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. ...

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. ...

There’s a nice choice of small jazz bars in the bustling Asagaya neighborhood mere steps from the train station, including Manhattan, Staccato, and the recently renewed Klavier. Figure 1: Setsuo Sato (drums) Trio with Masahiro Ishiwata (piano) and Yuki Ito (bass) at Klavier (October 2025) Just west of Tokyo and right along the Chuo line train station, Klavier is a great choice to listen to jazz in a cozy environment with a dark wood den-like atmosphere. In business since 1982, Klavier exudes a palpable sense of local jazz history and classic elegant touches in its comfortable environment, one that combines classy service levels with the friendly tone of a neighborhood hangout. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

A respected elder jazz spot in the Tokyo jazz club scene, the much loved Ginza Swing is an upscale restaurant-styled jazz room in Ginza. Swing has been serving up live jazz for nearly fifty years in a sophisticated setting that pairs jazz with gourmet food in the legacy luxury district of Tokyo. Figure 1: Toshimitsukuni Vocal Matsuri live concert with Hibiki Sato and Eri Yazaki on vocals, Rena Toshimitu on drums/vocals, Mitsukuni Tanabe on guitar, Hideaki Yoshioka on piano, and Yosuke Terao on bass (October 2025) ...