

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Toys is pianist Sumire Kuribayashi’s debut leader album from 2014. Since then, the spirited musician has been on a tear, with several more leader albums released from her own projects as well as collaborations with a variety of Japanese and international musicians.

With Toys, Kuribayashi plays nine tracks on the forty-eight-minute album, with five of her own songs and four beloved covers arranged together in a lively display of her musical vision. Whatever Toys may mean as a concept title (hinted at in the Obi Notes), it’s a playful album that works as a perfect medium for her musical worldview.

Clepsydra: Un Jour

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Clepsydra’s album Un Jour from 2011 is an eclectic collection of eleven original songs that the quartet often played at live events throughout their musical journey (roughly 2006-2015). Their unusual name may be difficult to read and pronounce initially but is easy to remember when parsed as the three syllables clep-sih-dra. The meaning of the word is an ancient water clock, a device for telling time based on the movement of water through its construction. A charming storybook-style image of a clepsydra appears on the album cover.

Sayaka Kishi Trio: Banquet

Fri, 13 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

On Banquet, pianist and composer Sayaka Kishi’s latest album from 2024, her piano trio brightens things up with a banquet of delights. Kishi has long been a musician who loves to explore and mix genres with a sense of fun and dedication, and she is often found playing in Latin, Afro-Cuban, flamenco, fusion, and other groups. While the genres are many, Kishi consistently pulls from her knowledge of jazz standards, pop, classical, and other roots, bound together with swing and Latin beats and ad-libbed improvisation.

Nobie: Primary

Fri, 06 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Nobie is a multi-talented artist whose musical and professional paths started at a young age. These included learning the violin and piano which led to voice, percussion, and pharmacy studies, and through many genres like jazz, soul, pop, and Brazilian music.

Her storied journey includes forays in the bands of renowned Brazilian bass player Luizão Maia (partnered with Jobim, Milton Nascimento, Elis Regina, and others—coincidentally, Nobie’s even been described as “the Japanese Elis Regina”), Soil & Pimp Sessions pianist Josei’s Alma+ band, famous Brazilian guitarist Toninho Horta, influential Beninese guitarist Lionel Loueke, and the popular Japanese jazz/samba/fusion of Shinichi Kato’s B-Hot Creations.

Yasumasa Kumagai & Ryu Kawamura: Ol’ School Jazz

Fri, 30 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In the style of classic apostrophe-bearing jazz album titles, pianist Yasumasa Kumagai and bassist Ryu Kawamura offer up Ol’ School Jazz, a collection of beloved jazz standards played with authenticity and a love for the era with their pared-down duo format.

(Aside: Following this apostrophe trail, this album’s bluesy first track may be no accidental serendipity but an intentional pick. Starting with the album title Ol’ School Jazz, the first track “Driftin’”, and that song’s origin on Herbie Hancock’s Takin’ Off, that’s three apostrophes already. Did the friendly informality of this “jazz apostrophe” as used in the day carry a similar effect — particularly for the “jazz atmosphere” of certain albums, laid back but highly skilled, casual but serious — as emojis and internet abbreviations do today? A prototype for the simple, effective, and immediate impact of quick slang like LOL, OMG, WTF? BRB…)

Koichi Sato: Embryo

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Koichi Sato’s two-disc album Embryo is another remarkable showcase for the talented composer/arranger/pianist. Unfolding the gift-like box presents two CDs enclosed in an all-paper-and-cardboard-constructed package, a pleasing way to open the concept album. The placid cover art also carries a surprise, one that is illuminated when the lights are turned down for a listening session.

The concept is made clearer in the titles of the two discs, Disc 1 “Water” and Disc 2 “Breath”. The two titles perhaps symbolize the transition from womb to world, and describe the sounds of each side. The first disc has Sato playing fourteen of his songs on solo piano, and the second finds Sato playing with small ensembles on twelve tracks, with some of his songs rearranged and repeated between the two discs.

Banda Feliz: Boa Viagem

Fri, 16 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Banda Feliz is a group of Tokyo musicians playing festive Brazilian music, originals and covers, centered around Makiyo Sakai’s robust and jazzy flute playing. Her lighter-than-air flute sound is buoyed by her full six-piece palette with trombone, guitar, piano, bass, and drums, and the group’s voices happily join the melodies at times for extra oomph.

Happiness is integral to the band’s sound, even evident in the artist name and album title, roughly translated as cheerful, joyful, happy band and bon voyage.

Eri Chichibu: Crossing Reality

Fri, 09 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist and composer Eri Chichibu released her debut album Crossing Reality in 2022. On it, she includes eight of her fine-tuned compositions for combos ranging from duos and trios to five-, seven-, eight-, and nine-member ensembles.

The sound of Chichibu’s music fascinates with creative arrangements of harmonized horn lines, suspenseful rhythms, and multi-part musical sections. As the liner notes indicate, her songs shine with personality inspired by concepts and ideas that move her.

Yoshiko Saita: Back in Time to Boston

Fri, 02 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Singer Yoshiko Saita’s latest release is Back in Time to Boston, an album whose recording was both a homecoming and a musical trip down memory lane. It’s a trip not troubled by turbulence or misadventure, as the entire album occupies a relaxed, late-night mood that’s perfect for this combination of Saita’s rich voice and mellow delivery.

Joining the singer is her old musical partner Kenny Werner on piano on all tracks, with Grégoire Maret adding harmonica to about half of the songs, with tracks alternating between duo and trio formats. In a room lush with reverb, Werner’s piano is elegantly pretty and Maret’s harmonica is wistfully bluesy, and both musicians know how to expertly support Saita’s voice in the spotlight.

Motohiko Ichino: Sketches

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Sketches by Motohiko Ichino is a 2007 jazz album featuring Ichino’s guitar trio and quartet playing his original music. At one hour and 5 minutes, the ten songs lay out an atmospheric and subtle sound, one where Ichino’s tonally rich guitar swings and sways with a warm, vintage electric sound through his songs.

Ichino’s guitar is in the spotlight, naturally, as this is a guitarist’s album featuring his original compositions. As a guitar trio with acoustic bass and drums, Ichino takes up most of the melodic and harmonic duties as he spins the chord structures, theme statements, and most of the solo improvisation over the precise drum and bass structures.

Akihiro Yoshimoto & Takashi Sugawa: Oxymoron

Fri, 19 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Oxymoron is a live recording from saxophone player Akihiro Yoshimoto and bassist Takashi Sugawa. The duo recorded a live performance in 2016 at the jazz club Apollo in Tokyo, Japan, and released that recording as this album in 2017.

Through the album’s eleven tracks and thirty-six minutes, Yoshimoto and Sugawa play free jazz and experimental music that pushes beyond the boundaries of standard jazz. The pair avoids the more easily identifiable trademarks of conventional music and songwriting to chase the free-flowing exchange of spontaneous ideas and sounds with few limits imposed.

Hikari Ichihara: Sara Smile

Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Sara Smile is the second album from trumpeter Hikari Ichihara, released in 2006. This nine-track album is an alluring mix of jazz standards, pop covers, and a few of Ichihara’s original compositions.

Ichihara’s group on this album is formed by drummer Lewis Nash, bassist Peter Washington, and pianist Adam Birnbaum. While the music is mostly played by the trumpeter’s quartet, the group expands with trumpeter Dominick Farinacci or sax player Grant Stewart stepping in to play with Ichihara on certain songs. Ichihara also switches between trumpet and flugelhorn for further variety in her playing and sound.

Kazumi Ikenaga & Taihei Asakawa: NordNote

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

NordNode is a 2020 album from drummer Kazumi Ikenaga and pianist Taihei Asakawa, with ten tracks and fifty-five minutes of music performed with care, maturity, and a strong bond between the two musicians.

This album captures a directly connected musical conversation between drummer Kazumi Ikenaga and pianist Taihei Asakawa. A duo made up of drums and piano is not a very common format in jazz, but it is a format that really shows how, like with the circular yin-yang symbol, the two musicians fit perfectly together and fill out the space as if thinking, moving, and playing as one.

Yuki Ito: Retattanni no Mori

Mon, 01 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Retattanni no Mori (Birch Tree Forest) is a 2019 solo album from bassist Yuki Ito.

Over the album’s six tracks and 30 minutes, Yuki Ito is unaccompanied but unafraid with her formidable upright bass, playing three original compositions, two covers, and one free improvisation.

It could be considered a brave endeavor to release a solo album on bass (or upright bass, aka double bass, contrabass, acoustic bass, upright, standup, or wood bass). As the great bassist Christian McBride humorously would put it, “I’m just the bass player”, a lighthearted play on a stereotype of the role (similarly, the title of his new album with bassist Edgar Meyer is /But Who’s Gonna Play the Melody? — /a double double bass album!).

Reiko Yamamoto: The Square Pyramid

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Reiko Yamamoto’s The Square Pyramid is a jazz record built around her vivid and precise vibraphone sound. With excitement heightened by the targeted force and agility of four mallets striking and bouncing on the metal bars, the crystal clear and warmly sustained sounds of Yamamoto’s instrument pull the listener into the heart of the colorful structure through her compelling compositions.

Written in Japanese, Reiko Yamamoto’s name is 山本玲子. Reiko (玲子) contains the kanji character 玲 which represents the sound of jewels and is used in several aural words invoking tinkling and chiming sounds. Whether or not that character had a direct influence on the musician’s life, it’s an appropriately fitting context for her masterful playing of this brilliantly translucent instrument.

Miwo: Tranquillo

Fri, 14 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz singer MIWO’s first album is entitled Tranquillo from 2020. This fifty-one-minute album delivers a sincere and straightforward set of twelve jazz standards perfectly suited to the leader’s modestly beautiful voice. Tranquillo was produced by mentor Hiroko Williams, a well-known jazz singer in her own right, and the result is an album with an authentic approach to vocal-focused jazz albums.

While some decorative intros, endings, and arrangements are subtly attached, the performances follow the original music closely to respectfully elevate the original compositions and allow the immediately felt vocals to shine.

Otohito Fuse Trio: Isolated

Fri, 07 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Isolated is a 2024 album from the Otohito Fuse Trio, a piano-bass-drums jazz group of popular and in-demand young Japanese jazz players. Led by pianist Otohito Fuse, the eight-track CD runs for sixty-five minutes from a brilliantly modern jazz piano trio.

As mentioned in the album notes, Fuse’s sound somewhat follows in the path of several heroes he thanks: Bill Evans, Lyle Mays, Keith Jarrett, and Yuya Wakai, respected influences popular with many fans and jazz musicians.

Erisa Ogawa: Where Have U Been?

Fri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Erisa Ogawa (ERiSA) is a flutist, voice percussionist, and composer whose second album, /Where Have U Been? (/2019) is a jewel box of jazz and pop, mixed together into a smooth and stimulating album.

Colorful like sprinkles on donuts, the vibrancy extends from the cover design and illustrations (also by Ogawa) down through to her music. Her flute playing is jazzy, quick, and skillful, obviously the result of years of dedication and study of jazz and flute, but can also be petal-soft with a charming, tremulous vibrato that tugs the at heartstrings for an extra emotional charge.

Noriko Satomi: Project-N

Fri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Project-N is the debut album from violinist Noriko Satomi, a classically trained violinist and “Nissan Presents Jazz Japan 2019” award winner. Satomi is active in the Japanese jazz live scene as a jazz violinist and graces many live spots with her beautiful string tone and charming presence.

On this 67-minute album, Satomi leads a jazz quartet featuring Masaaki Imaizumi on piano, Kunio Oinuma on bass, and Masahiko Osaka on drums. This ambitious violinist released Project-N /in 2017, following up this debut with future releases /A Love Supreme (2019) and Duke String Quartet (2023), two excellent releases that focus her debut’s wide jazz spectrum into clear concept albums.

Takumi Seino & Motohiko Ichino: Frozen Dust

Sat, 11 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Frozen Dust is a live recording that captures guitarists Takumi Seino and Motohiko Ichino playing improvised jazz during their first set of the night at Kanmachi 63 in Yokohama. The two-track album is full of abstract improvisation throughout its forty-six minutes. The music is experimental to a degree, but close listening reveals musical themes within the subtle compositional frameworks and free improvisation.

This first meeting of the pair demonstrates not only their guitar playing but also their liberal use of electric effects, adding modulated buzzes, textures, echoes, and filters to their mellow yet edgy musical tones. These guitar effects add a lot of personality to the music, setting up atmospheres that evolve from playful and curious to dark and intimidating.

Hitomi Nishiyama Trio: Calling

Sat, 27 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Among the close to thirty album releases from pianist and composer Hitomi Nishiyama’s catalog, Calling (2021) is the third album recorded with one of her regular trios. This particular trio with bassist Yasuhiko “Hachi” Sato and drummer Kazumi Ikenaga is also featured on Nishiyama’s Sympathy (2013) and Music in You (2011).

These three musicians have maintained close musical contact with occasional performances together since then, so this album is not only a long-awaited recording reunion but also a heartfelt response to various bittersweet events described in Nishiyama’s liner notes.

eFreydut: Fairway

Sat, 30 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Fairway is a new Japanese jazz album recorded last year in New York and released in Japan just last month. Drummer Ko Omura, pianist Mikiko Nagatake, and bassist Kanoa Mendenhall form a trio known as eFreydut for this album. The gorgeously recorded music contains ten tracks of innovative and in-control original jazz with a running time of fifty-three minutes.

As is natural for these creative jazz musicians, this album features mostly original music stamped with individuality. There are five contributions from drummer Omura, three from Nagatake, and one group improvisation from all three musicians. The one covered song is the beautiful ballad “Touch Her Soft Lips and Part” by Sir William Walton, played with exquisite clarity and sweetness, and reminiscent of the gentle interpretation on drummer Peter Erskine’s 1996 trio ECM album As it Is with John Taylor and Palle Danielsson.

Nami Kano: Mawsim

Fri, 15 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Saxophonist and composer Nami Kano has just released a long-awaited album mawsim with her group of the same name today in Japan. Nami Kano’s name may be familiar as part of Jabuticaba from last week’s article, another compelling side of her creative musical personality.

This five-song, 39-minute album has resulted from the accumulated experience as Nami Kano’s quartet, playing creative jazz and original music together for years around Japan. As a unit, they’ve performed their own great compositions and arrangements of music from innovative musicians like Keith Jarrett, Jaco Pastorius, and Carla Bley. Kano recently adopted the mawsim moniker for her group and album name, as their vision locked into a comfortable and multi-layered repertoire.

Jabuticaba: Jabuticaba

Fri, 08 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Jabuticaba is the self-titled debut record from pianist Mikiko Nagatake and saxophonist Nami Kano, two players active in the modern-day Japanese jazz scene as leaders of their own groups and members of other projects. Here on this 2021 release, these kindred spirits play eight songs, four originals and four reinterpreted cover songs from legends Carla Bley, Lee Konitz, and others.

Based in jazz but extending beyond the genre, the music contains a great mix of moods: creatively jaunty, dark and brooding, fanciful, quirky, gentle and sensitive. The personality of the duo surfaces in fun and sensitive ways as the duo moves intuitively through shades of color, mood, and style.

Naoko Tanaka: Appreciation

Sat, 24 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Appreciation is pianist and composer Naoko Tanaka’s 2022 jazz release, her latest in a series of exciting new albums from young Japanese musicians. Several of her previous leader albums (Home, I Fall In Love Too Easily, Memories) featured her piano trio as a trio, which Appreciation also does. But this release also brings in the expert sounds of horn players Yoshiro Okazaki (trumpet), Takayuki Sato (alto sax), and Mabumi Yamaguchi (tenor sax) for three songs. In the rhythm section with the sparkling star are her regular trio members Koji Yasuda on bass and Masanori Ando on drums.

Chihiro Yamanaka: Lach Doch Mal

Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Chihiro Yamanaka’s thrilling series of jazz albums continues with her fifth audio release Lach Doch Mal, released in 2006 on Verve with twelve tracks at just under an hour’s runtime. A special edition CD release also contains an extra DVD containing an extra version of one of the songs.

Like Yamanaka’s previous albums, Lach Doch Mal contains a mix of originals and covers rearranged in her creative style. Fans of her previous four albums know that her amazing piano improvisation and technique are a feature of her albums, and this release is no exception.

