Michiyo Matsushita Trio: Free

Sun, 10 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Free is the third album from the Michiyo Matsushita Trio. With the members active in their individual recording and playing schedules in Japan and internationally, they have continued to play together regularly as the Michiyo Matsushita Trio. Still, it had been 13 years since their previous 2011 release Prayer for Peace (and half that since Matsushita’s 2018 solo album Sally Gardens), so fans of the trio were pleasantly surprised to hear of this new offering coming out last year. As with the previous trio albums, old friends and long-running members Show Kudo on bass and Ryo Saito on drums join pianist Michiyo “Michiyon” Matsushita.

Layla Tomomi Sakai: Stolen Moments

Sat, 03 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Singer Layla Tomomi Sakai’s Stolen Moments is a 27-minute album from 2019, a follow-up to her two previous releases from 2016 and 2018 with a consistently pleasing and familiar core sound. That sound of Sakai, introduced on her debut album Whisper Not, is based on her intimate vocal/guitar/trumpet trio with Yuichiro Hiraoka on guitar and Ryuichi Takase on trumpet. Her second album The Island expanded the trio with more accompanying players, a pattern which continues here on Stolen Moments as her guest musicians create forms from duos to sextets on the different songs.

Ryo Saito on Jazz of Japan | Brian McCrory

Michiyo Matsushita Trio: Free

Layla Tomomi Sakai: Stolen Moments