栗林すみれ on Jazz of Japan | Brian McCrory

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.