Hiroshi Fukutomi: Memory Stones

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Memory Stones is the 2014 album from guitarist Hiroshi Fukutomi, his second album after his debut Rings of Saturn (2010). On this 57-minute recording of Fukutomi’s original music, the guitarist leads a quartet featuring Koichi Sato on piano and Rhodes, Koji Yasuda on bass, and Ryo Noritake on drums.

With Fukutomi’s compositions and his guitar taking center stage, the quartet’s sound is definitely that of a jazz guitar leader’s band. The sound of the jazz guitar is varied, however, and his tone switches between mellow and fluid electric guitar sound to clear and articulate acoustic guitar, coloring the compositions with distinct personalities to suit the song style. Some guitar effects are also used tastefully to add textural layers while preserving the core sound of pure guitar expressiveness.

Polyglot: Talk, Vol. 1

Fri, 02 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Polyglot is drummer Ko Omura, pianist Steve Barry, and bassist Kosuke Ochiai, an Australian-Japanese jazz trio project whose first album Talk, Vol. 1 was released in 2020. Each member contributes original music for the 58-minute album’s eight tracks, with five from the pianist, two from the drummer, and one from the bassist.

Similar to great jazz trios like those of Bill Evans and others, equal partnership is apparent as each member participates actively in the group sound to fill the space with cooperative creativity. While Barry’s piano is the leading voice for many of the theme statements, Omura’s drums and Ochiai’s bass follow and influence the twists, turns, and accents of the multi-cornered melody lines, resulting in a full and fascinating sound.

Ami Fukui Trio: Nova Manhã

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Ami Fukui continues her original jazz journey with Nova Manhã, her fourth leader album from 2022 with eight tracks running at about 45 minutes.

As with her previous releases Urban Clutter (2010), Amizm (2013), and New Journey (2016), this creative musician focuses her original music on the specific sound of her trio and her concept this time out. Seven of the eight tracks on this album are her own compositions. Her music is often colorful, perhaps with more calming hues on this release, and her unique blend of cool beats and pop melodies with a soulful smile runs through the music.

Keisuke Nakamura: Humadope 2

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Humadope 2 from trumpeter Keisuke Nakamura features his quintet playing modern jazz originals with unsupressible energy. With a slightly different lineup as on his debut album Humadope (2014), the human/mad/dope sound is the same: fresh and boiling, jazzy and nonstop.

No doubt Nakamura’s vision extends through the material, from the steampunk-ish cover to the song titles that describe a fantastical, searching aesthetic. And, of course, this influence carries through to the music, artfully composed with originality and serving as a beautiful post-bop platform for each musician’s improvisation.

Yuka Yanagihara Trio: Inner Views

Fri, 12 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Yuka Yanagihara’s second piano trio album is Inner Views from 2019, where she plays eight of her original songs in a piano trio format with bassist Yoshiki Yamada and drummer Ryo Noritake. In harmony with the album’s title and cover image, the music is on the whole introspective, focused on the near rather than the far. As Yanagihara puts it herself, these are eight songs that focus on the landscape of one’s mind.

Mase Hiroko Quintet: First Contact

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

“Hard bop jazz aimed towards the universe” might be a good way to introduce soprano saxophonist Hiroko Mase’s debut album First Contact from 2020. Together with her double-sax quintet, the album features ten of her original songs in a vibrant arrangement of energetic hard-swinging and mid-tempo songs brimming with atmospheric layers.

The opening song “First Contact” together with #4 “Spinning Petals” (a live version is included in a video below) and #9 “Have Fun”!” prop up the album’s core jazz tentpoles with straight-ahead frameworks reminiscent of the sound of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and Cannonball Adderley’s bands: energetic rhythm sections that frame unleashed improvisation from double horn front-lines.

Kaoru Azuma / Hitomi Nishiyama: Faces

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The album Faces from 2020 is the follow-up to vocalist Kaoru Azuma and pianist Hitomi Nishiyama’s first album Travels (2013). As with the earlier work, this album features mostly original compositions from the pianist that are delicately adorned with the light and airy voice of Azuma, who adds lyrics and instrument-like vocalizing to the music.

Along with Azuma and Nishiyama are the same members as before, guitarist Motohiko Ichino, saxophonist Ryosuke Hashizume, and bassist Toru Nishijima. On the tracks, the five musicians play in different combinations including a duo, trios, quartets, and the full quintet for subtle variations in sound, structure, and solo space.

Baby Brothers: Happy Christmas with Bb

Sun, 24 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This special release from Baby Brothers, entitled Happy Christmas with Bb (side b, the final live at plug and more), warmly celebrates the holidays and commemorates the vocal quintet’s final performance in 2007, layering bittersweet emotions with abundantly joyful singing and expression.

The album starts with eight tracks performed and recorded in concert. This live portion features the a capella quintet using their voices in beautiful harmony with charming arrangements from their repertoire including the classic jazz standard “My Favorite Things”, some jazzy soul and pop selections, and three well-known Japanese songs.

Miyuki Moriya: Uta Oto

Fri, 22 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Uta Oto from sax player Miyuki Moriya is a modern jazz album full of emotion and spirit… a bit spiritual, even. The music created by Moriya’s trio ranges from brooding and wistful, to simple cheer, folk, free, and comforting. As the music plays the mood passes from somber strife to resurgence like a theme hinted at in the liner notes, a story of rejuvenation through musical inspiration and partnership.

In addition to playing original jazz with her long-running quartet, Moriya has also led less common formations including drummer-less trios (with sax, piano, bass), bass-less trios (sax, piano, drums), and chord-less trios (sax, bass, drums), as well as groups focused on the music of famous Japanese jazz musicians and composers.

Hideaki Hori: Melodies for Night & Day

Fri, 15 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

As a companion piece to the previous article on Hideaki Hori’s /Horizon/, this follow-up post introduces the pianist’s recent solo album Melodies for Night & Day from 2022. Posting about the same musician in succession here is rare but somewhat appropriate, as this new album also pairs well with the pianist’s debut album from the previous article, marking a twenty-year milestone and a total of twenty albums released under his name in those years.

Hideaki Hori: Horizon

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz pianist Hideaki Hori kicked off his recording career 20 years ago, and it all started with this debut album Horizon from 2003. Since then, he’s released another 20 albums as leader in his nearly 30-year career under his own name or as the group “Encounter” with saxophonist Wataru Hamasaki. As a session musician and recording partner, Hori has also played on more than 160 albums for many notable Japanese and international acts including “Dreams Come True”, “Paris Match”, Eddie Henderson, Mabumi Yamaguchi, and many others. It’s an impressive resume for an accomplished pianist who’s still actively playing live music somewhere in front of an audience almost every day.

Nanami Haruta: II

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Trombonist Nanami Haruta’s debut release II from 2022 is another great example of new jazz albums from new players that keep flowing to the hands and ears of eager fans. Haruta, a young player who has been making an impact in the Japanese jazz scene, has been frequently featured as both leader and guest member at various live shows. In addition to this debut, she has also participated in other recent recordings such as 64 Charlesgate (2022) and For My Lady (2023).

Akane Matsumoto: Little Girl Blue

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Akane Matsumoto’s solo piano album Little Girl Blue from 2022 is full of good moods and good vibes, definitely different from any downcast implications that the album title may imply. A comfortable 42 minutes of traditional jazz standards from the 1930s-60s, this is feel-good music, happy jazz with a heartfelt beat, and even the most melancholy song, “Too Late Now”, is more likely to evoke a wistful smile than sorrowful tears.

Shinpei Ruike & George Nakajima: Duo

Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Duo is the latest album from trumpeter Shinpei Ruike and pianist George Nakajima, two Tokyo-based jazz musicians who hail from the same area in northern Japan, along with many of the people who helped to create this recording.

Like their previous release N.40° (a reference to their mutual hometown of Hachinohe), the music on Duo is atmospheric, moody, and mostly dark. The sound of Ruike’s trumpet is extremely evocative and textured. Like colors from a paint pallet, he mixes tones from husky to muted to bell-clear as his inspiration unfolds. Layers of emotion surface and mingle in his trumpet sound, as captivating as an audible patina cultivated through age and exposure like the surface of a brass horn.

Kaori Vibes Quartet: Starry Nights

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Starry Nights is the latest album from the Kaori Vibes Quartet. This is leader Kaori Nakajima’s third album with her group, following her Flying Mind and /Cross Point /releases. On her debut album, Nakajima’s quartet previously went by Vangy!!, a charming name that combines the V from vibraphone with an initial from each musician, and decorated with two mallet-like exclamation points… though, four “!!!!” would also work, as Nakajima impressively plays the instrument with two mallets in each hand in the style of famous modern jazz vibists Bobby Hutcherson and Gary Burton.

Rabbitoo: The Torch

Sun, 22 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Opening with a single-tone drone, electronic jazz music group Rabbitoo continues their retro-futuristic sound on their second album /The Torch /from 2016.

Digital and analog sounds swirl and mix through Motohiko Ichino’s guitar, laden with textural effects and deploying modern music and rhythms alongside carefully tuned sound and static in an audiophile’s frame. This is vibe-setting music that wouldn’t be out of place in a fan playlist of lofi study beats or on the edges of a digital-future jazz collection.

Emiko Voice: Standard Trio

Sun, 15 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Emiko Voice is always an interesting, active, and boundary-exploring musician, often simultaneously involved in a number of projects. Emphasizing her voice talent in her name (compared to a vocal or vocalist role), her singing, scatting, vocalese, and other voice skills are used liberally in her music. This includes her popular Brazilian music duo Meu Coração, swing and bebop recordings with pianist Suga Dairo, various chorus groups, duos, trios, and other groups with sometimes unconventional jazz combo formations.

Yasumasa Kumagai & J-Jazz Homies: Last Resort

Fri, 06 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The latest album from J Jazz pianist Yasumasa Kumagai is titled Last Resort, released in 2020 on his own independent label with his jazz piano trio plus Miki Hirose on trumpet. Although the eye-catching cover design may be a world away from typical jazz albums, the aggressive, tongue-in-cheek image succeeds in standing out, a conscious attempt to challenge flagging CD sales in recent years by piquing interest and possibly head-scratching confusion.

Mikiko Nagatake: Solo

Fri, 29 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In welcome succession for eager fans, pianist Mikiko Nagatake released a batch of albums for the young jazz label Owl Wing based in Tokyo in recent years. Her works include two records as leader of a piano trio (Into the Forest, 2021, and Breathe Beneath the Sun, 2022), a solo album, a duo album with saxophonist Nami Kano (Jabuticaba, 2021), and a live album with trumpet player Tetsuji Yoshida (Live at Knuttle House, 2022). In fact, a new duo album (Locura de Amor, /2023)/ with flute player Naohiko Amatatsu was also just announced in the past several days.

Mamoru Ishida: Ishida Mamoru 4 feat. Mike Rivett

Fri, 22 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Mamoru Ishida’s second album is titled /Ishida Mamoru 4 feat. Mike Rivett /and was released in 2011. With nine tracks over fifty-two minutes, the album presents a mix of covers, standards, and original compositions. The warm ballad “These Foolish Things” invites listeners in comfortably with a nostalgic calm, introducing a graceful jazz combo that respects traditional forms and songs loved by jazz fans.

The music as a whole expresses this vintage, sincere jazz feeling generated by the players’ sensitivity as well as through the recording methods and equipment used. While this can seem to be something of a jazz throwback album (meant in a good way, a sound that can be set comfortably alongside favored music of the past greats), there are also several aspects of modern, assertive jazz making appearances as well… not to mention the Japanese and international context also layered in, described well in the excellent and extensive liner notes.

FNK: Canvas

Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

FNK is a group featuring pianist Fumie Chiba, guitarist Nao Teraya, and drummer Kaoru Suzuki, who released their first album Canvas in 2022. A jazz trio made up of piano, guitar, and drums is somewhat unconventional, without a standalone bass instrument playing a steady undercurrent of tonal and rhythmic grounding. But prolific modern composer Fumie Chiba supplied this trio with new songs and arrangements written specifically for this format, emphasizing their expansive sound and balanced dynamics.

Bungalow: Abstract Messages

Fri, 08 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract Messages is the final record from the group Bungalow, an album created under unique circumstances and with a different structure from previous releases. A mix of acoustic instruments and electronic sounds, the album is not only full of beautiful music but is also an accomplishment of coordination, both in its creation and the dynamic of the music.

Confined to two separate countries in 2020, the three remaining members of Bungalow were recorded in two different sessions. The two musicians Koichi Sato and Ko Omura recorded piano and percussion in Japan and handed off the recordings to third member Mike Rivett in Australia, who layered in saxophones, loops, and sound effects, and finished the mixing.

Yukako Yamano: Imperial

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

World-traveling pianist Yukako Yamano released Imperial in 2018, a three-song mini-album showcasing not only her original songs but also the special instrument after which the album is named.

The inspiration for this album was the sound produced by a luxury piano the young pianist had the opportunity to play, a Bösendorfer 290 Imperial 1978. This type of grand piano has a bass-extended range of 97 keys over a full eight octaves, compared to 88 keys on a standard full-sized piano. The addition of extra bass strings and hardware not only offers the player deeper notes to strike but also enhances the total sound produced by all of the other keys with richer harmonic resonance — as well as increasing the overall size and weight of the imposing instrument.

Sul Madrugada: Luar

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

While leading and participating in different groups through the years, musicians Hiroe Kobayashi and Sayaka Kishi have also played together on various projects incorporating standard jazz, pop, and Latin genres, and even Disney and movie songs. In 2022, the duo released their first full-length album entitled Luar under the band name Sul Madrugada. This name, Portuguese for “southern dawn”, together with the title Luar for “moonlight” beautifully describes the atmospheric direction the pair gravitates towards with this Latin jazz project. On this release, the duo is devoted to creating South American music in a package that embraces nature through the icons of the sun and moon.

Yuichi Narita: Urban Nocturne

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

With many jazz bars and performance opportunities reduced during the pandemic period, musicians used novel approaches to create and record music. Musicians would play together over video feeds, host live online events, and send audio files back and forth to one another for collaboration. Some musicians also composed and recorded in conditions resembling self-isolation or even quarantine, resulting in an increase in self-produced music created entirely at home by individual artists. Many of the albums released in recent years share these common bonds like generational traits imprinted on the music. This is another small way by which this period leaves unique reminders of the strangeness of the times characterized by new restrictions, lockdowns, medicines, and masks.

Tetsuji Yoshida & Mikiko Nagatake Duo: Live at Knuttel House

Fri, 11 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Trumpeter Tetsuji Yoshida and pianist Mikiko Nagatake create new music in old town surroundings on 2021’s Live at Knuttel House. Yoshida’s original compositions make up the six songs for forty minutes selected from live performances at Knuttel art and live house. The modest venue is nestled in a working-class neighborhood in old Tokyo that seems to imbue the music with the charm and patina of the traditional surroundings. Yoshida’s conceptions skate around the borders of jazz, rock, and blues with hints of uniquely Japanese folk melodies, into which the talented pair freely incorporates traditional jazz forms.

Fumika Asari: Introducin’

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Fumika Asari’s first album is Introducin’ from 2020, a satisfying debut with a mix of players, combinations, and a to-the-point title with a respectful nod to classic jazz album titles. The beautiful sound of acoustic jazz matches well with the young guitarist’s natural style and concept, jazz that shuns attention-seeking tricks and lofty effects in favor of a genuine, pared-down jazz feeling.

From song to song, the combination of musicians and styles changes, shuffling between quartets, trios, and duos. Throughout, relaxed easiness and vintage swing arise from classy ensemble playing and spotlit guitar improvisation. As for the changing combos, a guitar quartet is featured on track #1 (guitar, piano, bass, drums), then a trio on #2 (guitar, bass, drums), a guitar & guitar duo, a quartet, a trio, a guitar & piano duo, a quartet (guitar, alto sax, trombone, bass), a sextet, and finally a guitar solo. This variation of players and combinations of instruments keeps things interesting while introducing Asari’s musical vision for her debut release.

Ryosuke Hashizume Group: Acoustic Fluid

Fri, 28 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The title of the album Acoustic Fluid from the Ryosuke Hashizume Group captures the essence of moving, flowing sounds that fill up this music. Like most of Hashizume’s albums and live shows, his original compositions are featured on this 2012 album, his sixth release. Throughout /Acoustic Fluid/’s nine tracks, the five-member group expands these charts with push-and-pull activity, like waves on water or breaths of air.

