Yasuhiko “Hachi” Sato

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. ...