Flowers On The Hill is a beautiful album of tender and impeccably delivered music from the vocalist Akiko Suda. The album features lovely original compositions together with jazz, bossa nova, and pop standards performed artistically with creative arrangements.

The talented musicians play sensitively and at times sound like a Brad Mehldau-inspired modern jazz piano trio, creating a lush background for Suda’s masterful voice.

The album starts strongly with four catchy and elaborate originals penned by Suda and pianist Yuichi Narita, then moves into jazz and pop territory. Novel versions of “Waters of March”, “Doralice”, Chick Corea’s “Crystal Silence”, and the jazz standards “How About You” and “What a Wonderful World” fill out the middle of the tracklist. The album closes sweetly with two pop songs, Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird” and Randy Newman’s “I Think It’s Going To Rain Today”, a pairing perfectly matched with the band’s modern, affectionate mood.

Flowers On The Hill by Akiko Suda

• Akiko Suda - vocal
• Yuichi Narita - piano, accordion, chorus
• Koji Yasuda - bass
• Yu Kudo - drums, percussion
• Nao Teraya - guitar
• Toyomi Kobayashi - flute, andes

Released in 2016 on Diw The Grace as DW-1008.

Japanese names: 須田晶子 Suda Akiko 成田祐一 Narita Yuichi 安田幸司 Yasuda Koji 工藤悠 Kudo Yu 寺屋ナオ Teraya Nao 小林豊美 Kobayashi Toyomi

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for this album:

• Excerpt from track #1: “Flowers On The Hill”

Jazz of Japan #10 • Feb 1, 2018 • Brian McCrory