It’s a simple and sweet affair, a short set of four-to-five-minute songs based around Sakai’s classy, low-key, and easy-to-love delivery. A five-piece band starts strong with track #1 “Stolen Moments”, a combo sound that reappears on the attention-getting track #4 “I’ve Got Just About Everything”. Starting with a rubato vocal/guitar intro, this take then races along and includes a dynamic three-player solo section in the middle, bracketed by Sakai singing in her attractively laid-back, confident yet understated style.

The full band sound is balanced with small duo and trio moments such as on the brisk and good-feeling #2 “You’re My Everything”, where guitarist Hiraoka’s walking bass and chords fingerstyle shines. Elegantly powerful in their quiet simplicity are the romantic ballads #3 “I’ve Got a Crush On You” and the closer #6 “That’s All”, reminding us that sometimes all you need is uncomplicated jazz for a good feeling and a nice atmosphere delivered by great musicians and soothing vocals… that’s all.

(On a tangent, I noticed that Stolen Moments includes some song titles with mild wordplay-adjacent connections for a relatively short album: The two middle song titles start with the same words I’ve Got with #3 “I’ve Got a Crush on You” and #4 “I’ve Got Just About Everything”. Additionally, a different pair of song titles contains the word Everything with #2 “You’re My Everything” and #4 “I’ve Got Just About Everything”. Pure chance, most likely, but I wondered if adding other songs with similar titles could create an interesting concept. Add the standards “I’ve Got the World on a String”, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”, “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm”, “I’ve Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good)”, and “I Got Rhythm”. Then for Everything, consider “Everything Happens to Me”, “Everything I Have Is Yours”, “Everything I’ve Got (Belongs to You)”, “Everything I Love”, and Chick Corea’s “You’ve Everything” with its song title already incredibly similar to #2 “You’re My Everything”. Maybe a title for the resulting concept album such as Everything I’ve Got, or I’ve Got Everything, would be the perfect wrapping. But I digress…)

Audio and Video

• Live performance of “You’re My Everything”, track #2 on this album:

• Live performance of “I’ve Got a Crush on You”, track #3 on this album:

• Live performance of “That’s All”, track #6 on this album:

• Excerpt from track #1: “Stolen Moments”

This album was recorded at Virtuoso on the night of October 1, 2020. Fe is made up of guitarist Yuta Ikedo on guitar, Ko Omura on drums, Keisuke Furuki on bass, and Shinobu Ishizaki on saxophone. Guitarist Ikedo and drummer Omura are co-leaders of this group and also two-thirds of a different trio called “Atman”. These two musicians have a long history of playing together with a friendly and close relationship that can be summed up by the quartet’s name, “Fe”, which originated from a humorous accident. As Ikedo was typing up some information about the group, the intended “ds” (for drums) became “fe” due to quick fingers and an incorrect alignment on the keyboard. The typo amused the group and stuck as the trio’s name. Omura’s liner notes also playful improvise on “f” and “e”:

Fundamental elements are forever evolving, foreseeing equal fractals extracted from each feasible experience.

Furthermore, eloquence is finite, enveloping filtered eons fabricated eternally or forever.

Finding existence fatigues energy, feeling exhalation for ectstastic flow.

For each face, ephemeral factors exists, forever engaging fond experiences.

The songs on Live at Asakusa are original compositions by co-leaders Ikedo and Omura, with Ikedo contributing five songs and Omura two. Along with their individual solos, Fe’s music also features guitar and sax pairing up on some melody lines. It’s a doubled jazz sound that works so well in a live setting with the attention-grabbing duality of the sharp blade of Ishizaki’s sax and the warm glow of Ikedo’s guitar. Some of the improvisational highlights also feature Ikedo and saxophonist Ishizaki trading ideas and solos back and forth in ad-libbed, engaging conversations.

