How many audiences are full of heavy metal addicts mixed with jazz piano trio fans? Only the Zek trio, surely!
Read MoreFunk is so hard and so rarely done right, but Speaker Sgt. has nailed it on “Bad Baby City.”
Read MoreThis is Hara's best quartet recording yet. It’s music that sounds effortless and yet has a rippling, focused energy.
Read MoreAs the most consistently artistic, entertaining and impressive jazz singer in Tokyo, Charito has the depth of experience, and depth of emotion, to work with this top-notch trio. The CD is both a work in itself, and a record of the power so evident in her live shows.
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Kuwabara shows her passionate, delicate and yet rock-solid—even manly—style of piano playing to great effect on every tune.
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It’s rare that band members fit together so well and seem to take such great delight in the music they create as one. But that in-sync, easy-going, laid-back sound is a real treat, equal parts fun and intense.
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This CD of big band jazz is quite unusual. Jazz musicians usually turn to passion or love affairs for inspiration, but this recording turns to Japanese history.
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A few instruments and an endless supply of creative energy are what produce the best soundscapes.
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EQ has been making straight-on, soul-satisfying jazz for a long time. This release finds them at the top of their game.
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With a mixture of elegance and energy, the trio delivers ten originals that are a pleasure to listen to.
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She’s not out to impress, she’s out to create beauty.
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Bloodest Saxophone jumps into the beat and squeals and groans with so much pleasure it’s impossible not to be infected with their lust for a musical good time.
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Yoshio Suzuki’s excellent release, “Generation Gap,” starts out not with a generation gap but a cultural gap: traditional Japanese wadaiko drums bumping under a dirty blues trumpet line.
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The back cover of Mike Henderson’s excellent new blues CD is taken up with a photo of a 1959 Fender Bassman guitar amp. The amp’s tubes must be glowing red and sweating hard.
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The outing is a straight-ahead gem.
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Country blues fingerpicked on acoustic guitar has no better player in Japan than Tokio Uchida.
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Put simply, his playing creates stunningly gorgeous music.
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Yamamoto’s sleek, straight-ahead CD kicks off with “Bohemia After Dark” and stays in that cool bop groove for the next ten cuts. The recording lays down robust
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This interlinked set of compositions dig right into various grooves that let everyone in the band lean forward and play. The original composition, more one composition then the ten listings suggest, flow
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