The music on this album alternates between slow, free sketches and mid-tempo modern jazz. The slower tracks are beautifully patient, somewhat open-ended with room for the group to pulse and grow organically while trekking through the movements.

Akane Matsumoto & Nanami Haruta: For My Lady

Fri, 21 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

For My Lady is a relaxing package of jazz standards performed by a sensitive trombone and piano duo. Akane Matsumoto, known for her impressive bebop and swing skills, joins up with young newcomer Nanami Haruta on trombone, and both players select favorites from the jazz standard library for this album, each song accompanied by comments in the liner notes translated below.

With a laid-back and reigned-in sound, the album is easy to listen to, suitable for relaxation or a comfortable backdrop to day or night. The music fills the room with a calm background texture, with most songs played at slow tempos or as freely-interpreted ballads. The dark-tinged wistful sound of Haruta’s trombone supported by Matsumoto’s wide piano dynamics creates a melancholy feeling with undercurrents of swing, unobtrusive, quietly persuasive, and suggestive of mellow musical stories being told.

Seiji Harakawa Quartet: Skipping Down the Street

Fri, 14 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Phrases like good honest work and good clean fun convey the simple and satisfying rewards that result from high levels of skill, effort, and enjoyment. Good honest music is a simple but to-the-point description of saxophonist Seiji Harakawa’s debut album Skipping Down the Street, an excellent showcase for the agile alto sax leader and rhythm section to project their skill, effort, and enjoyment of jazz.

The full group listed on the record, “Seiji Harakawa Quartet featuring Fukushi Tainaka” also emphasizes the importance of drums and groove on this album, and honors Harakawa’s experience playing living legend drummer Tainaka in New York for half a decade before Harakawa returned to Japan.

Akihiro Yoshimoto Quartet: 64 Charlesgate

Fri, 07 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Saxophonist Akihiro Yoshimoto’s 62 Charlesgate is a 2022 album where he showcases both his original music and a group of young musicians from the Japanese jazz scene. The quartet is made up of saxophone, trombone, bass, and drums, with no chordal instrument like piano or guitar filling up the comping harmonies. The resulting music, composed for two horns to play melodies in union, harmony, counterpointing, or trading phrases, has a well-suited sound for Yoshimoto’s organized yet free and open concept on this album.

Yuichiro Aratake: Music Make Us One

Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Yuichiro Aratake continues to express his compassionate vision with Music Make Us One, a live concert recorded in 2010 and released in a CD/DVD package. Through six songs, the 40-minute album features his expanded piano trio spotlighting harmonica, vocals, and an eight-member string section.

Two of the six songs are instrument-based tracks that feature Aratake’s expressive playing that supports bluesy harmonica playing together and warm string arrangements. Vocalist Ryutaro Makino joins on the other four songs, including Aratake’s “Family” and “Say We Love”. The violins, violas, and cellos in the string section add a classy texture to much of the album and, together with the song selection and arrangements, shifts the music into orchestral pop territory. The recorded live sound also captures the expansive feeling of a large stage and concert hall filled with an audience of fans.

Hitomi Nishiyama: Vibrant

Fri, 23 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Vibrant is a 2020 solo piano recording from Hitomi Nishiyama, her second solo album after 2013’s Crossing and her 20th overall release. At the time of this recording, her heavy metal project NHORHM had recently finished, and on this album she chose to face the piano quietly and alone, playing nine of her original compositions.

Providing an interesting contrast to the title, the monochrome package design is plain and minimalistic, listing the tracks and credits without any artwork or photos. The disc itself, printed in calming pink, begins to turn up the vibrancy level as you get closer to the recorded music.

Hiro Kimura Quintet: Folds

Fri, 16 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The full title of this 2023 album sets the stage: “/Folds - Live at 100Ban Hall/ by the Hiro Kimura Quintet featuring Kazuhiko Takeda”.

Folds is a live recording of Kimura’s quintet playing in Kobe in 2022. Drummer Kimura leads the group featuring special guest Kazuhiko Takeda, whose melodic, soulful jazz guitar is exquisitely framed by the relatively younger musicians. Regardless of age, the unit displays talent, harmonious energy, and reverence for the music they create together.

Mariko Maeda: Awareness

Fri, 09 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Awareness is the inspiring title of trombonist Mariko Maeda’s debut album of newly-recorded music that her jazz quartet is currently taking on tour in Japan. This eagerly-awaited debut album introduces listeners to Maeda’s style and influences through her artful playing and compositions. Fittingly, the cover art sets the mood with a beautiful painting that shows the young musician surrounded by symbols that tempt with possible clues and associations to the ten musical tracks.

George Nakajima Trio: First Touch

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

On his debut album First Touch from 2021, George Nakajima delivers the curated sound of his jazz piano trio, thoughtfully balancing song choices and playing set modestly between modern edge and old-fashioned homage. Through its seven tracks, the album is easy to enjoy and runs for a satisfying 46 minutes.

Joining the pianist are Nakajima’s long-time musical partners Yoshida Yutaka on bass and Masanori Ando on drums, a trio with a locked-in feeling created through years of performing together in Japan’s live scene.

Rie Taguchi: The Gift II

Fri, 26 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Vocalist and pianist Rie Taguchi delivers a follow-up to her debut album The Gift with her 2021 album naturally titled The Gift II. This swinging outing features her Special Sextet as before with new outstanding arrangements.

Presenting Taguchi’s sweetly mellow voice in an exquisite frame, Pianist Seiji Endo arranged all the songs on this album, and his vision combined with the front line of saxophone, violin, and guitar creates a lush, big band-style sound from the six instruments.

Shunichi Yanagi Trio: Slope

Sat, 20 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz pianist Shunichi Yanagi’s Slope is his second trio release, a 2015 followup to his 2012 debut Bubble Fish. The trio explores fresh territory in the jazz, rock, and light groove moods which vary from track to track. Each member has a clean touch with a sense of drama in creating excitement, somewhat like a movie or video game soundtrack at times.

The opening notes of Slope establish a delicate frame that quickly moves into a modern rock-styled beat, showcasing how this trio tends to move between jazz pop, rock, and light-as-a-bubble tenderness. Leading the trio as the primary composer, Yanagi orchestrates a progressive style, and his own playing is decorated with repeated arpeggios and densely looped patterns packed together like a woven carpet.

Naoko Akimoto: No One Else

Mon, 15 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Vocalist Naoko Akimoto’s debut release No One Else is a seven-song introduction to the popular singer, a presentation of standard jazz and Japanese pop arranged with care and performed by top musicians from Tokyo.

The arrangements are nice, particularly on the opening track “Moondance” which opens with a deep bass, piano, and vibes setting up a grove for Akimoto to lead the listener through the atmospheric drama of the tune. The decorated arrangements include vocal harmonies with trumpet, flute, and other instruments adding beautiful layers to the music.

Chihiro Yamanaka: Outside by the Swing

Thu, 11 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Chihiro Yamanaka’s Outside By The Swing (2005) is her fourth piano trio album and continues her annual series of releases since bursting on the scene with her 2001 debut Living Without Friday. While previous releases were on the Osaka boutique jazz label Atelier Sawano, this release marks her first in a long run with Verve Records.

The album contains a baker’s dozen of fun jazz tracks, some quite short but mostly in the four-to-six minute range, plenty enough to showcase Yamanaka’s piano filled with percussive fire and melodic creativity.

Yasumasa Kumagai: Pray

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Yasumasa Kumagai’s Pray (2010) is a stylishly straight ahead affair, a cool and groovy collection of the pianist’s original tunes which melds modern jazz, soulful grooves, and gospel influences with his characteristic piano playing and original compositions.

On Pray, Kumagai’s trio opens with “Brotherhood”, setting up an atmospherically moody yet light and relaxed vibe. Other album highlights include his live-show favorite “Yellow Tail”, a well-developed modern jazz exciter, and “Choir’s Got Fired”, a laid-back groove with irresistibly catchy riffs and an album highlight. The music is influenced by modern jazz players like Robert Glasper as well as hip hop concepts and includes enough dashes of unexpected changes, odd meters and beats, honest sensitivity, and spicy dissonance to keep the album in regular rotation for a great J Jazz piano trio playlist.

Yukako Yamano: 3rd Stage

Wed, 10 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Yukako Yamano’s 3rd Stage is the third album in her live set series, following her 1st Stage and 2nd Stage naturally and wrapping up the symbolic three-set performance established by the album titles. With ten tracks and a running time of approximately 60 minutes, 3rd Stage demonstrates Yamano’s funky, poppy, delicate, and groovy sides through mostly original songs with a few covers as well.

Differing from the first two releases, this album focuses on her work as a solo artist and showcases many of her original songs. Throughout, the music is infused with her special style of melodic and memorable jazzy pop creations. As a solo pianist, Yamano’s playing is loaded with catchy riffs and repeating patterns over which she develops improvisational explorations. At other moments, she can create lovely, somber themes with fragile atmospheres. Songs like “Mahoruba” and “Before After” range from galloping grooves to sweet and cute music, while the show-stealer “Summertime/Piano Concerto No. 2” merges Gershwin and Rachmaninov themes in an impressive medley. The final track, “Love Coke!”, is another popular crowd-pleaser and a fun tribute to her collection of variations of this addictive soft drink.

Harumi Nomoto Trio: Another Ordinary Day

Tue, 19 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Another Ordinary Day from 2002 is pianist Harumi Nomoto’s debut album as a leader of her own jazz trio… actually, two jazz trios. Recorded over two summer days in Tokyo, the exciting young pianist runs through eight tunes: five songs with one trio arrangement and two songs with a second trio. Also included among the trio tracks is one solo piece, where Nomoto plays on piano the quiet and affectionate “You Only Know What I Know” by saxophonist Atsushi Ikeda.

Bungalow: Unseen Scenes

Sat, 14 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Like explorers on a caravan, Bungalow produces imaginative music on their third album Unseen Scenes from 2015, carving their unique path through new jazz and rhythms.

Compulsively rhythmic and compelling, this album is another fantastical journey through the nooks and crannies of modern jazz with exotic fringes. With Bungalow, creativity is in focus, and on Unseen Scenes this creativity often incorporates repeating riffs and loops of fresh drum patterns and evocative moods. Strands of music weave together to provide the fabric over which saxophone melodies arc and swoop. A combination of dense flavors, spicy accents, and lush spaces with some straight-ahead modern jazz as well.

Yukako Yamano & Yukari Inoue: Dubai Suite

Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Pianists Yukako Yamano and Yukari Inoue make music with two pianos on this mini-album of cheerful exuberance. Dubai Suite is a five-part composition by Yukako Yamano which reflects her appreciation for the exotic locale the music is named for. She recorded this album in anticipation of a late 2021 return trip to Dubai. Based in Tokyo and with frequent travels throughout America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, Yamano has also been to Dubai twice.

Ami Fukui Trio: Urban Clutter

Thu, 30 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The twinkling chords which open Ami Fukui’s debut album Urban Clutter from 2010 shine like a crystalline spotlight, signaling the immediately satisfying sounds and clean, uncomplicated feel-good grooves of the music to come. This first album from the jazz pianist lays down the groundwork for Fukui to showcase her compositional skills for jazz piano trio, which she will explore further on her follow-up albums Amizm (2013) and New Journey (2016).

Ruriko Kawamura: Blossoms

Tue, 19 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Vocalist Ruriko Kawamura released Blossoms in 2016, her second album following her 2011 debut record Loo Loo.

The album is a relaxed tour through 11 varied tracks, all arranged by pianist Seiji Endo who backs up the vocalist throughout the disc. Six songs feature Kawamura singing as a duo with the pianist, and more color is added with violinist Noriko Satomi joining on three tracks and guitarist Akira Sekine joining on two others.

Trigraph: Fever

Fri, 27 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Fever is the 2014 debut release from Trigraph, a band that takes an eclectic approach to their music, focusing on jazz and pop while incorporating various genres and instruments into their music. The core group is the talented trio of musicians Sanae Ishikawa on vocals, Takayoshi Baba on guitar, and Reikan Kobayashi on shakuhachi and other instruments. Two additional musicians fill out the group for this recording, electric fretless bassist Ryoji Orihara, and drummer Yasushi Fukumori.

Toshihiko Inoue & Masaki Hayashi: Mistral

Fri, 16 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Mistral is a soulful live jazz album from sax and piano duo Toshihiko Inoue and Masaki Hayashi, recorded in 2008 and released in 2013. Although the extended title Mistral: Duo at Mister Kelly’s may seem to reference the historically famous Mister Kelly’s in Chicago and live albums from Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, and others, this Japanese jazz album was recorded at Mister Kelly’s jazz bar in Osaka, an independent venue named in honor of the famous American nightclub.

Meu Coracao: Hall Tone

Mon, 05 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

As jazz fans know, Brazilian music and bossa nova tunes are frequently present on jazz albums, playlists, and jazz bars, and Japan’s live scene is no exception. Naturally, Japanese jazz musicians and groups who specialize in Latin genres can also be found in Japan.

One such group is Meu Coração (“my heart” in Portuguese), the creation of Emiko Voice and Taro Sukegawa. The pair delivers impeccable and sweet Brazilian music through perfectly matched voice and guitar. Their 2009 debut album Hall Tone features one hour of Brazilian music through bossa nova, samba, choro, and the like. The simple combination of acoustic guitar and voice brings into relief the strength of the music and atmosphere, and the Portuguese lyrics deliver hints of love songs and bittersweet tales.

Protean: Protean

Tue, 22 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Protean is the first release from jazz pianist Naoko Tanaka, who self-produced and released this album in 2009 under the name Protean along with bassist Naoyuki Seto and drummer Dan Yoshikawa.

With six songs over 35 minutes, the album features all originals, four by the pianist and one each from the bassist and drummer. Album highlights such as tracks #3 “Kirin no Sougen” and #5 “Negotiater” showcase the trio’s stimulating, uptempo jazz-rock, summoning slightly Ahmad Jamal’s later period music with dense figures arranged over churning, funky grooves. The trio also offers slow jazz-pop ballads (“Never Say My Mind”) and modern jazz sketches (“Ocean”, “The Last Train”) to extend the atmosphere.

Shigeo Fukuda & Toshiki Nunokawa: Childhood’s Dream

Mon, 14 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Childhood’s Dream is a 10-song, hour-long studio recording from pianist Shigeo Fukuda and guitarist Toshiki Nunokawa. Both leading veteran players, the musicians are also in-demand sidemen and instructors, well-known in Japan’s live scene from the 1980s through to the current day.

Clean, swinging piano playing together with warm, organic guitar tones balance perfectly over the mostly original material with three jazz standards, “How Deep Is the Ocean”, “The Peacocks”, and “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams”. While the cover songs offer the most swinging and familiar jazz themes, the pair’s original numbers complete the package with shades of rock, blues, and folk interpreted through a Japanese jazz lens.

Shinichi Kato & Masahiko Sato: Duet

Mon, 07 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

On Duet from 2001, bassist Shinichi Kato and pianist Masahiko Sato put forth a misty and stimulating collection of duets. The pair establishes a relaxed rapport based on masterful foundations using 11 original songs for roomy jazz improvisation. While opening slowly in a melancholic mood, the music blooms gradually, drifting around in abstract colors through the first four tracks before settling into more solid ground through the rest of the album.

Fumiko Yamazaki: Here Goes!

Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

From vibraphonist Fumiko Yamazaki, the aptly titled Here Goes! is an enthusiastic introduction to her music with her jazz quartet on her 2011 debut release.

With seven tracks at a running time of 48 minutes, the songs fall into a few distinct styles: poppy and upbeat (#1 “Here Goes!” and #6 “Genkidama”), energetic and jazzy (#5’s “Theme from Lupin the Third”), and beautifully bittersweet and evocative, highlighting the pure ringing beauty of the metal bars of the vibraphone hit in rapid succession by soft mallets.

Fumie Chiba: Beautiful Days

Thu, 27 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

On her fourth and latest album Beautiful Days (2017), pianist Fumie Chiba records eleven new compositions with a jazz sextet, a piano trio plus trumpet, sax, and vocals. While her first two albums Tip of Dream (2009) and Echoes (2013) featured her jazz trio, the expanded group on her previous Roguequeue (2015) and on this album well suits the textures she strives for. Freshness and energy flow through the rich harmonies and interplay with attention paid to the compositional detail throughout the music.

