浅川太平 on Jazz of Japan | Brian McCrory

Ryosuke Hashizume Group: As We Breathe

Sun, 17 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As We Breathe is the 2008 release from the Ryosuke Hashizume Group, a sax-led ensemble of sax, guitar, drums, bass, and piano. This jazz-quintet combination of instruments and players forms the perfect medium for bringing Hashizume’s penned compositions to life. I’ve introduced this group’s other releases at earlier points, although in an out-of-order sequence, so this article completes the set of the group’s six releases to date.

As We Breathe, with nine tracks and about 70 minutes, is the second album out of the six released by the group. Despite the earliness of this and their previous album (their debut Wordless), their concept was already well-defined based on Hashizume’s compositions and musical direction, and the musicians show a cohesive personality with intuitively-linked playing and precise timing.

Kazumi Ikenaga & Taihei Asakawa: NordNote

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

NordNode is a 2020 album from drummer Kazumi Ikenaga and pianist Taihei Asakawa, with ten tracks and fifty-five minutes of music performed with care, maturity, and a strong bond between the two musicians.

This album captures a directly connected musical conversation between drummer Kazumi Ikenaga and pianist Taihei Asakawa. A duo made up of drums and piano is not a very common format in jazz, but it is a format that really shows how, like with the circular yin-yang symbol, the two musicians fit perfectly together and fill out the space as if thinking, moving, and playing as one.

Daiki Yasukagawa Trio: Trios II

Mon, 10 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Similar in concept to Ray Brown’s Some Of My Best Friends Are… album series in which the legendary bassist plays with assorted partners in jazz, bassist Daiki Yasukagawa’s release Trios II from 2015 features the bassist performing with four different trios assembled from multiple pianists and drummers. A followup to Yasukagawa’s Trios (2010), Trios II brings even more musicians into the recording studio and offers up a new album with the various trios performing 11 songs.

Shinichi Kato: Bass on Cinema

Fri, 27 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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.

Taihei Asakawa: Waltz for Debby

Fri, 21 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Although it may seem overly-ambitious to reinvent the classic 1961 Bill Evans Trio live recordings Waltz for Debby and Sunday At The Village Vanguard, pianist Taihei Asakawa boldly takes that challenge on his deeply fascinating and atmospheric avant-garde solo piano recording Waltz for Debby. Performed live for an audience in 2018, the material and mood are compelling: introspective and patient, occasionally decorated with flights of vibrant melody, constantly summoning emotion from the notes released from the beautifully-recorded piano.

Taihei Asakawa Trio: Touch of Winter

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Taihei Asakawa’s beautiful Touch of Winter from 2013 is a contemplative jazz album rooted in calm emotion: Memory, melancholy, and rebirth combine to paint stimulating music on a pure white winter tableau.

The 10 original songs on this album unfold in the emotion-heavy Brad Mehldau vein of modern piano trio jazz. Patient, somber ballads lie alongside straight-ahead compositions thick with melodic effusions, traces of classical influence, and bluesy suggestions as well.

Taihei Asakawa: Catastrophe in Jazz

Tue, 22 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz pianist Taihei Asakawa pushes boundaries on his 2011 release Catastrophe in Jazz.

This modern jazz piano trio album is a fascinating one, balancing moments of furious musical fire, where rapid melodic lines are played as if by electric guitar, alongside slower melancholic moments of pianistic beauty, heavy with emotion.

The 12 original songs on this album range from hot to cool, exploring clever odd-metered structures, modern lyrical European-style jazz, energetic rapid-fire aggression, classical piano sounds, moments of meditative reflection, and even quirky hiphop-influenced jazz pop.