#1 “Invisible Essence” (Ikedo) is energetic and bright (the audio for this track is available in the live recorded video included below). #2 “Flow of the Circumference” (Ikedo) leans towards a lush fusion sound through an adventurous circuit. #3 “Sheepwash” (Omura) is comfortably warm, memorable, and unique. #4 “Flux” (Ikedo) has irresistible angles with openness and a drum solo by Omura over a final vamp. #5 “Ebb and Flow” (Omura) sways sweetly like a hammock nap on a ship at sea before threatening waves appear with Ishizaki’s roiling sax. The subtle asymmetry of #6 “GMM” (Ikedo) constructs a fascinating portrait dedicated to Ikedo’s grandmother Misao-san and serves as the perfect magnum opus of the album, along with the initially placid but increasingly intense scenes of #7 “Irreversible” (Ikedo), a song inspired by the harrowing Gaspar Noé movie.

Audio and Video

• Video of the live recording of “Invisible Essence”, track #1 on this album:

• Excerpt from track #3: “Sheepwash”

Joining Kimura’s rhythm sections are the front-line members consisting of three horn players who alternate and unite on different tracks. Alto and soprano saxes are played by Akiha Nishiyama and Kohei Ando, and trumpet by Mao Sone, who also switches to piano and Fender Rhodes for two songs.

Most of the songs feature a quartet form with sax, piano, bass, and drums, with Nishiyama and Ando switching off between the two rhythm sections. The two sax players even join up on one song with a burning back-and-forth sax dialogue on the addictively chunky #4 “Updraft”, where the reverse-step riffs and rhythms with the steadily rising notes of melody and improv appear as upward-flowing tendrils of smoke or air.

Along with his crystal clear and clean-cut drumming, this debut from Kimura also showcases to a large degree his writing style with jazz, mainly, but also pop and Brazilian musical influences. There is straight modern jazz composing with personality (#1 “Winter Pillow”, #2, “Groundwater”, #3 “Enrai”, #4 “Updraft”), melancholy infused with folk or ethnic influences (#5 “K’s A Major”, #6 “Gijibato Blues”), and cool-down, laid-back grooves (#8 “Time After Time”, #9 “When It Was New”).

While this is a drummer-led album, Kimura shares the stage generously with all of the members in these trios, quartets, and quintets; his humility extends even to the album credits where his own name is placed last in order. Aside from his locked-in drumming skills, fans of great drummers will also notice several moments on the record when he takes the spotlight. Kimura’s drum solos are featured on track #1 “Winter Pillow” and #4 “Updraft” after the horns and piano finish their solos. In addition, his propulsive percussion intros to #4 “Updraft” and #7 “Overrun” set the mood perfectly and crank up the engines for two of the dynamic highlights on the album as well.

Liner Notes

(Translated from Hiro Kimura’s original Japanese liner notes.)

First of all, thank you for checking out this album.

A warm welcome to those who may already know my name or the musicians on this album, and also to those who are hearing us for the first time. Also, to any young people who may have discovered this CD on their parent’s bookshelf someday decades in the future.

Because this is instrumental music, you can use your imagination freely however you like with this music. But when it comes to me, I enjoy looking at the descriptions on the package while I’m eating, so here I’ll write down just a bit about the songs.

Winter Pillow

From the bed of a room in the cold of winter, a world of music spreads out. This is what I imagined for this song. I wrote this song for my composition class’s final assignment while studying abroad in Boston, and I’ve been playing it ever since I returned to Japan. Come to think of it, Mao Sone also played on it when we played it for the first time in class.

Groundwater

This has the feeling of melted snow which turns into groundwater and gushes out. The members’ love for jazz also oozes out from their performance.

遠雷 (*/*Enrai, distant thunder*/)*

I wrote this song about one summer’s sudden heavy downpour. Dark clouds appeared in the distance and steadily approached, turning into a violent rain. When they eventually departed, they left a slightly chilly air behind.

Updraft

Since two of Japan’s leading sax players are on this album, we recorded this song for the two horns to show their stuff. The two players intertwine and rise to the top much like the title “Updraft” suggests.

K’s A Major

K stands for bassist Keisuke Furuki. It’s a ballad based on a memorable phrase he often plays.

