The 45-minute album contains all original compositions from the pianist, eight new songs in her consistently original but true-to-jazz-roots style that incorporates different rhythms, influences, and cultures. The trio members — Harumi Nomoto on acoustic piano, Ryoji Orihara on fretless electric bass, and Sohnozuke Imaizumi on drums — are the same as 2014’s Virgo, and they gel perfectly as a fun, intuitive, and locked-in trio playing a variety of Nomoto’s compositions and great picks from the standard jazz canon.

The album starts with track #1 “Double Touch” with an immediate shift into Nomoto’s style of creative, straight-ahead piano trio jazz. Unexpected accents written into the melody pique curiosity with a feeling of near-imbalance that is rooted in the solid ground of unshakable groove. This sets the mood for a special loose-but-tight feeling in the music, one that displays the skill and excellence the musicians bring together through puzzle-piece coordination and trust.

#2 “Seiran” could be heard as a dichotomy of J-Jazz, where the intro and outro sections serve up a smooth club jazz/hip hop posture surrounding an inner core of medium-tempo good ol’ jazz blues.

#3 “Sudoku” is a song built on a musical challenge as Nomoto arranges twelve notes and twelve chords of the chromatic scale into a hopscotch framework of music. (This puzzle formulation is reminiscent in jazz of Bill Evans’ “T.T.T. (Twelve Tone Tune)” and, in Japanese jazz, Hitomi Nishiyama’s “T.C.T. (Twelve Chord Tune)”.) With Orihara and Imaizumi covering the foundation, Nomoto’s adlibs through most of the song with a wildly unconstrained yet carefully controlled solo. As with many of the moments on this album, the trio walks a tightrope of concentration and relaxation, where only their familiarity, intuition, and skills keep them aloft in the air as they improvise spontaneously.

Track #4 “Cucumber Man” is a happy groove jam in the direction of Herbie Hancock hard bop and New Orleans-style funk, filled with the brightness of three jazz musicians settling in for some fun.

#5 “Guitar no Yo Ni” is another smooth offering that brings laid-back comfort with a rock/hip-hop beat to the fore, similar to the intro and outro of #2 “Seiran”. Some sounds from Nomoto’s earlier releases and also in this style, particularly Belinda (2007) with its emotionally stirring loops of chords-to-chord wrinkles on certain progressions with deep groove drum beats.

Track #6 is the title track “Anitya”, a forward-learning modern jazz song that grabs the attention with its sharp writing and performance.

The last two tracks, #7 “Warm Winter” and #8 “Jacques”, work nicely together as a pair of songs to wrap things up, guiding the listener out gently and lovingly. As the album starts to close, the sounds are slower and more tranquil, as if luring us into a deeper state of peace, an extended goodbye. “Warm Winter” sets a lovely and sweet mood as Nomoto plays expressively throughout the song. The closing track “Jacques” dives even further for a darker feeling of intensity with peace, an immense tidal blue expanse that surrounds and supports everything.

Liner Notes

(Translated from Harumi Nomoto’s original Japanese liner notes.)

1.Double Touch

This is a blues-form song with accents set in certain places to shift the timing. The title comes from a soccer term related to footwork.

2.Seiran (青藍, indigo blue)

This song is an 8-bar blues progression. I love the color of indigo blue that is called seiran in Japanese.

3.Sudoku

I created a song that uses 12 notes for the melody and 12 chords. There was a time when I was hooked on sudoku (“number place”). The way the performance starts like a puzzle and gradually turns chaotic resembles the way that I feel when I am solving a sudoku.

4.Cucumber Man

There’s an anecdote about a person who was told “In a past life, you were a cucumber”. For some reason, I remembered this at a time when I wrote a cheerful-sounding tune. It’s a play on “Watermelon Man” by Herbie Hancock.

6.Guitar no Yo Ni (ギターのように)

I originally started writing this thinking about the soft strumming of a guitar. As I continued to work it, it became something completely different… but that’s alright, too.

6.Anitya

I wrote this song thinking of a Spanish 3-beat song that I happened to hear. Once again, the result turned out to be something completely different. Anitya is a Sankrit word that expresses the meaning of impermanence. Although it’s is unrelated to the song itself, I come to think more about these things as I grow older, so I chose this title.