Naoko Sakata Trio: Flower Clouds

Thu, 13 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The Naoko Sakata Trio’s second album Flower Clouds from 2013 describes modern jazz in ethereal form, summoning images like glaciers slowly breaking, waves cresting, powerful and mysterious changes patiently unfolding. It is like floating on an ocean raft, subject to unpredictable swells and unsure of the next movement.

The songs are effective at advancing modern jazz with moments of experimental group improvisation. There is layered jazz with subtle changes as well as heavy chords and rock-beat propulsion. The balance of the music tends towards deep development with a real organic vs. inorganic feeling, a fusion of nature and machine.

Yoshihito “P” Koizumi P-Project: By Coincidence

Wed, 05 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz, soul, and funk bassist Yoshihito “P” Koizumi is an active member of a number of Japanese jazz groups and events, and the 2011 album By Coincidence marks his debut release as “P-Project” featuring Jun Miyakawa on keyboards and Kohzo Komori on drums. With nine tracks and a running time of 34 minutes, the album is full of funky beats, laid-back grooves, retroesque electronic keyboards, and slick bass lines.

Inspiring an easy-go-lucky party mood, the short songs are all of a piece, several even with unassuming titles such as “Sound Check”, “Track”, “Jam 1”, “Jam 2”, and “Jam 3”. It’s easy to put on the album, kick back, and let the music flow and invigorate the mood without any worries.

Yukiko Hayakawa Trio: Gallery

Tue, 13 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Gallery is the 2008 debut release from jazz pianist Yukiko Hayakawa’s trio, an all-original outing with seven tracks clocking in at 44 minutes . Overall somewhat dark and musing, the music conveys mystery with pensive touches of nostalgia and grace.

Recorded with a live and echoey sound, the trio locks in with opening tracks “Mirage” and “Montmartre” setting up a smoky, laid-back atmosphere which runs through the album. The third tune “Happy Days” lifts the mood lightly with a swingy bounce, then “One Night” flirts with trembly space on a slow ballad. “Horoscope” is a funkier 4/4 tune, “Snow Crystal” drifts around with light delicacy, and the final track “Desier” features Hayakawa playing solo piano on an original showcase theme.

Arco: Live At Yoncha

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The piano and cello duo Arco released Live at Yoncha in 2018, a performance recorded at a live music cafe bar in Tokyo. With six songs running 36 minutes, the set captures the feeling of being there as the two musicians blend jazz, classical, rock, Latin, and Japanese sensibilities.

At live events, Arco’s magnetic charm never fails to rouse the crowd with their thought-out arrangements of touching music with irresistible good cheer. The duo connects with talent and pure sentiment, folding chords and melodies with deep feeling through classical/pop hybrids and moments of freewheeling fun.

Chihiro Yamanaka Trio: Madrigal

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

On her third album Madrigal, jazz pianist Chihiro Yamanaka continues on her upward arc, working her magic on jazz standards and originals with a top-notch trio.

With momentum built from her debut Living Without Friday (2001) and When October Goes (2002), on Madrigal (2004), the pianist impresses with new arrangements, tight playing, and flashy piano solos. Recorded in studio with a great live sound, Yamanaka is backed by quality rhythm section mates bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard (stalwart members of Brad Mehldau’s trio), and drummer Rodney Green on three tracks.

Layla Tomomi Sakai: Whisper Not

Mon, 08 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Whisper Not is vocalist Layla Tomomi Sakai’s debut release from 2016. Performing here with an intimate guitar and trumpet combo, the striking singer chooses comfortable jazz standards such as “Black Coffee”, “I Can’t Get Started”, and “There Will Never Be Another You” to introduce new listeners to her smooth, husky voice and relaxing style. Six songs are included, and tempos settle at midtempo swing, bluesy groove, or slow sultry ballads, with energy peaking on the quick and exciting “Devil May Care”.

Duo Tremolo: Resonance

Wed, 03 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Hideaki Hori and guitarist Takayoshi Baba create beautiful music together on Resonance, their first studio recording as the unit “Duo Tremolo”. On eleven tracks made up of four standards and seven original compositions, the pair play through easy-going swing, bop, and jazz/rock tracks with hues of Jarrett, Corea, and Metheney glowing within.

The graceful players combine the dimensions of Hori’s precise, finessed notes and Baba’s snazzy, bluesy lines at relaxed mid-tempo jaunts, rapid and fluid modern pieces, Latin grooves, and gentle ballads. The music is joyful and emotive, and the two converse with a comfortable flow built solidly on their years performing in various settings. The duo clearly enjoys playing together and it comes through in their playful, professional music.

Water Me!: Water Me!

Fri, 26 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Inspiring contrasts like strong and warm, comforting and demanding, smoky and silky, the dual vocal front-line of “Water Me!” delivers new takes on familiar jazz tunes with Water Me! from 2014. Vocalists Ayako Taira and Noriko Kotani harmonize and play off each other, syncing up or alternating in offset phrases as they combine, intertwine, and unspool melodies together.

Although the opening interpretation “Satin Doll” hints at jazz with an aggressive edge, the balance of the music shifts into standard jazz with some pop and ballads included. Whatever the setting, the music spotlights the two vocalists harmonizing and embellishing the melody lines, at times hand in hand, and at others passing the baton with grace and finesse.

Yuka Ueda: Dois

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

On Yuka Ueda’s 2013 release Dois, the Japanese singer assembles thirteen songs from her Brazilian and Latin repertoire that she’s perfected at live spots and events around Japan. The track listing satisfies with many deep gems and a few common Jobim tunes, a boon for jazz listeners who may be weary of the usual bossa novas. Definitely not background music, this album is active with a strong spirit and spicy energy powered by swaying hip rhythms and oscillations tuned to the bones.

Miki Hirose: Scratch

Mon, 01 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Trumpeter Miki Hirose’s Scratch from 2013 sizzles with energy, fueled by impeccable trumpet lines fronting a jazz quintet on this outing. Extra propulsion is garnered from the addition of congas on three of the seven tracks, with funky, Latin, and modern New York jazz vibrations coming together for a satisfying balance of cerebral and physical stimulation. Boiling turbulence, confident swagger, and well-thought out ideas burst acrobatically from the tracks, scratching the itch for flashy yet discerning music.

Takayuki Yagi: New Departure

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Takayuki Yagi’s 2018 release New Departure brings him together with stars of the New York jazz scene for a solid collaboration of New York and Tokyo energies.

Strident and upbeat, the album’s 11 tracks are arranged in a two-set configuration, splitting the album into a jazz quintet set and a piano trio set. The quintet kicks off the music with four tracks as the pianist is joined by Scott Wendholt on trumpet, Ralph Bowen on tenor sax, Jay Anderson on bass, and Billy Drummond on drums. Pianist Yagi features his original tunes which are spiky, fun, and swinging with titles like “Beyond The New Horizons”, “View From Newark”, and “Kyoto Tower”. The titles hint at evocative settings while the music carries influences like McCoy Tyner, Lennie Tristano, and Thelonious Monk.

Akane Matsumoto: Memories of You

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As the sentimental mood hints at in the cover photo and album title, Akane Matsumoto’s 2015 release Memories of You shows a softer side with ballads and heartfelt tunes, set together with her well-renowned fluid bebop and happy jazz style.

Rather than being filled to the brim with high-tempo chases, Matsumoto takes us on a more subdued and delicate journey on this album. While her trademark agility and speed are not completely excluded, the overall mood of the album evokes a slower, more thoughtful elegance.

TCQ: Memories of T

Sat, 07 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Memories of T is a 2017 recording from the group TCQ which brings together Japanese and Taiwanese musicians for a cross-cultural jazz collaboration. This quartet features Taiwanese alto sax player Shawna Yang and three musicians from Japan: Naoko Tanaka on piano, Daiki Yasukagawa on bass, and Takeshi Sakamoto on drums. Eight original tracks make up the playlist, two apiece from each member, with a convivial atmosphere running throughout. The music is straightforward and pleasant with swing and bossa grooves underpinning their polished modern jazz sound.

Naoko Tanaka Trio: Memories

Sun, 18 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A satisfyingly neat outing, Naoko Tanaka Trio’s Memories (2015) leaves a fresh impression of modern Japanese jazz trios. The playing on this album is both playful and precise, with considered arrangements and decorations sprinkled through the welcoming music. Light touches and coordinated rhythmic hits play a role, hinting at styles employed by greats such as the Ahmad Jamal Trio. Attention is paid to the structure of each song, and as with any good jazz record, those structures are filled out with each soloist’s improvisations, bouncing solos off the harmonic movements and the rhythmic frames.

Aquapit: Aquapit

Sat, 19 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz organ trio Aquapit’s first album from 2011 sets up the scene for a rollicking jazz party featuring the warm and fuzzy sounds of a funky jazz organ trio.

The trio Aquapit consists of guitar, drums, and of course the unmistakable sound of the Hammond B3 organ, easily recognizable from classic jazz records and legendary organists Jimmy Smith, Larry Young, and others. The power and otherworldly vibrations produced by this instrument can thrill audiences (once designed for churches as a pipe-organ alternative, a big box of “electric flutes”), and features in modern day jazz jam bands such as Medeski Martin and Wood, Soulive, and others.

Masako Kunisada: Wonderful Life

Sun, 13 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Masako Kunisada’s spiritual, soulful voice channels truth and joy on her first album Wonderful Life from 2012.

With experience singing in jazz clubs, piano lounges, and events across Japan, Kunisada immerses herself in cross-genre influences including jazz, soul, soft rock, R&B, and Japanese traditionals. Her husky voice brims with emotion, and her proficiency in voice and piano charms audiences as she draws from popular jazz standards and deep cuts from other genres.

Kohsuke Mine Quintet: Major to Minor

Wed, 19 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Kohsuke Mine Quintet’s 1993 album Major to Minor is full of life, a straight-ahead jazz outing built upon solid group unity and stimulating jazz improvisation.

Mine is a living legend who started young, releasing his first album in 1970 to immediate acclaim. He cut his jazz teeth with many well-known musicians, including Joe Henderson, Mal Waldron, Sadao Watanabe, Terumasa Hino… the list is long. For a period, he was a long-time member of the fusion jazz group Native Son, after which he returned to leading his own straight-ahead groups, touring, recording, and lighting up the jazz scene in Japan and abroad.

Chihiro Yamanaka Trio: When October Goes

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Chihiro Yamanaka’s second release When October Goes was released in 2002, a natural followup to her impressive debut Living Without Friday released the prior year. This second album features the pianist playing with new recording members Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums, members of the Brad Mehldau Trio who would continue to record and tour to great acclaim like Yamanaka herself.

The ten tracks on When October Goes include three original songs, with the balance of the music being jazz standards and rearranged songs.

Fuse: Live Fuse

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Live Fuse is a 2007 live album from Fuse, a modern jazz quartet headed by Toshihiko Inoue on sax, with Nobumasa Tanaka on piano, Benisuki Sakai on bass, and Tsunoken on drums.

This two-disc album was recorded live in 2005 and captures provocative dynamic changes and soul-touching music swinging from tender pianissimo to fortissimo over vigorous drum beats and rhythm section riffs.

The ornamental twists and organic jams aim to thrill the audience and avoid falling into ruts. While Inoue provides all the compositions, the members reinterpret and occupy the music live, mixing together and shaping the music in performance in a fusion of influence, a tightrope walk of unpredictability.

Arco: Birth

Sun, 03 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The piano and cello duo Arco released their second album Birth in 2019, two years after their debut Asymmetry, showing grace and refinement in a matured and eternally sunny outlook.

Opening with overdubbed cello playing a classical Bach theme, the duo kicks into their otherwise all-original songs featuring their airy style vibrating with positivity and passion. The duo is practiced at producing heady pop with classical influences and a definite pulse. Kishi and Sano’s originals are satisfyingly balanced, with moods shifting like wind through the trees with endearing waltzes, fiery Latin movements, and beautifully poignant and sweet melodies. Although the duo focuses on piano and cello arrangements, some minimal additions of percussion clappers and melodion keyboard add spice to enhance the pure music experience.

Motoi Kanamori: My Soul Meeting

Fri, 24 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz bassist Motoi Kanamori’s My Soul Meeting from 2018 is his album debut as leader, where his jazz group rips and swings through eight tracks of modern piano trio jazz. With a polished, fun touch, the group delivers mid- and up-tempo jazz with propulsive grooves, expressive auras, and well-timed hits. His piano trio is joined by alto and tenor sax on two tracks as well, amping up the energy with edginess and texture.

Yuka Ueda: Agora

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Agora is the 2011 debut release from vocalist Yuka Ueda who specializes in Brazilian samba and bossa nova music, singing primarily in Portuguese at jazz bars throughout Japan.

The striking singer assembles some of her favorite partners for this effort, including guitarist Shinji Hashimoto, pianist Junichiro Ohkuchi, and bassist Daisuke Toi. This jazz family of musicians also joins Yuka Ueda (sometimes written as Yu~ka, Yũka, or Yuuka Ueda) frequently at her beloved neighborhood jazz bar Gate One in Tokyo.

Harumi Nomoto Trio: Belinda

Sat, 04 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Among the modern J-Jazz piano trio mainstays in the collection, Harumi Nomoto Trio’s Belinda is a favorite album to return to for catchy cool original vibes with laid-back warmth. With both loose jams and well-crafted jazz compositions, the album ebbs and flows with mid-tempo grooves and contemporary swinging.

As the moods flow, pianist Harumi Nomoto alternates on acoustic piano and the warm tones of Fender Rhodes electric piano, enhancing the songs with jazz grooves fusing elements of jazz, light funk, swing, blue ballads, and gospel. While favorites like “‘7up”, “Crescent”, and the cozy gospel waltz “My Sweet Brown” deliver chic and polished jazz arrangements, the songs are also interspersed with short jams “M.M.C.M.” in two versions, and closes in unrestrained style on two tracks, with Nomoto first roaming freely on solo piano, followed by the trio free-associating and capturing the moment in symbiotic creativity.

Bungalow: Metropolitan Oasis

Thu, 26 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz quartet Bungalow issued an imaginative and flavorful debut album with Metropolitan Oasis in 2011. Striking and singular, the songs reward repeat listens by offering creative jazz compositions with stimulating blueprints. The songs ebb and flow with energy, grooves, and clever rhythms, where folk and ethnic influences converge with modern jazz, bop, classical, and free elements, pushing boundaries to reach new vistas.

Masahiro Yamamoto, an original member of Bungalow featured on their first two albums, plays alto sax with a warm, textured tone which bends and flutters with visceral energy while the band lays out arcane jazz sounds not confined to the genre. Whether on the free opener “Metropolitan Oasis”, the slinky rocker “Underpass”, the mysterious drama of “Human Lost”, or the elaborate pieces “Bastristurgisism” and “O.P.P.M.”, the album cleverly navigates and develops their art of sound with lovely constructions and comfortable escapism.

Baby Brothers: Bb

Mon, 23 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The living music from vocal a cappella groups can be inspiring and soothing in turbulent times, with voices layered in harmony and synchronized timing for direct connections with each other and the audience. The five-piece group Baby Brothers from Tokyo released their debut Bb in 2007 with their well-arranged jazz, R&B, and hymn-like traditionals. With only their voices and no other instruments, the quality of vocal organic vibrations can powerfully connect with reassuring joy through a skillful, very human communal experience.

Shunichi Yanagi Trio: Bubble Fish

Tue, 17 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz pianist Shunichi Yanagi releases a shimmering modern jazz recording with his Tokyo trio on his 2012 debut Bubble Fish. The ten original songs from the pianist incorporate rock edginess and hip coolness into piano jazz with attitude. Modern jazz trios like E.S.T. or The Bad Plus may have been influences to the trio’s kaleidoscopic sound, pushing traditional jazz boundaries with youthful freshness.

On Bubble Fish, the jazz trio uses full chords and vital grooves on their compositions, bubbling with rock and pop styles infused with jazz improvisation. Yanagi’s angular patterns run up and down the piano keys with an almost electric guitar mindset. Yet, the pianist also shows a light tenderness where soft melodies rise lightly to the surface with positive energy, particularly on album highlights such as the “Shibuya Crossing” and “Prayer”, which closes the album with calming peace.

