Kazumi Ikenaga

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. ...

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. ...

Among the close to thirty album releases from pianist and composer Hitomi Nishiyama’s catalog, Calling (2021) is the third album recorded with one of her regular trios. This particular trio with bassist Yasuhiko “Hachi” Sato and drummer Kazumi Ikenaga is also featured on Nishiyama’s Sympathy (2013) and Music in You (2011). These three musicians have maintained close musical contact with occasional performances together since then, so this album is not only a long-awaited recording reunion but also a heartfelt response to various bittersweet events described in Nishiyama’s liner notes. ...

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. ...

Hitomi Nishiyama’s 2011 album Music in You features an established trio that shares a cohesive sensibility, creating beautiful textural moods with European-flavored jazz influences. As befits a group of skilled jazz musicians, the players breathe as one while creating textures of sound, restrained yet deep with emotion. Like the gracefully knotted thread art on the album cover, Nishiyama’s music also seems to be composed of delicate lines, intricately flowing and interweaving to create a weightless construction of deep substance. ...

Niwatazumi is a wonderful modern jazz record from drummer Kazumi Ikenaga and Pauseland, a Danish group described as ambient jazz with Scandinavian folk influences. Spacey original compositions and mature musicianship flow in a breathy, open style resembling a modern ECM recording. Relaxing and anthemic, the music on Niwatazumi (translated as a large puddle remaining after heavy rainfall) is at times mesmerizing and at other times gently rocking and grooving. It’s a captivating journey from a drummer’s quintet, focused on ethereal ambiance in a way that constructs scenes and visions drawn out of nature, memories, and the texture of life. ...