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. ...

The jazz space at Cafe Cotton Club sits below street level in a multilevel building that at first glace seems like a sparkling but otherwise normal semi-fancy restaurant in the student neighborhood of Takadanobaba in Tokyo. Figure 1: Hideaki Yoshioka (piano) Trio with Kosuke Ochiai (bass) and Shinnosuke Takahashi (drums) at Cafe Cotton Club (November 2025) ...

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. ...

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). ...

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. ...

The sign outside advertises “Jazz & Live | Manhattan | 3F | Jazz School” in an illuminated round sign. Coming down the street, it almost resembles a white baseball with red stitching from a distance. Manhattan is nestled along more bars and other joints on Star Road, a street running alongside the Chuo line train tracks, giving a sense of a classic, dark Tokyo neighborhood. Beyond Manhattan’s illuminated sign, the stairs up to the third floor are otherwise nondescript, until you reach Manhattan’s landing where friendly signposts and posters greet your arrival and welcome you in. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...