Yuko Miyawaki: Song of Flower

Wed, 11 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Japanese jazz musician Yuko Miyawaki’s debut album Song of Flower from 2011 brims with understated calm, burning steadily through original, mellow sounds and sparkling improvisation. Miyawaki’s trumpet and flugelhorn centers her core jazz quartet, adding a fifth member on tenor sax to embellish her jazz themes with sweet harmonies and cutting solos on four tracks.

In addition to her compelling horn playing, Miyawaki’s contributions also include original songs and arrangements, all showing a creative style with modern themes calmly developing over sharp grooves with fascinating frameworks. The selected cover songs include a great modern jazz version of the Japanese folk song “Sakura”, the atmospheric latin tune “El Choclo”, “Summer Night” in uptempo swing, and a tender duo with guest pianist Junichiro Ohkuchi (joining on five songs) on the heartful ballad “I’m Glad There Is You”.

Manabu Ohishi Trio: Gift

Mon, 09 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

With the jazz album Gift from 2012, pianist and composer Manabu Ohishi reunites the trio from his album Wish (2010) featuring bassist Jean-Philippe Viret and drummer Simon Goubert, and releases another beautifully-recorded album of Japanese/European piano jazz from the family-run Japanese label Atelier Sawano label.

Ohishi is a lyrical player, infusing his melodic touch with musical emotion and composing songs that fit well with the stylish rhythms from his French bandmates, favoring a deep groove and subtle rock rhythms over swing jazz beats.

Eriko Shimizu: Sora

Thu, 05 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Eriko Shimizu’s Sora is her debut album from 2010 on which she leads her jazz combo through seven songs featuring original and colorful arrangements. Shimizu performs with her piano trio augmented with special guests percussionist Saori Sendo, who supplies bells, chimes, and elemental sounds not typically found in jazz piano trios, and saxophonist Toshihiko Inoue who joins on a few tracks.

With two exceptions, the songs are all originals including four from Shimizu. The pianist’s concepts mostly explore modern jazz territory taken at a medium pace with a light rock/country feel and fleeting moments of abstract color, as if influenced by a certain period of Keith Jarrett’s music. The title track “Sora” (sky) rolls along comfortably and brings to mind calm nature scenes while opening with rain and wind effects for atmosphere. The music continues smoothly into the bluesy noirish “Out of the Blue”, again invoking images of nature as if materialized out of the blue sky. Shimizu’s “Cat Trucks” is playfully Monkish, and “Terra” heightens the mood even more with simmering modal jazz and by adding Toshihiko Inoue’s Jan Garbarek-style soprano sax embellishments.

Yukari Inoue: Sakura

Tue, 03 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Yukari Inoue’s Sakura from 2016 blooms with colorful variety as she jumps across genres as brightly as she hops around the keys. This is her first solo piano album, recorded with a beautiful sound in concert-hall quality.

The pink of Sakura cherry blossoms fits perfectly with her “color of Japan” series of albums, complementing the purple of Murasaki (2010) and fresh green of Moegi (2016), her other albums on her Silver Fingers label. On Sakura, Inoue is alone at the piano, performing songs which suit her personal piano style with influences from standard jazz to pop and classical.

Maiko: Solo

Fri, 28 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz violinist Maiko pours her heart and soul out on her 2018 release Solo, brimming with graceful elegance and drama through the resonance of her strings.

Unaccompanied and pure, the sound is direct and full, as if listening to a private recital in a stately room. Despite performing alone without overdubs or effects, Maiko has the ability to establish a moving pulse with string accents and gorgeous multi-string harmonies, keeping listeners hooked and drawn into the music.

Emiko Voice x Suga Dairo: Phase 2

Wed, 26 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Vocalist Emiko Voice and pianist Dairo Suga perform jazz standards in non-standard ways on their 2009 release Phase 2~~Twist & Shout~~, a followup to their previous Phase 1 duo album from 2006. While the track listing is full of jazz favorites like “Summertime”, “Solitude”, and “Girl From Ipanema”, the standards are anything but ordinary as the music is reinvented in a one-take session with the multi-genre duo exploring different ways of interpreting these gems.

Ryosuke Hashizume Group: Wordless

Mon, 24 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Wordless is Ryosuke Hashizume’s first album released in Japan in 2006, kicking off a rewarding series of modern and absorbing albums from this jazz saxophonist’s stellar group.

Through his modern music, with a clean recording sound and deep reverb, the style of ECM and similar European jazz music is brought to mind. Hashizume’s group for this album is a quartet built on sax, electric guitar, fretless electric bass, and drums, and creates a sound that is both organic and electric, sleekly modern. Hashizume also uses effects to loop his sax on a few tracks, heightening the otherworldly effect on portions of the album.

Chihiro Yamanaka Trio: Living Without Friday

Fri, 21 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz pianist Chihiro Yamanaka’s debut album Living Without Friday turns 20 years old today! Released modestly on October 5, 2001, this album kicked off an impressive run of releases, setting the stage with memorable originals and reinvented standards while introducing new listeners to her amazing technique and creativity.

Popular and in-demand on albums and live events, Yamanaka is based in New York and is a well-known representative for jazz piano from modern-day Japanese musicians. The ultra-proficient and prolific musician has been releasing new albums every year, impressively spanning a multidecade recording career with no signs of slowing down. Living Without Friday caught early attention and hinted at the potential to be unveiled through her many subsequent albums and her penchant for creative arrangements that suit her modern bop and swing jazz style.

Trio Export 63.1.0.X: Small Pieces for Flying Padre

Wed, 19 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The album Small Pieces for Flying Padre from Trio Export 63.1.0.X is a special release of a live jazz recording at Kanmachi 63 in Yokohama, Japan. The piano-bass-drums trio performs the set live as recorded, bringing the listener into the music through the raw recorded sound of the room for an “as if you were there” experience. The ambience of music in an enclosed space performed right in front of your eyes is captured well and transmits the energy of musical drama unfolding in unexpected ways.

Miyuki Moriya: Cat’s Cradle

Mon, 17 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Miyuki Moriya’s Cat’s Cradle from 2010 is modern jazz album from an alto sax quartet featuring engaging sounds and improvisation from exciting musicians. The allure of this album is deepened by the sax leader’s catchy originals, and listeners who are stimulated by angular jazz will be pulled into this music and want to return to these songs again and again.

Also distinguishing the sound is the edgy, metallic sound of the alto sax and the funky, crystalline drumming, with stylish planes of piano and guitar and gliding over the deeply full bass lines. Drummer Sohnosuke draws attention with a concentrated hip-hop energy driving the odd-meter songs, and, along with steady bass lines from Ikejiri, keeps the listener anchored even through unusual rhythms beyond standard swing patterns (see Sohnosuke’s Rin (2018) for similar sounds.)

Reikan Kobayashi: Gakudan Hitori

Thu, 13 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A novel album in several ways, Gakudan Hitori from musician Reikan Kobayashi contains interesting dimensions and juxtapositions. Kobayashi is proficient on many instruments but has primarily made a name for himself by playing shakuhachi in Japan and using the traditional Japanese bamboo flute in jazz music. As strong a voice the whistling wind of the wooden flute is itself, the incorporation of this characteristically Japanese sound to jazz and other music adds to the originality of this 2011 release.

Fumio Karashima Trio: It’s Just Beginning

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Veteran jazz pianist Fumio Karashima was well-known in Japan for his quick, hard bop style and authentic feel which excited audiences at live concerts and tours as well as on albums. It’s Just Beginning from 2004 is a studio-recorded album with the impulse of a live performance set. Indeed, the tracks were selected by the pianist to showcase the trio and the music performed during a 2003 tour, jazz standards reflecting a passion for genuine jazz with significance to the pianist. Karashima, who spent time with drummer Elvin Jones’ group as well as leading his own trios, gained fans both within Japan and overseas and knows how to deliver a good set, making this an exciting jazz trio album.

Daiki Yasukagawa Trio: Trios II

Mon, 10 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Similar in concept to Ray Brown’s Some Of My Best Friends Are… album series in which the legendary bassist plays with assorted partners in jazz, bassist Daiki Yasukagawa’s release Trios II from 2015 features the bassist performing with four different trios assembled from multiple pianists and drummers. A followup to Yasukagawa’s Trios (2010), Trios II brings even more musicians into the recording studio and offers up a new album with the various trios performing 11 songs.

Yudo Matsuo: Bonanza

Fri, 07 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Bonanza, from 2012, is the debut release from guitarist Yudo Matsuo, whose kinetic quartet performs original songs with influences from electric jazz fusion to pop songwriters, a palette of sounds reflecting his varied artistic sides.

The core band is made up of guitar, trumpet, fretless electric bass, and drums, with guest keyboard on three tracks adding a warm bluesy sound for extra soul. While much of the music is built around a fusion jazz/rock mood which runs through the album, the dial also moves to include smooth jazz sounds, evocative jazz waltzes, and pop, including a rendition of “Blackbird” by The Beatles. One track, “Loplop”, comes closest to pure bop guitar with a fast swing beat and walking bass, where Matsuo plays quick jazzy lines in the style of guitarists such as Tal Farlow and Pat Martino.

Hiromi Miura: We Don’t Know Yet

Wed, 05 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Modern jazz albums like saxophonist Hiromi Miura’s We Don’t Know Yet occupy a special place, offering original compositions with creative elements which remain in the mind and call for repeated listens. Performed with consummate skill from the New York- and Japan-based musicians, the album offers five of Miura’s songs and two cover songs, focusing on intricate modern compositions and interpretations.

Miura’s creative songwriting takes on challenges like constructing sweet melodies over shadowy harmonic intervals, odd-metered rhythms, and subtle dynamic changes, also using less tangible influences from snowy weather to fantasy and space. The album was recorded at a time when reflecting on those uncertain moments between transitions, not knowing what will come next but bravely moving forward.

Azumi: Almost Like Being in Love

Mon, 03 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz singer Azumi’s 2010 release Almost Like Being in Love is a cheery and ebullient jazz album filled with fresh takes on classic jazz standards. With well-thought-out arrangements and a satisfying choice of tunes, a variation of moods with an undercurrent of lively swing is established right from the inviting title track. Other standards include “On Green Dolphin Street”, “My Favorite Things”, and “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head”, played as a cute jazz march.

Noriko Satomi: A Love Supreme

Thu, 30 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Noriko Satomi brings the passion and vibrancy of jazz violin to an acclaimed jazz composition on her 2019 homage to A Love Supreme, which received a Jazz Japan Award from Jazz Japan magazine in January 2020.

No doubt familiar to most jazz fans, John Coltrane’s 1965 masterpiece sets a high bar for any jazz group, with both rote recitation and musical reinvention being risky propositions. At the same time, re-experiencing the classic performance at live concerts or on newly recorded albums can provide a thrilling way for fellow fans and the performing musicians themselves to appreciate the music together.

Hideaki Kanazawa & Sumire Kuribayashi: Nijuso

Tue, 28 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Veteran bassist Hideaki Kanazawa and stellar pianist Sumire Kuribayashi join up for a calm and lyrical jazz duo on Nijuso from 2017.

Using a palette of jazz standards, new compositions, and free improvisation, the duo creates a tranquil mood with songs brimming with warmth. The richly-recorded sounds of piano and bass float in and around the melodies with unhurried timing and free improvisation with vocal-like qualities. Unloosing the emotional core may be the goal as the two musicians work together to create beautiful experiences, a canvas of lullabies and spiritual-like visions.

Rabbitoo: National Anthem of Unknown Country

Sun, 26 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The textured sound of Rabbitoo makes a lasting first impression on their debut album National Anthem of Unknown Country from 2014, a fusion of jazz, rock, and electronica influences.

The five-piece group led by guitarist and primary songwriter Motohiko Ichino produces otherworldly atmospheres with loops of sound and cascading sheets of melody set against precise rock and dance-inspired beats. The instruments riff and interlace, fitting together like puzzle pieces at times, an intense chorus at others, while swirling over underlying rhythmic grids for a dusky, spacey, trance-like aura.

Maiko Trio: Live! Three

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz violinist Maiko trio live! Three captures a night in Tokyo in 2016, recorded live at The Glee concert hall and released as a CD and high-resolution download later that year. Jazz violinist Maiko leads the trio which includes well-known fusion guitarist Hiroki Miyano and popular in-demand pianist Shikou Ito.

With violin, acoustic guitar, and piano strings resonating together to create dramatic music, comparisons could be made to fusion albums from Al Di Meola and Chick Corea. Yet Maiko’s trio is unique, combining years of experience with jazz, pop, classical, and Latin music, together with Japanese nuances for an energetic and engrossing event.

Routine Jazz Sextet: Routine Jazz Sextet

Tue, 21 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Routine Jazz Sextet from 2008 promotes genuine jazz from Tokyo with the flavor of 1950/60’s era jazz giants such as Horace Silver and Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers. Not just a throwback, the band honors the musical legacy while incorporating the youthful, modern sound and mindset of current jazz players from Japan.

Perhaps not well-known among standard jazz fans, the Routine Jazz Label from famed producer and DJ Kei Kobayashi gained international renown with “club jazz” compilations such as Schema, Deja Vu, and Ricky-Tick, beat-oriented music remixed with jazz and bossa nova samples for dance clubs and trance-leaning airwaves.

Hideaki Hori Trio: In My Words

Fri, 17 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Hideaki Hori lets his dexterous fingers do the talking on In My Words from 2010, a solid jazz trio record from Japan.

Hori leads a bright, swinging trio on this jazz record, full of high-energy peaks and steady grooves. Extremely nimble in his playing, Hori’s clearly executed phrases fill his improvisation with exciting patterns and curlicues, urged on by the propulsive anchor of rhythm section members Daiki Yasukagawa on bass and Gene Jackson on drums.

Seiji Tada: Workout!!

Mon, 13 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Seiji “Taddy” Tada cooks with bebop, blues, and ballads on Workout!! from 2018. This album, his 13th as leader, is a dream come true for the musician, as he recorded with stellar American jazz musicians whom he had previously toured with, famed jazz drummer Lewis Nash and his trio. No doubt these players, all worthy idols of Tada’s, provided extra inspiration for the high-caliber and exciting playing on this recording.

Miki Hayama: Prelude to a Kiss

Thu, 09 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz pianist Miki Hayama’s 2006 album Prelude to a Kiss features beautiful piano jazz improvisation over smart compositions with a solid jazz trio, straightforward and serious modern jazz. This album, her second as leader, received a 5-start rating from the Japanese jazz magazine Swing Journal.

While the album cover art and title present a gently elegant mood, the music does not shy away from stimulating energy. The ten tracks cover an equal amount of original compositions and rearranged jazz covers (“Beatrice”, “I Love You”, “Skylark”, “Whose Shoes”, and “Prelude to a Kiss”).

NHORHM: New Heritage of Real Heavy Metal -Extra Edition-

Tue, 07 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

An unlikely fusion of heavy metal and modern jazz strikes all the right chords on NHORHM’s fourth album New Heritage Of Real Heavy Metal -Extra Edition-, released in 2019 in Japan.

While jazz musicians have traditionally interpreted popular music and Broadway musicals for inspiration, NHORHM harvests heavy metal for a surprisingly fitting and rich source of material.

Pianist Hitomi Nishiyama expertly rearranges heavy metal songs for piano jazz trio arrangements, imbuing the music with her characteristic elegance, darkness, intelligence, and fun. The intricate harmonic lines that Nishiyama excels at playing fit well with the dense heaviness of her carefully curated metal choices, complemented marvelously by the dexterous energy of Ryoji Orihara’s fretless bass and the rhythmically clever dynamics of Manabu Hashimoto. Far from benign cocktail jazz, the resulting music has a smart sharpness inspired by the volume and roughness of the metal spirit. While not distorted or aggressive, it is both light and heavy, and definitely rocks in its own way.

Yako Horikita: Shining Hour

Fri, 06 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Fans of vintage vocal jazz will be drawn to singer Yako Horikita’s debut album Shining Hour, a swinging collection of twelve jazz standards delivered with a shining, sparking sincerity.

Singing along with a piano trio plus saxophone, Horikita picks winners from the classic jazz songbook with tunes including “Nice Work If You Can Get It”, “Falling In Love With Love”, and “Under A Blanket Of Blue”. Horikita’s voice, a pleasant mix of deep huskiness with a light delicate touch, is confident, friendly, and warm, fitting perfectly with her jazz combo’s solid performance.

