Fans of vintage vocal jazz will be drawn to singer Yako Horikita’s debut album Shining Hour, a swinging collection of twelve jazz standards delivered with a shining, sparking sincerity.

Singing along with a piano trio plus saxophone, Horikita picks winners from the classic jazz songbook with tunes including “Nice Work If You Can Get It”, “Falling In Love With Love”, and “Under A Blanket Of Blue”. Horikita’s voice, a pleasant mix of deep huskiness with a light delicate touch, is confident, friendly, and warm, fitting perfectly with her jazz combo’s solid performance.

While most of the tracks are straightforward mid-tempo swingers, a few of tunes offer variations with bossa and ballads on “When Sunny Gets Blue”, “Second Love”, and the album closer, a sweetly nostalgic “Over The Rainbow”.

Shining Hour by Yako Horikita

• Yako Horikita - vocal
• Takenori Sawaki - alto saxophone
• Makoto Deguchi - piano
• Ken Kaneko - bass
• Nobuhiko Yamashita - drums

Released in 2017 on Kylym Records as KYLYM-0001.

Japanese names: Yako Horikita 堀北やこ Takenori Sawaki 佐脇武則 Makoto Deguchi 出口誠 Ken Kaneko 金子健 Nobuhiko Yamashita 山下暢彦

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for this album

• Excerpt from track #11: “Under a Blanket of Blue”

Jazz of Japan #86 • Dec 6, 2019 • Brian McCrory