Motohiko Ichino 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.

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.

Melodies: Melodies

Sun, 22 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The band Melodies released their self-titled debut album in January 2025, under the leadership of guitarist and composer Motohiko Ichino. Ichino’s music is rooted in his otherworldly compositions and full-bodied guitar tone, a structure that Melodies expands upon with two entwining saxophones and adventurously roaming drums.

This four-member group consists of Ichino on guitar and baritone guitar, Kenta Tsugami on alto saxophone, Minyen Hsieh on tenor saxophone, and Akira Sotoyama on drums. As this quartet has no bass player, they form a subtly floating, bass-less group sound. Yet Ichino’s guitar work fills up the space nicely, especially when he subs in baritone guitar. All of the songs on Melodies were written by Ichino, and the album was recorded at a live performance at Velvet Sun in Tokyo on June 24, 2024.

Ryosuke Hashizume Group: Side Two

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Saxophonist and composer Ryosuke Hashizume has released six albums with the Ryosuke Hashizume Group over nearly two decades. These albums feature Hashizume’s uniquely original compositions played by his long-running group. This group has mainly been a quintet (of sax, guitar, piano, bass, and drums) with many of the same members present throughout the years.

In particular, guitarist Motohiko Ichino and fretless electric bassist Ryoji Orihara have been a constant and large part of the sound of the group. They are brilliant electric partners to Hashizume’s breathy and sawtoothed acoustic sax sound (Hashizume also dips into electricity a bit when playing his sax as cycles and drones looped through a device, occasionally).

Koichi Sato: Embryo

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Koichi Sato’s two-disc album Embryo is another remarkable showcase for the talented composer/arranger/pianist. Unfolding the gift-like box presents two CDs enclosed in an all-paper-and-cardboard-constructed package, a pleasing way to open the concept album. The placid cover art also carries a surprise, one that is illuminated when the lights are turned down for a listening session.

The concept is made clearer in the titles of the two discs, Disc 1 “Water” and Disc 2 “Breath”. The two titles perhaps symbolize the transition from womb to world, and describe the sounds of each side. The first disc has Sato playing fourteen of his songs on solo piano, and the second finds Sato playing with small ensembles on twelve tracks, with some of his songs rearranged and repeated between the two discs.

Motohiko Ichino: Sketches

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Sketches by Motohiko Ichino is a 2007 jazz album featuring Ichino’s guitar trio and quartet playing his original music. At one hour and 5 minutes, the ten songs lay out an atmospheric and subtle sound, one where Ichino’s tonally rich guitar swings and sways with a warm, vintage electric sound through his songs.

Ichino’s guitar is in the spotlight, naturally, as this is a guitarist’s album featuring his original compositions. As a guitar trio with acoustic bass and drums, Ichino takes up most of the melodic and harmonic duties as he spins the chord structures, theme statements, and most of the solo improvisation over the precise drum and bass structures.

Takumi Seino & Motohiko Ichino: Frozen Dust

Sat, 11 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Frozen Dust is a live recording that captures guitarists Takumi Seino and Motohiko Ichino playing improvised jazz during their first set of the night at Kanmachi 63 in Yokohama. The two-track album is full of abstract improvisation throughout its forty-six minutes. The music is experimental to a degree, but close listening reveals musical themes within the subtle compositional frameworks and free improvisation.

This first meeting of the pair demonstrates not only their guitar playing but also their liberal use of electric effects, adding modulated buzzes, textures, echoes, and filters to their mellow yet edgy musical tones. These guitar effects add a lot of personality to the music, setting up atmospheres that evolve from playful and curious to dark and intimidating.

Kaoru Azuma / Hitomi Nishiyama: Faces

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The album Faces from 2020 is the follow-up to vocalist Kaoru Azuma and pianist Hitomi Nishiyama’s first album Travels (2013). As with the earlier work, this album features mostly original compositions from the pianist that are delicately adorned with the light and airy voice of Azuma, who adds lyrics and instrument-like vocalizing to the music.

Along with Azuma and Nishiyama are the same members as before, guitarist Motohiko Ichino, saxophonist Ryosuke Hashizume, and bassist Toru Nishijima. On the tracks, the five musicians play in different combinations including a duo, trios, quartets, and the full quintet for subtle variations in sound, structure, and solo space.

Rabbitoo: The Torch

Sun, 22 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Opening with a single-tone drone, electronic jazz music group Rabbitoo continues their retro-futuristic sound on their second album /The Torch /from 2016.