Kijibato Blues

When I was stuck at home in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, I kept hearing the sound of Kijibato (Eastern Turtledoves) singing in the neighborhood. Their listless cries created an unsettled feeling and led to this melancholic melody.

Overrun

One day, there was an internet news article that read “○○ Subway Train Overruns Station Platform”. It stopped only a few meters off, and no one was injured, so I was surprised that this made the news. On the other hand, there are big accidents that occur every day during jazz performances (haha). That’s also one of the best parts. Each member overruns.

Time After Time

This is the only standard tune on this album. Some lyrics include “The twilight at one day’s end.” This arrangement somehow conveys that image of a sunset, as the end of the album also approaches.

When It Was New

This song takes the role of the album’s end credits. I hope that the soft reverberations linger for a little while.

June 20, 2021

Hiro Kimura

Audio and Video

• Video for “Winter Pillow”, track #1 on this album:

• Video for “Enrai”, track #3 on this album:

• Video for “Catch The Flow”:

• Album playlist (YouTube)

• Album stream (TuneCore Japan)

• Album stream (Songlink/Odesli)

• Excerpt from track #4: “Updraft”

Written in Japanese, Reiko Yamamoto’s name is 山本玲子. Reiko (玲子) contains the kanji character 玲 which represents the sound of jewels and is used in several aural words invoking tinkling and chiming sounds. Whether or not that character had a direct influence on the musician’s life, it’s an appropriately fitting context for her masterful playing of this brilliantly translucent instrument.

All of the songs are by the group leader Yamamoto, whose musical ideas are let loose on the nine tracks’ creative arrangements and solos. The music is typically modern sounding with mostly straight-eight rhythms adorned with interesting meters, melodic placements, and musical structures.

Joining Yamamoto is her “Square Pyramid” quartet (distinguished from her previous two “Tempus Fugit” swing/bop quartet albums) featuring Sumire Kuribayashi on piano, Keisuke Furuki on bass, and Hiro Kimura on drums.

The flow of the album is like a three-act storytelling arc, with thrilling action in acts one and three and calm respites in the middle. The opening is all excitement delivered through the propulsion of heart-racing notes on #1 “Vibrant Line” and #2 “Midnight Blue”.

Next, the mellow #3 “Staring at the Rain” and the melancholic #4 “Missing Piece” are both pretty creations placed to introduce different moods and moments of peaceful reflection.

Nestled in the middle of the album is a set of three conceptually linked tracks: #5 “Piano Songs No. 2”, #6 “Piano Songs No. 3”, and #7 “Short Stories No. 5”.

These three songs examine more sides of the tinkling gem (or faces of the pyramid) and showcase compositional traces of classical, progressive, folk, rock, and mystery, with a lyrical touch resembling a poetic, possibly Jethro Tull-ish, personality.

Incidentally, more numbers from the Piano Songs and Short Stories series appear on Yamamoto’s other musical projects and albums including Sumireiko, Yamako, Jazz Resort, and Magnolia (coming up in future articles here).

The last two tracks, #8 “Black Forest” and #9 “That Blue Bird” seem to blend into each other and share some musical traits, (not to mention the background that these two tracks share, explained in the liner notes), confidently bringing the album to a close for a theatrical conclusion.

Liner Notes

(Translated from Reiko Yamamoto’s original Japanese liner notes.)

1. Vibrant Line

This is a song originally written for a vibraphone ensemble. The word vibrant has the same etymological root as vibrate, which is also the origin of the name of the instrument vibraphone. In addition to the meanings of vibrating and trembling, it also includes the meanings of being active and energetic. I chose this title hoping to make you feel the music’s dynamics from the percussive approach and the reverberation of the vibraphone.

2. Midnight Blue

It’s characteristic for instrumentalists to frequently travel by car, especially on the roads at night. This song portrays going down the Metropolitan Expressway in the dead of night… Imagine driving with the feeling of sprinting. In actuality, the color of my current car is called midnight blue, which is where I got the name of this song.

