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”. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

Vocalist Emiko Voice and pianist Dairo Suga perform jazz standards in non-standard ways on their 2009 release Phase 2Twist & 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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...