Mabumi Yamaguchi: Let Your Mind Alone

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The silvery tones of masterful jazz sax glide and soar through dynamically modern jazz on Mabumi Yamaguchi’s 2017 recording Let Your Mind Alone.

With eight original songs penned by Yamaguchi, the music is solid, confident, dramatic, and melodically entrancing. From the gripping opening track “Sequel To A Dream”, the songs flow with a fantastic balance of stimulation and control, offering various styles from peppy bossa rhythms, loose, modern swing, sweet ballads, and brightly positive tunes mixed with stimulating dark tinges.

Mie Joké: Etrenne

Wed, 16 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz vocalist Mie Joké’s 2018 release Etrenne is a fun and fancy swing jazz outing, a fresh throwback to classic vocal jazz recordings. Like the best of jazz lover’s disks, this collection hits the mark with a great selection of familiar jazz standards performed with a loving touch.

Vocalist Joké purrs atop her jazz group with a confident grace, a breathy tank of soulful emotion and romance. Her solidly swinging jazz combos feature accomplished veteran musicians, with a different group performing for “Side A” and “Side B of the recording as if on a classic jazz vinyl LP.

Shinichi Kato: Bass on Cinema

Fri, 27 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

With a vintage romantic feel inspired by classic cinema, Shinichi Kato’s 2011 release Bass on Cinema is a well-crafted collection of great film music. Performed as a duo, with Kato on bass and Taihei Asakawa on piano and synthesizer, the album contains absorbing and dramatic moments, as befitting a tribute to the great songs of cinema. With the deep bass on melody, the dazzling piano and arrangements fill out the canvas with cinematic moods ranging from calm, sweet, and introspective to mysterious suspense, classical refinement, rock-and-roll abandon, and delicate melancholy.

Minoru Yoshiki Soulstation: Path of Hope

Tue, 10 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Special Guest Contribution // Press Release

The birth of a world of visual sound!

SOULSTATION will spark your own creative imagination. This trio makes powerful and fascinating music.

Upon Listening to Bassist Minoru Yoshiki’s New Album:

For jazz musicians, the ideal music is the kind where subjective ideas bounce off each other, yet somehow give birth to a harmonious whole. This album brilliantly achieves that ideal.

When the wind blows, trees sway and rustle. When it rains, placid streams become rushing torrents. The natural world is full of such examples of call-and-response. So is the music of this trio, which is just that: a force of nature.

Sayaka Kishi Trio: Life Is Too Great

Wed, 04 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Expressing an exuberance for life with an original jazz spirit, Life Is Too Great from the Sayaka Kishi Trio is a vivid recording, full of variety and infused with the pure music spirit of Sayaka Kishi.

Active in many groups and collaborations, Kishi returns to the classic piano trio form on Life Is Too Great and leads a powerhouse jazz trio, showcasing talent and songwriting with new original tunes, with the ever-hardy, invigorating Ryoji Orihara on fretless bass and crisp rhythmic master Akira Yamada on drums.

Daiki Yasukagawa Trio: Kanmai

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Like the expansive cover depicting a peaceful blue ocean and sky, jazz bassist Daiki Yasukagawa’s trio on Kanmai creates a mood of a rolling deep and lofty grace.

The album includes nine modern jazz tunes, most being original compositions from Yasukagawa, and one each from pianist Sato and drummer Hashimoto. Two standards are also included, a swingy, stylish “Long Ago And Far Away”, and a bowed-bass feature on “Greensleeves”, a delicate, sacred performance heavy with emotional weight.

Nobie: Bénin Rio Tokyo

Thu, 15 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

On Bénin Rio Tokyo, Japanese vocalist Nobie takes us on a musical journey spanning West Africa, Brazil, and Tokyo with sparkling duo collaborations. This music is catchy and deep, with layers of voice and guitar infused with a spirit of love, respect, and masterful finesse. With an ideal selection of musical partners and songs, Nobie’s rhythmically thrilling and lush voice cascades through the music like water over rocks, beautifully soft and dynamic.

Layla Tomomi Sakai: The Island

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Easy and breezy, as if dozing in a hammock between palm trees, Layla Tomomi Sakai’s The Island stirs up visions of vacationing and relaxing in sultry lands as music floats softly by.

Sakai’s deep voice embraces the listener, dancing lightly through bossa novas and Latin-tinged music. The music is comforting, the musicians performing pieces that come and go in an uncomplicated manner, lulling the listener into a state of reassuring comfort. Sakai uses her voice gently yet confidently, producing an effect of sweet directness with an affectionate touch.

Seiji Endo: Genji Monogatari Volume 1

Tue, 16 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Through a beautiful piano sound with deep reverberations, Seiji Endo’s latest solo album releases atmospheric music as if arising from the dreams and memories of ancient Japan. Genji Monogatari Volume 1 features the pianist performing his original compositions with dramatic textures woven from this ancient Japanese epic.

As with his previous albums Sakura Meditations and Circle For Peace, Endo plays his entrancing music alone, freely and beautifully. On this album, the novel’s influence adds layers of exoticism to the dramatic compositions. The result is evocative and mysterious music that strikes the heart.

Hitomi Nishiyama Trio: Sympathy

Thu, 20 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The sympathetic joy of listening to three accomplished musicians improvising and creating beautiful music together is aroused on Sympathy from the Hitomi Nishiyama Trio from 2013. This kind of sympathy, that of being made happy by the joy of others, builds on the listener’s own enjoyment in listening to the art created here.

The Hitomi Nishiyama Trio creates music that is exquisite and graceful, delicate and refined, where the music flows and builds and whirls in a stylish modern jazz style, with piano chords and melody lines moving over the deep bass and crystalline cymbals like wind passing through and around leaves on boughs, swaying and producing tranquil sounds of nature.

Hikari Ichihara Group: Move On

Thu, 16 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Hikari Ichihara’s fifth album Move On features the trumpeter’s quintet performing finely-tuned compositions with jazz integrity and a vibrant sound full of sparkling energy. The tracks range from knife-edge sharp modern jazz, bouncy swing, wistful ballads, and rapid-fire straight ahead jazz. Also included is a single jazz standard, a fresh interpretation of “Everything Happens To Me”, delivered here with a relaxed groove.

The quintet consists of strong, like-minded players who play with a polished yet intimate feeling, creating a solid framework for the improvisers to gracefully leap and flow over. Ichihara’s trumpet solos consistently capture attention, full of impressive decorative swoops and turns, loaded with dramatic soul and a beautifully fluid and organic sound.

Yuichiro Aratake: The Light Flows In

Thu, 09 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Yuichiro Aratake’s The Light Flows In is a solo piano collection which sets a calm, relaxing mood, offering peace through original songs and charming jazz and pop standards. With patience and sincerity, Aratake performs the pieces as slow ballads, reflecting the gratitude for loyalty, friendship, and support that inspired the performances.

This album features a special Bösendorfer Imperial Concert Grand piano, the deep and full tones echoing beautifully as the pianist moves freely through his selection of originals and familiar covers (“I Loves You, Porgy”, “Round About Midnight”, “What The World Needs Now”, “Blackbird”).

Harumi Nomoto Trio: Virgo

Wed, 03 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Harumi Nomoto’s 2014 release Virgo is a constellation of grooves, moods, and textures, boldly incorporating inter-genre approaches as piano jazz is woven with Eastern sounds, African rhythms, and hip-hop-influenced beats.

Virgo follows the pianist’s previous albums Another Ordinary Day (2002) and Belinda (2007) and completes a trio of records that progressively show an expansion of creative vision and songwriting tact. Through arrangements honed at Japanese jazz clubs through prior years, the music was released to eager fans with this album of seven originals plus an arrangement of Thelonious Monk’s “Green Chimneys”, which gets a unique slow-and-low groove treatment here.

Zephyr: Zephyr

Thu, 21 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Through jazz, folk, rock, and imagination, the music on Zephyr unfurls like smoke rising from fragrant incense, floating and curling in beautiful patterns in the air. A trio consisting of saxophone, acoustic guitar, and electric guitar, the front-forward unit is unbound by genre, producing otherworldly sounds evocative of folk songs from a distant world.

Peaceful, comforting, and deep, the ten tracks feature mostly original music supplied by the members, summoning tranquil and emotional moods. The music is lyrical and poetic, with suggestions of Jan Garbarek, Al Di Meola, Bill Evans and Stan Getz, and even Sting and the Beatles felt among the album’s tracks.

Masako Kunisada: M

Thu, 14 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The deep, soulful voice of Masako Kunisada warmly embraces the listener on her 2014 recording M, performing classic jazz tunes as well as selections from the 70’s/80’s American soft-rock songbook, and closing with a tender ballad.

The simple directness of this recording reflects an honest ethic, a special feeling of being home-made, made with care, carefully curated. Guided by happiness and an irrepressible joy for music, Kunisada sings from the heart and draws from various influences including jazz, R&B, Japanese soul and more, infusing it all with her sincere, expressive voice.

Blue Dot: Halo

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

United by a stellar theme of the universe, the Tokyo jazz quartet Blue Dot explores stars and galaxies on their debut album Halo from 2016.

Through ten songs tuned to the mysteries of space and time, the music is solidly modern and positively charged. Tokyo-based drummer Makoto Takeshi leads a quartet consisting of sax, piano, bass, and drums, with original songs supplied by all members of the group.

The energetic opener, “Sturm und Drang” (by pianist Tamashi Goto) is a sharp-edge sprint through modern jazz, while “Bird” (by bassist Goro Takano) is a creative and mesmerizing tune, soft and deep, inspired by dreams of flying.

Akane Matsumoto: Playing New York

Tue, 19 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

New York-style jazz with a fresh Japanese take is the focus on 2010’s Playing New York, where popular Japanese pianist Akane Matsumoto leads a trio with veteran NYC musicians Nat Reeves (bass) and Joe Farnsworth (drums).

With ten songs ranging from speedy bebop to romantic ballads, well-known tunes from jazz influences are covered, such as Oscar Peterson’s “Wheat Land”, Bud Powell’s “Celia”, and Duke Ellington’s “Sunset and the Mockingbird”, a sensitive and lingering close to the album. Matsumoto also presents three original tunes: “Playing”, a whirlwind Phineas Newborn Jr-style quick bop, “Twilight”, a soft, tender ballad in three, and “My Dear”, a comfortable and heart-warming bossa nova tune.

Shinpei Ruike & George Nakajima: N.40°

Tue, 12 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Art music from two musician artists, N.40° is sweet and stimulating, mellow and manic, alternating between states on this compelling album. The emotive trumpet-and-piano duo of Shinpei Ruike and George Nakajima delivers atmospheric standards as well as boundary-pushing free improvisations. With moments of both comfortable and experimental jazz, the pieces alternate from limpid and romantic to free and offbeat wild abandon; fun improvisational pieces are placed like splashes of color between beautiful jazz songs (“The Nearness of You”, “Pure Imagination”, “Alone, Alone and Alone”).

Ryosuke Hashizume Group: Visible/Invisible

Thu, 24 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Music that takes you places, Visible/Invisible from the Ryosuke Hashizume Group presents six works of art from the saxophonist/composer, perfectly executed by the five musicians, through mellow, warm electric guitar, grooving and smooth electric fretless bass, organic and emotive piano, thrillingly creative drumming, and center-stage visceral tenor sax, filling out the spaces of otherworldly jazz.

Through sounds ranging from ethereal and delicate to deep and groovy, the music steadily develops in dramatic style, patiently, with nooks and crannies of musical texture creating a fulfilling, lush experience. This is art music, creative jazz with rock, modern classical, and free elements, carefully crafted with space for the skilled musicians to stretch out together, painting fantastic and vivid colors with harmonic richness and rhythmic dynamicism.

Maki Fujimura: Best Wishes

Mon, 14 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Glamorous Osaka-based singer Maki Fujimura enraptures the audience with her silky voice and energetic improvisation on this live album recorded at the intimate Tokyo jazz bar “Apple Jump”.

Going by “The Duo!” together with the amazing pianist Hideaki Hori, the two musicians expertly create music with pulse, Fujimura building upon and playing with Hori’s rhythmic timing and impeccable pianistic touch, with her soft yet strong vocals gliding around the piano’s notes in perfect interplay.

Tokuhiro Doi Quartet: Amalthea

Mon, 07 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Tokuhiro Doi’s Amalthea from 2011 presents a modern jazz quartet from Japan led by the evocative tones of jazz clarinet. Although jazz clarinet can prompt thoughts of bouncy big bands and classic swing music, this album veers more towards dark and mysterious shades that will interest fans of creative modern jazz.

Doi’s mature compositions embrace the sounds of jazz in various settings: mid-tempo walking jazz, energetic and frenetic jazz, and elegiac European classical sounds. Like many other modern recordings, facets of bebop, hard-bop, and cool jazz influences also surface effortlessly in the soulful music.

Sanae Ishikawa: Grown-up Christmas Gift

Mon, 24 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Enterprising singer Sanae Ishikawa presents us with her passionate voice on Grown-up Christmas Gift from 2018, a mini-album celebrating classic and modern Christmas songs in a jazz and pop setting. As part of her successful Seasonal Japanese Songbook Project crowdfunding, the popular singer released this album along with her full-length album 冬-Winter- to great anticipation, just in time for the Christmas season that year. 春-Spring- (2019) and 夏-Summer- (2020) have also been released in this jazzy J-pop series, with a hope of seeing 秋-Autumn- in the not-too-distant future.

Taihei Asakawa: Waltz for Debby

Fri, 21 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Although it may seem overly-ambitious to reinvent the classic 1961 Bill Evans Trio live recordings Waltz for Debby and Sunday At The Village Vanguard, pianist Taihei Asakawa boldly takes that challenge on his deeply fascinating and atmospheric avant-garde solo piano recording Waltz for Debby. Performed live for an audience in 2018, the material and mood are compelling: introspective and patient, occasionally decorated with flights of vibrant melody, constantly summoning emotion from the notes released from the beautifully-recorded piano.

Fumie Chiba Trio: Tip of Dream

Sun, 02 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz pianist and composer Fumie Chiba’s Tip of Dream is a great example of modern jazz piano from Japan, displaying high-caliber technique and creative approaches to modern jazz composition.

Through the album’s eight tracks, Chiba plays with confidence and verve, showing shades of McCoy Tyner’s rapid abstractions, Bills Evans’ melodic sentimentality, and Mulgrew Miller’s well-rounded fluency and swinging groove.

The set starts off strong with “11th Door” which quickly demonstrates the control and power that this trio delivers. The performance is sleek and modern, at times aggressively powerful yet not lacking a sensitive touch and deep energy. From the attention-grabbing opening, the music moves into pretty ballads, lyrical sentimentality with modern flourishes, Herbie Hancock-style funky jazz, and finishes with a piano solo with balanced pop prettiness.

Trispace: Trispace

Tue, 06 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Inspired by a modern, clean European jazz sound, the jazz piano trio Trispace on their debut 2010 album brings to mind modern jazz along the lines of Swedish jazz supergroup Esbjörn Svensson Trio (EST). Focused in concept, Trispace plays with delicate, beautifully recorded instruments, airy jazz-rock beats, and occasional odd-beat rhythmic structures that carry the listener along on comfortable musical journeys. Even the stylishly serene jacket design conveys the intended atmosphere, perhaps paying homage to the great modern jazz recordings from the ECM label visually as well as aurally.

Michiyo Matsushita: Sally Gardens

Thu, 25 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Michiyo Matsushita’s Sally Gardens is a lively solo piano album featuring original compositions set against a few Irish folk songs and jazz standards.

Through the rich, evocative style of folk music (“Sally Gardens”, “Paddy Ryan’s Dream”), Matsushita’s playing is sweet and comforting, enhanced with fascinating reharmonizations and arrangements. The two jazz standards (“Liza”, “Segment”) impressively show various sides of Matsushita’s jazz playing, with elements of classical, bebop, stride, and other facets of piano surfacing in exciting contrasts.

Seiji Endo: Sakura Meditation

Mon, 22 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Sakura Meditation from pianist Seiji Endo is a gorgeous collection of evocative solo piano pieces. Through the ten tracks, Endo searches for and finds the perfect phrases and dramatic touches to draw out emotion from his beautiful and pure compositions.

