Takako Yamada Trio: Live at The Moment

Sep 13, 2025

Live at The Moment is a new album from pianist Takako Yamada’s jazz trio. The music was recorded during a live performance at The Moment in 2024 and released later that year. The Moment is a relatively new Tokyo jazz club, a polished recording studio-styled spot designed to produce and capture high-quality live audio, as was done with this album (jazz improv in the moment is a winning concept). Here, this sixty-one-minute set includes seven tracks, six jazz standards and one original song from the pianist.

Printed on the cover of this album is the subtitle Plays Standards. It’s not unusual to see jazz album titles or groups that include the word standards — see Keith Jarrett’s great standards trio and set of albums — and it’s a smooth way to introduce the concept for the collection. As a result, fans of jazz piano trio albums will find familiar material in this latest album from the Takako Yamada Trio. Naturally, these song choices have been heard on other jazz albums in recorded history.

In particular with this tracklist, four of the selections are songs that the legendary pianist Bill Evans was known for and recorded famous versions of. Track #1 “I Should Care” (on Evans’ How My Heart Sings, Bill Evans at Town Hall, other live albums), track #2 “How Deep is the Ocean” (Evans’ Explorations, Jazzhouse, live albums), track #3 “Yesterdays” (Live at Ronnie Scott’s), and track #6 “All of You” (Sunday at the Village Vanguard, and many others). In fact, all four of these jazz standards could be said to be frequent picks of Evans and appear on his most popular trio and live albums.

Of course, being standards, other famous jazz pianists have covered these songs. These are tunes that can be often heard today in jazz student classrooms and community jam sessions. Yet, the fact that four of the six standards were also favorites of pianist Bill Evans gives a good indication as to the influences and style that Yamada’s trio is playing at The Moment.

It’s not just songs associated with the jazz piano of Bill Evans on this album, though. Track #4 is “When Summer Comes” by grandmaster pianist Oscar Peterson, a pretty ballad inserted mid-set for a relaxing daydreaming delight. Following that, track #5 is bassist Charlie Haden’s signature tune “Waltz for Ruth”, a highlight of Haden’s duet with guitarist Pat Metheny, and its lightly descending melody and drifting quality lend itself nicely to Takako Yamada Trio’s graceful style.

The last song is one of Yamada’s original compositions, played as an encore for the live set. The open chords and patient melody traverse the shifting major and minor harmonies as drummer Ko Omura taps out soul-deep rhythms on tabla drums, and the album’s final three minutes wind down in a vamp, fading away from these live moments.

As for the long-lasting power and admiration of jazz standards, pianist/writer Ethan Iverson’s recent article on standards (and today’s part 3), explains the term and provides many examples of how jazz musicians throughout history absorbed and transformed the original music and transformed the templates. His invaluable analysis includes four of the songs on this album: How the original sheet music for “I Should Care” landed with Thelonious Monk. The impact of “How Deep is the Ocean” on Bill Evans (and vice versa) and Chick Corea. The reinvention of “Yesterdays” by Art Tatum and John Scofield. How “All of You” touched Ahmad Jamal, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro, Wynton Kelly, and Herbie Hancock. Like all masterful jazz musicians, they left their individual stamps on the standards, using the medium of the compositions as launchpads for their explorations.