3. Staring At The Rain

This song’s title “Staring at the Rain” depicts a house in Europe with a woman inside, sitting by the window, resting her chin on her hands, and looking out at the gloomy rain outside. I wrote this song while imagining that scene. It was a rainy day when I wrote this song, and I didn’t want to go outside, but if I didn’t go out I wouldn’t get things done… I was wavering. In that mood, I gazed at the rain and imagined what this European woman would be feeling while staring at the rain.

4. Missing Piece

For a jigsaw puzzle with even just one piece missing, it cannot be said to be completed. I gave this song this title to express the instability of those times when something is lost, as with this melody that seems to be headed to a resolution somewhere but ends up being unsettled.

5. Piano Songs No. 2

Subtitled “/Kiseki” (trajectory, the path one has taken/). In 2017 I went to see Gary Burton’s last concert before his retirement, playing in a duo with pianist Makoto Ozone. Ozone’s piano at that time was extremely lovely, but also very heartbreaking… I wished at the time that it could never end. This is a song of a pianist who follows closely their mentor’s life trajectory.

6. Piano Songs No. 3

I usually compose with the sound of the piano, so sometimes the resulting songs will be closer to the image of a piano playing style rather than melodies played on a vibraphone. The Piano Songs series is a collection of such songs. Around the time I wrote No. 3, I was listening to a lot of European pianists like Enrico Pieranunzi and Michel Petrucciani, so this song was influenced by that period.

7. Short Stories No. 5

This is a song I wrote while playing Short Stories on vibraphone. Short Stories is a collection of short pieces for solo vibraphone. This “No. 5” is based on something I improvised somehow or other while playing at home one day. I hope you can closely hear the vibraphone’s characteristic approach of having such a resonant sound combined with its limited pitch range and number of chord voices that can be played simultaneously.

8. Black Forest

After listening to the next song “That Blue Bird”, an artist imagined the moment that song was born and created a painting for me entitled “Black Forest”. The painting shows a pitch-black forest with a large reflecting lake, glowing beautifully with moonlight and glittering with the surfacing of fragments of musical phrases. From this, I set that title to music, which resulted in this song’s creation.

9. That Blue Bird

The story “Blue Bird” describes how Tyltyl and Mytyl travel on a long journey searching for a blue bird and concludes with them finding that blue bird, which then flies away and ends the story. We may realize that happiness is always close to us but, just like the blue bird that flies away, can also disappear in a flash. Although I named this song after a story with quite a philosophical significance, this “Blue Bird”, at least for me, has brought a lot of happiness.

Obi Notes

A new page in the history of jazz vibraphone sound.

The long-awaited all-originals release from the new band debut.

Reiko Yamamoto has released two albums with “Reiko Yamamoto Tempus Fugit” (Terasima Records), participated in genre-crossing collaborations, and has become known for the endless possibilities of her vibraphone sound. She now releases a full album of her original compositions fully unleashing her well-established compositional and arrangement techniques. Throughout jazz history from swing to hard bop, fusion, and contemporary genres, the vibraphone has produced many songs and has been incorporated into many bands as a novel instrument. Here again, a new part of this history will be recorded.

Audio and Video

• Live performance of “That Blue Bird”, track #9 on this album:

• Live performance of “Piano Songs No. 2”, track #5 on this album:

• Excerpt from track #1: “Vibrant Line”

This album follows his previous release J-Straight Ahead after five years. The pianist and composer Kumagai regularly records as a trio on his albums, but his main motivation this time was to change to a quartet setting for all songs. Similarly, the overall sound changes very slightly as well, towards Latin-inspired modern jazz — not straight Latin jazz, but modern-day straight-ahead jazz with a variety of spicy influences. Like the playing and concepts that listeners loved on his previous releases, it’s still Kumagai’s music, combining his lively playing with hummable melodies and gripping beats, infused with hues of hip-hop music and personality. Particularly, Kumagai’s command of groove, gospel, and Glasper-inspired music is strongly felt as he pulls from his deep well of authentic and modern jazz, and the album is satisfyingly full of smart music, cool improvisation, and groovy bass lines and drum textures.