Most of the songs are just three to five minutes long with strains of classical and slightly jazzy influences surface in the music. The music deeply evokes feelings ranging from pretty etude-like sketches to the childlike innocence of a lullaby, to pieces overflowing with romantic drama and emotional depth. Endo’s poetic style and his passion are directly focused through a soft touch and breath-like pulse: simplicity and brevity through understated effectiveness.

Sayaketts: Colors

Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

At times light and carefree, yet also deeply and seriously musical, Sayaka Kishi’s “pure music” spirit shines beautifully on Colors. While the pianist is a vibrant part of many collaborations covering standard jazz, pop, classical, and Latin fusion among others, here with her group Sayaketts the trio focuses on a fusion of electric funky jazz and R&B pop music amid calmer moments and heart-warming pop-styled piano jazz.

About half of the 13 songs on this album are upbeat, funky, and energized with the sounds of keyboards, piano, electric bass, and drums: glittery music full of energetic live and rock beats. Aside from the fun jams, other songs are charmingly cute and positive (“Iris”, “GAME”) with others crafted to be deeply serious and dramatic scene-stealing compositions (“Dilemma”, “Tegami”, “Toki No Itazura”, “Guzen No Waltz”). While the mood shifts are frequent, the variety of colors explored leaves a rich and lasting impression of fun, welcoming, and engaging music.

Taihei Asakawa Trio: Touch of Winter

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Taihei Asakawa’s beautiful Touch of Winter from 2013 is a contemplative jazz album rooted in calm emotion: Memory, melancholy, and rebirth combine to paint stimulating music on a pure white winter tableau.

The 10 original songs on this album unfold in the emotion-heavy Brad Mehldau vein of modern piano trio jazz. Patient, somber ballads lie alongside straight-ahead compositions thick with melodic effusions, traces of classical influence, and bluesy suggestions as well.

Koichi Sato: Utopia

Wed, 26 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Utopia is the debut leader album for pianist Koichi Sato, who reaches for high standards in his original compositions and impressive performances. This is stimulating modern jazz performed by a piano trio not limited by standard jazz conventions, based in jazz tradition while incorporating some classical and pop influences as well.

The nine original songs on this album are full of lyrical freshness balanced with impeccable timing and a sensitive touch. The music covers territory from dream-fantasy jazz waltzes, Lennie Tristano-style post-bop, melancholy ballads, and groovy rock-beat uplifting music, all united with sense of the peace and comfort brought about by Sato’s poetic vision of utopia.

Ami Fukui: Amizm

Fri, 07 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Ami Fukui’s second album Amizm advertises “Mellow and Groovy” on the label, and delivers a nice package of funky, Electrik Band-styled jazz. Amizm, this version of Fukui’s jazz piano trio format, brings together piano, electric keyboards, slick electric bass, and exciting drumming to imbue a classic and bright fusion jazz sound to Fukui’s modern compositions.

The longer tracks #2 “Lion’s Empire”, #4 “Absinthe”, and #8 “Jungle City” showcase these characteristics best and build on Fukui’s trademark creativity. Her song craft is as sweet as ever and includes catchy melodies and transitions, joyful rhythms, and groovy riffs used to great dramatic effect.

Hakuei Kim Trio: Open the Green Door

Wed, 05 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Modern to the point of futuristic, Open the Green Door features an exciting jazz piano trio with the pianist Hakuei Kim leading a stellar Australian rhythm section of Ben “Donny” Waples on bass and Dave Goodman on drums.

With the mature confidence of solid musicianship balanced with fresh enthusiasm, the trio strives for musical excellence with impressive nimbleness and dark, atmospheric explorations. The album features eight tracks made up of five original compositions from the pianist and three reworked jazz standards.

Yasumasa Kumagai: I Need a Change, Too

Fri, 31 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Yasumasa Kumagai’s debut album from 2008, I Need a Change, Too, establishes his J Jazz hip hop concept with force: From the shocking pink cover art and the unexpected electronic soulful beats of the brief opening track “I.N.T.R.O.”, the album takes thrilling twists and turns through jazz laced with groove, centered on a powerfully soulful and vibrant modern jazz piano trio.

Fun and catchy but with a serious musical depth, the music covers both cool and bittersweet moods, at times evoking influences from Robert Glasper’s style of gospel-inspired hip-hop jazz. Kumagai’s songwriting skill and precision playing make for a high-quality J Jazz album, full of soul and passion rooted in authentic jazz with ultra-modern sharpness.

Hideaki Hori Trio: Unconditional Love

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Unconditional Love is the 11th album from pianist Hideaki Hori and features his trio playing live at Nardis, a gem among Tokyo’s many respected and intimate jazz bars. Throughout this double album, the trio captures the relaxed and friendly atmosphere that this home-ground bar provides, all while creating top-notch jazz to delight the audience.

Unconditional Love features songs recorded live over three consecutive nights at Nardis. Presented on the two discs as “1st set” and “2nd set”, this arrangement gives the listener the feel of being a part of the in-house audience from the first song to the encore. The long-established trio’s playing is impeccable with high levels of musicianship and solidarity, eliciting joy and affinity from the audience.

Akihiro Yoshimoto Quartet: Moving Color

Sat, 18 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Moving Color is the second album from saxophonist Akihiro Yoshimoto and his quartet. With eight original songs drawn from his palette, he blends serious musical exploration and improvisation with elements of modernity, jazz tradition, and a bit of humor. Strength in composition and group cohesion is clear: the quartet plays confidently, as if they are disclosing a secret bit by bit, modestly exhibiting their skills yet playing with brimming energy and a locked-together sense of where they are going.

Wataru Hamasaki Meets Akane Matsumoto Trio: Big Catch

Mon, 13 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

“Swing & Blues” is the name of the game with /Big Catch/’s jazz quartet album from 2013. Undoubtedly, the concept of a jazz sax giant meeting a piano trio is a tried and true formula on classic jazz albums (“Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson” and “Coleman Hawkins with the Red Garland Trio” come to mind), and this quartet upholds the tradition properly with a big sound and spirit, singing and swinging, bluesy and fun all-around good-feeling jazz.

Yukako Yamano: 1st Stage

Wed, 08 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Popular pianist Yukako Yamano’s 1st Stage is a rich and airy musical soufflé. Her catchy debut album from 2013 mixes together swinging jazz, modern fusion, cute pop, and straightforward sincerity. On 1st Stage, the world-traveling pianist introduces eleven of her feel-good melodies and propulsive rhythms as she balances unpretentious cheer with dramatic tension on the lively tracks.

The listener may notice subtle Japanese pop and classical influences in the playing. With quick energy and clever movements, the music is fun, bold, and sincere. The songs vary from grooving straight-beat swing (“Over Parents”, “On A Sunny Moon”), rock-style solo piano (“Galopping Ponies”), romantic, sad ballads (“Another Step”, “Kanashimi No Mukougawa”), serious adventures (“Double A”, “City Walker”), anthemic ballad-rock (“Kanashimi No Mukougawa”), and quirky, candy-sweet fusion (“Wild Sweets”). On the whole, the album strives to involve the listener directly without overcomplicating the compositions, all while ensuring the musicians are having fun creating music together and keeping the audience hooked.

Takako Yamada: The Flow of Time

Fri, 27 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Takako Yamada’s The Flow of Time features 11 original compositions from the pianist, a bold collection of exciting moods and modern compositions in adventurous style.

Starting assertively with a modern jazz/rock feel, electric guitar and acoustic piano lay out high opening stakes for an album filled with dramatic creativity. The songs explore moments of musical sensitivity, relaxed swing, Monkish joy and freedom, and bluesy contemplation, with full sounds of crystal piano tones, warm electric guitar, bright drum work and deep, dark bass anchoring the group sound.

Ko Omura: Introspect

Tue, 17 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Drummer Ko Omura leads the listener on his voyage of introspection on his debut album Introspect, portraying the colors and maps of his musical mind.

This 2011 recording features eight tracks: six original songs from Omura in his detailed, catchy style, unfolding story-like with depth and groovy accuracy. The music brims with fiery energy, passionate yet also containing also a smoldering, somber melancholy. Two of the tracks are group-created free jazz collaborations, splashes of color adding mystery and adventure. The recorded audio is also done beautifully, with separation of drums and cymbals gracefully captured with a lush live sound.

Taihei Asakawa: Catastrophe in Jazz

Tue, 22 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz pianist Taihei Asakawa pushes boundaries on his 2011 release Catastrophe in Jazz.

This modern jazz piano trio album is a fascinating one, balancing moments of furious musical fire, where rapid melodic lines are played as if by electric guitar, alongside slower melancholic moments of pianistic beauty, heavy with emotion.

The 12 original songs on this album range from hot to cool, exploring clever odd-metered structures, modern lyrical European-style jazz, energetic rapid-fire aggression, classical piano sounds, moments of meditative reflection, and even quirky hiphop-influenced jazz pop.

Sanae Ishikawa: Feel Like Makin’ Love

Thu, 10 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Tokyo-based jazz singer Sanae Ishikawa sings from her heart, presenting her full, confident voice on choice jazz standards with her 2007 debut Feel Like Makin’ Love.

Her beautiful, crystal-clear delivery resonates with an easy joyfulness and charm, yet can also reflect depths of dramatic emotion to moving effect. Building on the strength of her veteran backup musicians, her innate jazz timing elevates the performance and welcomes the listener straight into the music.

Bungalow: Past Life

Tue, 08 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The jazz group Bungalow displays their original approach to modern art jazz on their second album, Past Life, from 2013. As a jazz quartet featuring airy alto sax and piano, double bass, and drums, the group incorporates creative musical elements such as the use of Indian tabla drums and subtle sound effects and processing, a bit similar to the style of the Swedish jazz group E.S.T.

Bungalow’s compositions are in focus here, and like modern songwriting from Wayne Shorter, the music differs from standard jazz patterns with interesting, well-constructed songs, featuring elements of upbeat swing, poetic and meditative calm, visceral rock and organically looping riffs, embellished with searching melodies and smart improvisation played brilliantly. This is well-balanced and addictive modern jazz that weaves deep musical grooves with imaginative compositions and skillful playing, reflecting future-facing sounds built on traditional music from Past Life.

Ayumi Koketsu: Rainbow Tales

Fri, 04 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Saxophonist Ayumi Koketsu creates exciting modern jazz on her third album Rainbow Tales from 2012, where she leads of group of accomplished Norwegian musicians on a modern-sounding recording.

The session was beautifully captured at the famous Rainbow Studios in Oslo, where the European-label ECM sound seems to influence the session under Koketsu’s leadership and virtuosity. With crystal clear sax and cymbals riding above the warm, full piano and deep wood bass, this style is particularly noticeable on “Mikazuki” (Crescent Moon), a folk/rock-like tune reminiscent of Keith Jarrett.

Yuya Wakai: Images

Thu, 26 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Joyful notes flow effortlessly from pianist Yuya Wakai as he confidently opens his solo piano album Images.

His catchy exuberance is on display as he flies colorfully through chords reminiscent of Keith Jarrett’s fluid style. On ballads such as the charming “Easy To Love” and heartfelt “Over The Rainbow”, Wakai plays with a loving touch.

Different sides of standard jazz and solo piano are portrayed among the eleven tracks. Exciting drama builds with a rock-ish, upbeat “Better Days Ahead” (Pat Metheny) and a pop exploration of “Great Day” (Paul McCartney) which evokes music Brad Mehldau might offer. A moving cover of a Japanese animation theme, “Aimo Tori No Hito” is included, played in a sad yet hopeful mood with deep meaning.

Miki Hayama Trio: Wide Angle

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Miki Hayama creates superb jazz on Wide Angle, exploring powerful, edge-of-your-seat quickness with modern dimensions. This album is her third as a leader and received awards from the Japanese jazz magazine Swing Journal in 2009 and 2010.

With the album title perhaps being a nod to the angular McCoy Tyner-ish style of playing that Hayama excels at, the music is full of various moods. Hayama’s trio thrives on quick tempo and high-energy improvisation, a great platform for the pianist’s skill with rapid patterns and leaping bursts. Her agile solos are full of notes which seem to climb and swirl and fall into place like musical puzzle pieces. At mid-tempo songs and slower ballads, her graceful side shows an impressive command of modern jazz piano and smartly constructed arrangements.

Ken’ichiro Shinzawa: Piano Works

Mon, 16 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Ideal for peaceful, calming piano, Ken’ichiro Shinzawa’s Piano Works features seven original compositions with a sweet purity in the musical message.

The slow, melodic music conveys a pure innocence, almost evoking Japanese Studio Ghibli movies with scenes of happy animated characters walking through peaceful woods and resting on hillsides. With song titles like “Gentle Breeze” and “Quiet Leaves”, the pianist may have been in a similar state of mind when composing these piano sketches.

Hara Dairiki Trio: You’ve Changed

Thu, 12 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The Hara Dairiki Trio creates a jubilant atmosphere on You’ve Changed, playing choice jazz standards from the bebop and straight-ahead jazz songbook.

The drum-led trio creates a live sound, bright and open, in a chord-less configuration consisting of drums, bass, and alto sax. The stripped-down sound creates both purity and rawness that pulls the listener straight into the music, loose and fun and in control, with soaring, bebop saxophone fluidly soaring over the solid double bass and drum foundation.

Manabu Ohishi Trio: Wish

Tue, 10 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

From Osaka-based label Atelier Sawano comes this beautifully-recorded jazz trio recording starring pianist Manabu Ohishi. The label’s concept of “hand-made jazz” features jazz music which one could describe as having Japanese attention to detail and craftsmanship with European touches. On Wish, the music upholds the classic jazz piano trio tradition, evoking lyrical jazz trio recordings such as those from the Bill Evans Trio.

Ohishi’s strength as a romantic melodist is evident as the opening notes from the piano sound, heavy with sentimentality. His vibrant improvisations often unspool with passion, as if he is pushing notes out physically from the piano, squeezing out as much expression and emotion as possible.

Hitomi Nishiyama Trio “Parallax”: Live

Fri, 06 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This 2016 album simply entitled Live from Hitomi Nishiyama’s Parallax piano trio marks 10 years since her label debut Cubium in 2006. With various projects and albums released under her name, this is the third release for her Parallax group, an edgier, groovier, and rhythmically-energized jazz piano trio.

Recorded live over two nights at the Creole jazz bar in Kobe, the eight songs feature her original compositions plus a rearranged “My Favorite Things”, with a new pulse and layers added to the popular standard.

Mayuko Katakura: The Echoes of Three

Mon, 02 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Mayuko Katakura’s 2015 album The Echoes of Three captures an exciting reunion of old friends whose strong connections and shared history result in a high-level trio session. With plenty of speedy McCoy Tyner angularism and Monkish spontaneity, Katakura spurs the trio on, delivering a great balance of compositional planning with in-the-moment abandon.

The first five tracks are back-to-back originals, starting with the contemplative “Echo” leading into the bouncing “Into Somewhere” (based on the standard “Out Of Nowhere”), the exquisite “A Dancer’s Melancholy” (also performed on her 2010 recording Faith), a fiery group improvisation “At The Studio (Reunion)”, and the modern “Directions”, honoring influences from jazz pianists Mulgrew Miller and Geri Allen.

Les Komatis: Les Komatis

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Three established musicians join up to release Les Komatis, a rich fusion of jazz, pop, and Brazilian influences combined for thrilling and moving music.

Voice, flute, and piano fill the aural landscape, with hand percussion adding a visceral rhythmic pulse. Starting with Akemi Ohta’s “Spur”, darting melodic lines weave over heavy piano riffs and harmonies on several songs, while other songs set up sensitive moods with ballads and bossa. The musicians even layer their voices in chorus at one point (on Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing”), permeating listeners with soulful warmth and passion.

Kaori Vibes Quartet: Cross Point

Fri, 23 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Vibist Kaori Nakajima returns with her second album Cross Point featuring KVQ: Kaori Vibes Quartet (formerly Vangy!!), a jubilant combo with jazz vibraphone springing out mellow tones at the center.

Starting with the high-energy “Cross Point”, the quartet explores directions from straight-ahead jazz and relaxed swing to quiet ballads and Spanish-tinged rubato. With skilled playing and engaging compositions, highlights include the pop-catchy “Dandelion”, the edgy “Flicker”, a nod to Horace Silver and Cedar Walton on “Golden Pine”, and the soft atmospheric reverb of “Moonlights Underwater”, summoning undulating waves in the comfort of twilight.