Digital and analog sounds swirl and mix through Motohiko Ichino’s guitar, laden with textural effects and deploying modern music and rhythms alongside carefully tuned sound and static in an audiophile’s frame. This is vibe-setting music that wouldn’t be out of place in a fan playlist of lofi study beats or on the edges of a digital-future jazz collection.

Ryosuke Hashizume Group: Acoustic Fluid

Fri, 28 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The title of the album Acoustic Fluid from the Ryosuke Hashizume Group captures the essence of moving, flowing sounds that fill up this music. Like most of Hashizume’s albums and live shows, his original compositions are featured on this 2012 album, his sixth release. Throughout /Acoustic Fluid/’s nine tracks, the five-member group expands these charts with push-and-pull activity, like waves on water or breaths of air.

The music on this album alternates between slow, free sketches and mid-tempo modern jazz. The slower tracks are beautifully patient, somewhat open-ended with room for the group to pulse and grow organically while trekking through the movements.

Ryosuke Hashizume Group: Wordless

Mon, 24 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Wordless is Ryosuke Hashizume’s first album released in Japan in 2006, kicking off a rewarding series of modern and absorbing albums from this jazz saxophonist’s stellar group.

Through his modern music, with a clean recording sound and deep reverb, the style of ECM and similar European jazz music is brought to mind. Hashizume’s group for this album is a quartet built on sax, electric guitar, fretless electric bass, and drums, and creates a sound that is both organic and electric, sleekly modern. Hashizume also uses effects to loop his sax on a few tracks, heightening the otherworldly effect on portions of the album.

Rabbitoo: National Anthem of Unknown Country

Sun, 26 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The textured sound of Rabbitoo makes a lasting first impression on their debut album National Anthem of Unknown Country from 2014, a fusion of jazz, rock, and electronica influences.

The five-piece group led by guitarist and primary songwriter Motohiko Ichino produces otherworldly atmospheres with loops of sound and cascading sheets of melody set against precise rock and dance-inspired beats. The instruments riff and interlace, fitting together like puzzle pieces at times, an intense chorus at others, while swirling over underlying rhythmic grids for a dusky, spacey, trance-like aura.

Ryosuke Hashizume Group: Visible/Invisible

Thu, 24 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Music that takes you places, Visible/Invisible from the Ryosuke Hashizume Group presents six works of art from the saxophonist/composer, perfectly executed by the five musicians, through mellow, warm electric guitar, grooving and smooth electric fretless bass, organic and emotive piano, thrillingly creative drumming, and center-stage visceral tenor sax, filling out the spaces of otherworldly jazz.

Through sounds ranging from ethereal and delicate to deep and groovy, the music steadily develops in dramatic style, patiently, with nooks and crannies of musical texture creating a fulfilling, lush experience. This is art music, creative jazz with rock, modern classical, and free elements, carefully crafted with space for the skilled musicians to stretch out together, painting fantastic and vivid colors with harmonic richness and rhythmic dynamicism.

Koichi Sato: Melancholy of a Journey

Tue, 20 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist and composer Koichi Sato’s 2016 release Melancholy of a Journey features a distinctive jazz sextet: a piano trio adding clarinet and guitar for modern groundedness and cello providing graceful maturity.

Sato conceived the main theme while traveling in Norway and viewing a certain painting. The work of art, Art Rolfsen’s “The Big Station”, graces the cover and inspired “The Railway Station”, a four-part suite arranged over four tracks. This music emerges and recedes through tracks #1, 6, 9, and 12, resulting in four distinct songs with common echoes.

Ryosuke Hashizume Group: Incomplete Voices

Tue, 30 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Incomplete Voices is the latest release from the Ryosuke Hashizume Group, released in 2017. As with prior albums, this is a wonderful collection of carefully conceived modern jazz compositions showcasing the saxophonist’s concepts and the tight-knit group dynamics. Close attention is paid to the harmonic and rhythmic layers in the music with excitement built on climactic resolutions and striking moods.

The music is sleek, organic, and hypnotic at times. For example, track #3 “Synesthesia” is particularly magical as time and pulse slip and shift as the music develops; at other times, the group locks into a detailed groove, or opens up the framework and allows timekeeping to fade from the audio palette. The roomy improvisational passages are filled with emotional passion and rooted by the quintet’s empathy established through years of live and recording experience.