Kumagai’s originals are always interesting, balancing simple, catchy melodies with more complex rhythms and structures, often in those odd-time meters like 7/4 or 12/8 that invigorate musicians and listeners alike. Last Resort includes six of his new original tunes, with two additional cover songs wrapping up the set, literally: The entire album was recorded over one day with the songs played in order of the track listing. Capturing the day’s progression gives the album the feel of a live performance, and as the tracks progress, the momentum builds and the energy changes, much like a live band playing a setlist on stage. Even the final tune, “Caravan”, has the feel of an impromptu, high-energy encore as the song emerges out of an adrenalin-surging drum solo that had started on the previous song, recording both tracks in one continuous take and capping the album (and the recording session) on an intense high note.

Recording all together, in set list order, with a limited time window is challenging, but the quartet had performed together over the previous two nights at live shows, which worked like an extended warm-up and captured the feeling of a mid-tour performance in the recording.

Album highlights include the modern jazz beat of “Pirarucu”, the soca-inspired, dramatic “Conflict Areas”, and the adventurous abandon on the uptempo “Caravan”, an excitingly rearranged version of this familiar jazz standard. The other cover song on the album, “Quizás Quizás Quizás”, is the most clearly Latin-inspired choice and may be well-known to Latin genre fans (incidentally, the song may also sound vaguely familiar to those who remember 90’s alternative rock band Cake’s version of “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps”.)

Liner Notes

(Translated from the original Japanese liner notes written by Yasumasa Kumagai.)

Hey there, Yasumasa Kumagai here. Thanks for buying my CD. It’s actually been five years since my last album as a leader, the second album on my JAZZY BEAR label. The title of the album this time is Last Resort, 最終手段 (saishū shudan: last resort) in Japanese, and if you ask what I mean by that, it’s like this: There’s been a lot of talk recently about CDs not selling these days, so… okay then, I’d better create a crazy design for the cover, right? So I tried to make a jacket that looks like something from a rapper from the southern US. That’s all it means (laughs). For anyone who bought this based on the jacket, this may be like a time when you thought you were buying a cola but, upon tasting it, it turned out to be barley tea.

You can’t do something like this without having your own independent label, right?

By the way, the actual concept of this album is to include trumpet on all the songs. Since I’ve never made an album having a horn player on all the songs, this is a new attempt for me. So I compiled songs with the idea that Miki Hirose would be playing with me. I’ve known him since my New York days, and was often invited to play with his large ensemble over the past several years. His compositions and arrangements are so great that I thought I’d also like to write something similar someday. But suddenly composing for a large ensemble seemed impossible, so I resolved to start by writing with just one horn in mind, the trumpet. That was five or six years ago. Finally, I was able to make this one-horn album. So, on that schedule, I should be releasing a quintet album after another five years, and a large ensemble album in about fifty years.

Also, this time there are more Latin songs. I like contemporary Latin jazz, and Hirose often played in that style while in New York. I always looked forward to seeing him every time he returned to Japan with the authentic feel of that kind of music. And, after all this and that, I was finally able to release something with Hirose.

As for the two rhythm section members, I’ve been working with them for about eight years. Bassist Furuki may appear to be a cyber-terrorist on the album cover, but that’s not the case at all. He is a serious musician who deeply pursues music. When I first performed with him, he was about twenty-two years old and I thought “Wow, this is a great bassist.” I immediately asked him to join my trio. Plus, he’s also a great pianist to the point where he can play live shows as a piano trio, so if you think about it, it should make me pretty uncomfortable to play with him, right?

Drummer Yamada may appear to some as a delinquent or anti-social, but in fact, he’s not that at all. When I first met him, he was about twenty-one years old and so baby-faced that I thought “Is today’s drummer a child?” Steadily gaining more experience through the years, he’s become an excellent mainstay drummer leading a very busy life.

I like to include elements from a wide variety of genres in my compositions, and these two always are quick to grasp the music and make the songs evolve.

Recording with such great friends like these was perfect and over before we knew it, much like the rehearsals. It was so fun… I wish I could do it every month.