Atomi Hamada: This is Atomi

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz singer Atomi Hamada releases This is Atomi, a five-track debut featuring songs she has loved as jazz instrumental standards. Here, using her voice as an instrument, she adds a fresh dimension to songs that some listeners may have heard only instrumentally before.

This is intimate, close-quarters jazz, with piano and bass backing up the vocals for a soft mellow mood.

Starting with a quiet dynamic, Hamada sings a wistful “Round Midnight” before moving to a relaxed “Speak No Evil” and a cheery “All The Things You Are”. She wraps up the five-track album with a catchy “Ladies in Mercedes” and a reconstructed “Confirmation” to close the set on a bebop high.

Ami Fukui Trio: New Journey

Fri, 16 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Ami Fukui’s third album New Journey grabs the listener’s attention with colorful, immersive songs, 11 well-crafted originals played with exciting energy and vigor.

Much of the music builds on strong rhythms and bassline hooks (credit given to Kudo and Fukumori, whose brightness and expert rhythms fit the music perfectly), over which catchy melodies soar.

Throughout the album, surprises and discoveries often surface – bonus interludes, doubled-up lines, coordinated syncopation, even some voice and handclaps - compositional embellishments that demonstrate Fukui’s dedication to careful songwriting which pleases the listener. The result: lush music that grooves with fun, pure and simple.

Meu Coracao: A Tempo

Wed, 14 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The Japanese vocal-guitar duo Meu Coração releases the stunning A Tempo as a return to an earlier form. While the duo is well known for playing acoustic Brazilian music at sold-out concert halls and their Hall Tone albums, this sixth album presents dramatic variations with an exciting full-band sound.

The album starts with a vibrant “One Note Samba” and also features a catchy “Lawns”, the peppy Brazilian tunes “Corrida De Jangada” and “Batacuda Surgiu”, and a sentimental, lush “Amazon River”. The album closes like a sweet lullaby with a dreamy “Love Me Tender”.

Seiji Endo: Tsutaete Ikou

Sun, 11 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In memory of the lives taken by the devastating Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, three musicians formed the Tsutaete Ikou project. Pianist Seiji Endo and vocalists Hiroco Nagano and Shinya Nitta were touched by the brave and kindhearted students they met at a benefit concert, children who became an inspiration for the musicians.

“Tsutaete Ikou” is the resulting heart-warming anthem, dedicated to strengthening the spirit of survivors and helping to soothe painful memories. The title echoes a stone monument at Ishinomaki high school which promises to tell their story forever. After disasters such as this, one may feel hopeless individually, yet the act of remembering together, passing the message on, and uniting with music does wonders to support the spirit.

Hitomi Nishiyama Trio: Music in You

Fri, 09 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Hitomi Nishiyama’s 2011 album Music in You features an established trio that shares a cohesive sensibility, creating beautiful textural moods with European-flavored jazz influences. As befits a group of skilled jazz musicians, the players breathe as one while creating textures of sound, restrained yet deep with emotion.

Like the gracefully knotted thread art on the album cover, Nishiyama’s music also seems to be composed of delicate lines, intricately flowing and interweaving to create a weightless construction of deep substance.

Tomoka Miwa: Colors in Silence

Wed, 07 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Tomoka Miwa, Tokyo-based jazz and pop singer, uses her jazz palette on Colors in Silence, a live recording from 2015. Playing with a piano, bass, and drums combo, she sings jazz standards such as “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and “My Favorite Things” and the fan-favorite “A House Is Not A Home”. Some spice is added to the set with the classic bolero “Somos Novios”, and the groovy samba-funk “Skindo-le-le”, while the sultry “Love Dance” and the beautiful hymn “Hallelujah” add extra colors to the canvas.

Sumito Oi: Sumitty & The Funfair

Tue, 06 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Sumitty & the Funfair is a 2015 release from drummer Sumito Oi and his band of merry music makers, assembling here to produce an original work of creatively poppy jazz. Not circus clown tomfoolery, but, rather, light and glittery music played with a cheerful buoyancy and sensitivity by improvisational jazz musicians. The theme is musical fun, wide-smiled mirth carried by a sweet nostalgia for amusement park ambiance.

As a drummer’s quartet, rhythm moderates the music delightfully, propulsive but never overpowering. Flutes with electric and acoustic instruments add evocative flavors, leading us through the fair and summoning musical images like childhood memories.

Sachiko Ikuta Trio: Haru No Kaze

Sun, 04 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A jazz pianist who balances lyricism with boldness, Sachiko Ikuta leads a piano trio on Haru No Kaze (Spring Wind) from 2012. Legendary jazz trumpeter Terumasa Hino also joins on two songs, adding an adventurous splash of avant-garde improvisation to the album.

Starting with the title track “Haru No Kaze”, the sense of an overture is felt through the light Japanese touches of a sweet melody which turns into the whirling winds of a solid jazz piano trio locking into a tune together. The next track, “Last Tango In Paris”, introduces a mood of evocative drama and intrigue with a relaxed beat.

Mayuko Katakura: Inspiration

Thu, 01 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Mayuko Katakura’s 2009 debut album Inspiration immediately impresses. The album kicks off at a rapid pace with “Blues For Tyner”, a tribute to one of her jazz inspirations pianist McCoy Tyner. Right from this fierce opening, Katakura’s amazing technique is on full display with angular, acrobatic lines flying through this up-tempo tune.

In addition to speed, Katakura’s confident jazz piano sense extends to bluesy grooves and touching sensitivity. This is a pianist who plays with a dedication to the music and to those she has been inspired by. The ten tracks on Inspiration, with originals and nicely-arranged standards, make this a well-balanced set with a variety of tempos and moods.

Sohnosuke Imaizumi: Rin

Tue, 27 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Drummer Sohnosuke Imaizumi lays down impressive foundations with his debut album Rin. Having worked as a member of groups including Quasimode and Beatmoss, this is his first album as a leader. These 14 tracks feature his trio playing original songs and jazz standards, interwoven with hip-hop-influenced grooves and spacey drums-and-sampler interludes.

A gorgeously-recorded drum and cymbal sound makes Imaizumi a pleasure to listen to as he plays with his well-suited bandmates. His rhythmic sense is masterful, lightly delivered with ease as he improvises fills, accents beats, and plays with time. His drumming is particularly in sync with bassist Kazuhiro Sunaga from the Japanese jazz group Quasimode, where Imaizumi previously drummed for five years and released five Blue Note releases.

Toshihiko Inoue: Vayu

Mon, 26 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Vayu captures a solo saxophone performance from veteran jazz player Toshihiko Inoue in 2006, released in 2016.

Originally planned as an indoor solo performance, the fine spring weather lured Toshihiko Inoue outside to perform in a garden terrace. Surrounded by nature, Inoue’s music conveys gentleness and introspection, even inspiring birds to sing along with his mellow sounds. Quiet outdoor noises, the creaking of wood, and other ambient sounds create a peaceful mood as a recording which facilitates an absorbing experience.

Ryosuke Hashizume: Needful Things

Fri, 23 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Four accomplished musicians reunite for Needful Things, a live recording of original compositions, bewitching music with a touching beauty.

Starting with a slow build-up of sounds and chant-like effects, the songs develop deeply, breathing traces of folk, pop, and contemporary jazz into melancholy themes. Without drums or percussion, the quartet is able to create a slightly floating feeling, while the players’ steady pulse keeps the time anchored, subtle yet solidly unwavering.

Rie Taguchi: The Gift

Wed, 21 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Vocalist Rie Taguchi leads a swinging sextet on her first full-length album, The Gift.

Her sultry voice seems to crack smiles and reminisce on old times as she dips and sways through the music. Popular standards such as “I Wish You Love” and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” convey her cheerful energy, hearkening back at times to a type of Las Vegas showroom jazz. Her bright charm describes a sparkling smile, perhaps even a tipsy grin as she gracefully sings the notes.

Koichi Sato: Melancholy of a Journey

Tue, 20 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist and composer Koichi Sato’s 2016 release Melancholy of a Journey features a distinctive jazz sextet: a piano trio adding clarinet and guitar for modern groundedness and cello providing graceful maturity.

Sato conceived the main theme while traveling in Norway and viewing a certain painting. The work of art, Art Rolfsen’s “The Big Station”, graces the cover and inspired “The Railway Station”, a four-part suite arranged over four tracks. This music emerges and recedes through tracks #1, 6, 9, and 12, resulting in four distinct songs with common echoes.

Seiji Endo: Circle for Peace

Sun, 18 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Seiji Endo, a poet at the piano, plays his original compositions for solo piano on his second solo album Circle for Peace. While he plays unaccompanied throughout, a children’s choir (Zushi Iruka Jido Gasshoudan) also joins him briefly on tracks 1 and 11, reminding one of the childlike purity and hopefulness conceived in his music.

Through sincerity depicted on the album cover and title, the concept is peace and comfort. Accordingly, Endo’s playing is full of emotion: tenderness and sensitivity ring throughout, with some melancholy mixed in, alternately romantic, classical, and soft pop at times. Melodic quotes from his previous album even make appearances. Overall, Endo conveys his personality through his soothing music filled with hope and beauty, calm and peace.

Takuji Yamada: Lite Blue

Sat, 17 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Takuji Yamada is a professional jazz musician who takes care with his jazz. His first album Lite Blue from 2012 reflects that care through his beautifully written compositions and nicely-arranged standards, not to mention his spot-on stimulating jazz sax playing.

Accurate playing, adventurous phrasing, and emotional balance mark this modern jazz album with a distinctive New York flavor. The NY-based rhythm section players keep the soloist’s backdrop consistently interesting through the range of moods, from modern straight-ahead jazz to bluesy, groovy, and romantic.

Mayuko Katakura: Faith

Fri, 16 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Faith is the second album from Mayuko Katakura, an amazing jazz pianist with an impeccable touch that echoes jazz piano legends. Listening to Katakura, one can sense the fondness and appreciation for players like McCoy Tyner and Sonny Clark. In fact, the album’s wistful ballad “Blue Sonny” was written for Sonny Clark by Katakura.

This straight-ahead jazz trio is marked by warmth between the musicians, who agreed to not over-arrange the recording session and have faith in the group and their love of jazz. Simple and irresistable, the group jumps in and swings hard together with skillful agility over five of the pianist’s originals and five jazz covers. The resulting sense of relaxation allows their individual mastery and group cohesiveness to produce exciting results, proving their faith to be well-rewarded.

Junichiro Ohkuchi Trio: Invisible

Tue, 13 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Accomplished pianist Junichiro Ohkuchi leads a trio of solid veterans in the straight-ahead jazz tradition on his 2016 album Invisible. The trio works well together, demonstrating the equal partnership and careful intercommunication that occurs between professional jazz musicians. Evident throughout is a confident sense of risky looseness, with complete control of timing and notes, each member supporting and energizing one another.

The pianist Ohkuchi contributes three original songs (the opener is a highlight) with other tunes by Andrew Hill, Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, and others – undoubtedly influences on Ohkuchi’s piano style. The result is a skilled piano trio having a great time making high-caliber jazz.

Keisuke Nakamura: Humadope

Mon, 12 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Trumpeter Keisuke Nakamura leads a group of contemporary jazz musicians called Humadope, a post-bop Jazz Messengers-styled quintet with a trumpet-sax front line and piano-bass-drums rhythm section. The name itself (a mix of human/mad/dope) suggests a dangerous edge on blisteringly fast tunes as the skilled soloists riotously burn through the changes. Yet, the group handily balances this attitude with a warm sensitivity played on soulful ballads and cooler numbers.

This album consists of well-written original compositions with a few covers thrown in (Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones). Overall, this is an excellent debut with a variety of moods, tempos, and exciting solos showcasing some premium J Jazz from the current crop of musicians.

Hitomi Nishiyama Trio: Many Seasons

Sun, 11 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

With a clean, clear pianist’s touch melding jazz with classical and a subtle rock sensibility, Hitomi Nishiyama’s 2007 album Many Seasons is reminiscent of great European jazz melodists (Giovanni Mirabassi comes to mind), with lyrical passages twisting through rich harmony and odd meters. Aside from the high technical prowess, the beautifully-written songs overflow with delicate emotion, with pangs of nostalgia and sweetness in abundance.

This album was recorded in Stockholm with two Swedish musicians, befitting the graceful melding of European and Japanese musical minds on display.

Satoshi Kosugi: Bass on Times

Thu, 08 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Bass on Times is a 2009 album from jazz bassist Satoshi Kosugi, a well-known and active musician in Japan’s jazz scene spanning several decades. For this recording, Kosugi assembles familiar partners and veteran players such as the bluesy Shinji Hashimoto on guitar and Kazuhide Motooka on piano, to deliver hard-swinging standards such as “Monk’s Dream”, “Vierd Blues”, and “The Best Thing For You Would Be Me”. With good arrangements and strong bass, naturally, the well-established musicians deliver quality jazz with a genuine good spirit throughout this satisfying record. One happy highlight even has Kosugi joyfully whistling the melody on “There Goes My Heart” as he doubles with his bass line to open and close the swinging tune.

Kaori Vibes Quartet: Flying Mind

Sat, 03 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Kaori Vibes Quartet is a jazz quartet centered around the lovely ringing bell-tones of jazz vibraphone. After three years of playing together, the group formerly known as Vangy!! (note the vibraphone mallets “!!” in the name) released their eagerly awaited debut album Flying Mind in 2013, much to fans’ delight.

The magically mellow yet bright sounds of the vibraphone fill the tracks of this album, bouncing through songs swinging with positivity and charm, creating relaxing, feel-good music. The compositions include foot-tapping modern jazz tunes, two pretty ballads, a soulful groovy number, and a speedy rendition of “Grease Piece” by Horace Silver – a rewarding effort for all fans of jazz vibraphone.

Akiko Suda: Flowers On The Hill

Thu, 01 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Flowers On The Hill is a beautiful album of tender and impeccably delivered music from the vocalist Akiko Suda. The album features lovely original compositions together with jazz, bossa nova, and pop standards performed artistically with creative arrangements.

The talented musicians play sensitively and at times sound like a Brad Mehldau-inspired modern jazz piano trio, creating a lush background for Suda’s masterful voice.

The album starts strongly with four catchy and elaborate originals penned by Suda and pianist Yuichi Narita, then moves into jazz and pop territory. Novel versions of “Waters of March”, “Doralice”, Chick Corea’s “Crystal Silence”, and the jazz standards “How About You” and “What a Wonderful World” fill out the middle of the tracklist. The album closes sweetly with two pop songs, Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird” and Randy Newman’s “I Think It’s Going To Rain Today”, a pairing perfectly matched with the band’s modern, affectionate mood.

Hiroco Nagano: Okurimono

Thu, 01 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Okurimono is a two-track release from vocalist Hiroco Nagano with pianist Seiji Endo. On the first track, the duo takes a relaxed approach to the beautiful jazz ballad “Someone To Watch Over Me”. On track two, guitarist Arata Umahara joins in on “Okurimono”, an original song written by Endo with Japanese lyrics penned by Nagano.

Although there are only two tracks here, the music serves to whet the appetite and showcase the sweet, sensitive music crafted with love and care.

Arco: Asymmetry

Wed, 31 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Sayaki Kishi and cellist Mayumi Sano released their first album together under the moniker Arco with Asymmetry in 2017. The pair’s music consists of original songs with a single Bach composition, all played in lovely and skillful arrangements. With more than a slight touch of classical elegance, the music spans various moods with verve: upbeat, fresh, somber, and refined. Although it may be apt to call this music classical-pop or pop-classical rather than typical jazz, the improvisational spirit and composed musicianship are definitely on display and quite enjoyable.

Sayaka Kishi: Featuring Te

Wed, 31 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Featuring Te, a 2014 release from pianist Sayaka Kishi, is a fun and bright collection of original solo piano tunes with some guest musicians contributing as well.

This album’s printed title feat.手 (“Featuring Hands”) fittingly describes the pianist’s concept, to create a fun jazz album showcasing original compositions for piano (and hands) with jazz, pop, and classical influences. As the songs play out, one gets the feeling of dipping into Kishi’s deep store of originals, ranging from upbeat energy to comfortable dreaminess with several musical genres melded together. Along with her compositions, the album closes with a graceful rendition of the traditional ballad “Danny Boy”.

Akane Matsumoto: Night & Day