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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...