1. Pirarucu

This is a song with a Brazilian feel. Brazil brings to mind the Amazon River, and the Amazon River brings to mind the pirarucu (one of the world’s largest freshwater fish), which I chose as the title for this song. Although the chord progression is a little complicated, I hope that you can sense the Amazon somewhat.

2. Happy New Year

I finished this song at home right before a New Year’s Eve event, so gave it this title. Starting with a Cm7-5 intro, there’s a dark sound that contradicts the title. I wrote this with Hirose precisely in mind. Try listening to this in a set with Coltrane’s “Countdown” on New Year’s Eve, yeah?

3. Conflict Areas

I wrote this with the image of Africa in mind and recalling a soca groove from Trinidad and Tobago. There are so many areas around the world called conflict zones where people are forced to live in conditions unimaginable in Japan. However it doesn’t necessarily mean that I am somehow involved in these activities myself, but by starting to know about these things, I ended up choosing the title based on the meaning of conflict zone.

4. La Camiseta Hermosa

A song in 12/8 time with a Latin flavor. Hirose’s band often plays songs with a 6/8 or 12/8 feel, so I thought I would try to write one myself. Luckily, I’ve gotten quite a bit used to it. This song went untitled for a long time, but on the day of the recording, Furuki was wearing a t-shirt with the word “Hermosa” on it. Everyone thought that this word (meaning “beautiful” in Spanish) would be good, so that turned into the title. It means “beautiful shirt”.

5. Apologetic Blues

Blues of apology. One time, I had completely forgotten about a student’s lesson and missed the appointment. I wrote this song in the middle of that forgetfulness. It’s a minor blues sort of like Wayne Shorter in the Blue Note era.

6. Dough

In Japanese, it’s 現生 (gen nama: hard cash). It’s been said that Japan is lagging as the rest of the world moves towards cashless payments. There are still jazz clubs where cash is king and credit card and smartphone payments are not accepted. I tried to capture that 切なさ (setsunasa: bittersweet, wistful, sadness, pain) feeling in a ballad.

7. Quizás Quizás Quizás

I like Gonzalo Rubalcaba’s arrangement of this Latin standard number that I listened to in middle school, and I tried to arrange it for my style. The ending is the highlight, with such a changed atmosphere that makes you wonder what has been happening up until then.

8. Caravan

And, continuing from the drum solo of the previous song at the same tempo, it’s this familiar jazz standard number. I also tried to arrange this one with a vivid Latin color. The final two songs were recorded in succession, in one shot. The schedule is complete!

This was my first time to try something new, to record all the songs sequentially in order of the album listing. As for the reason why, I thought it would be interesting to capture the flow of the full day, from beginning to end, in the recording.

That’s all for now. We appreciate your support as we continue to release new albums in the future.

Audio and Video

• Live version of “Pirarucu”, track #1 from this album:

• Live version of “Conflict Areas”, track #3 from this album:

• Excerpt from track #5: “Apologetic Blues”

This live set is a four-part jazz suite with original, extended explorations running from 8 to 13 minutes each. The compositions by pianist Heitetsu Rin are unique and hard to describe, although references to the styles of Charles Mingus or Duke Ellington music would not be entirely unsuitable.

The musicians go on a journey, from curiously exploring in “Part I”, to abstract windy rumblings in “Part II”, playful tumbling and jaunty plate-spinning in “Part III”, and off-kilter hooks and propulsive excitement in “Part IV”. There are composed musical themes and structures, yet with plenty of flexibility for stop-and-start breaks and free sections where the musicians react and respond to each other’s dynamics and accents within and around the musical blueprint. Each member works together yet with stimulating leeway, and as with another often-referenced live trio recording, Bill Evans’s Trio at the Village Vanguard, Trio Export’s members carry equal weight, working closely together in composed sections as well as decorating the music with individual dynamics and surprises.

Original, catchy, and unique, this handmade album is available for sale at the jazz bar where it was recorded live, Kanmachi 63.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for this album:

• Trio Export 63 live performance

• Trio Export 63 live performance 2

• Excerpt from track #1: “Track 1”