7.Warm Winter

If I recall correctly, around the time the coronavirus had started spreading, there was a warm winter without any snowfall. This is a melody that came to me at the time, when I was feeling uneasy for some reason or another.

8.Jacques

I created this song while imagining waves coming in and going out. I borrowed the name from the legendary diver Jacques Mayol, who loved the sea around Tateyama in his later years.

Audio and Video

• “Cucumber Man” (track #4) — live at Bon Courage, Tokyo, in February 2025:

• “Guitar no Yo Ni” (track #5) — live at Pit Inn, Tokyo, in June 2024:

• “Warm Winter” (track #7) — live at Pit Inn, Tokyo:

• Harumi Nomoto Trio: Anitya promotional video with short excerpt from “Aniyta” (track #6):

• Harumi Nomoto Trio: Anitya promotional video with short excerpt from “Cucumber Man” (track #4)

• Full album (YouTube)

• Full album (Spotify)

• Full album (Apple)

• Excerpt from track #1: “Double touch”

The sound of Nagatake’s jazz trio is compelling and modern, with a youthful style that is dynamic, energetic, and fun. Running at about 71 minutes, all ten tracks were composed by Nagatake and are bursting with her creative force, one that builds on the adventurous leanings of jazz pianists like Carla Bley and Cecil Taylor. Skillful and quick, Nagatake’s fingers can go from quiet and patient loveliness to a key-jabbing with barely contained energy, always in control but often peeking over the edge in risky provocation. Live audiences and album listeners cannot help but be drawn into her magnetic presence.

Here is a quick run through of the album flow. It starts with three highlights: #1 “Introduction -Breathe Beneath the Sun-” is Nagatake starting up the engines alone with a solo piano riff, deep and low on the keys with a rhythmically addictive pull and sharp lines coming in from above. The trio format begins with #2 “Not Even Heaven Knows”, a fiery and percussive fastball. #3 “Lucky You!” is another uptempo roller coaster with thrilling drops and bends, a frenetic Horace Silver-ish fever dream. #4 “Just Like He Sings” is a brushed ballad with the grace and sweetness of an Ellington/Strayhorn tune. #5 “Clover 9” is a wild and fast blues transmogrification, another album highlight (lots of these).

Track #6 “Teoribata” is a slower song written for bassist Orihara to shine peacefully in a long-form fairy tale. #7 “Say No More” has a classic hardcore dark jazz vibe with Chick Corea-esque Latin/straight waltz-time mix, grippingly edge-of-seat at a dangerous speed. #8 “I’ll Send You Good Vibes” is the first quartet track, as veteran saxophonist Kosuke Mine joins for a soulful and warm gospel/rock groove with his great playing. #9 “Nekokai no Ballad” continues the bluesy quartet atmosphere, gritty and genuine, with Eiichi Hayashi on sax, another distinctive and renowned Japanese jazz player. Finally, #10 “Get Ready to Say Goodbye” is a melodically beautiful and moving outro song with the elements of a hit pop song tenderly refracted through a Brad Melhdau-ish jazz prism.

Liner Notes

(Translated from the original Japanese liner notes.)

Introduction

Before anything else, I would like to thank you very much for listening to this CD, Breathe Beneath the Sun. We’ve been fortunate to be able to able to release another trio recording in quick succession after the previous trio recording released in March 2021. I can’t express enough the appreciation I have for the label, Owl Wing Records, and Aratake-san. On this CD, all the songs are original compositions that I wrote over the past year, mainly, including two songs in the memory of people who have passed away.

When I am riding on the train and dazzling sunlight pours in from the train window and washes over me, I really feel alive. The sunlight permeates me just like soaking into French toast. Whether it’s morning, evening, or even if I’m still tipsy from the previous night, it’s always great. I realize how good it feels to be alive, and the motivation to do my best increases as I’m being treated with unconditional kindness.

I contemplated different album titles while thinking that it would be great for this CD to have that kind of presence of sunlight. I thought, Something like French toast or…, and so on. I tried to express my ramblings to a close female friend, a high-school classmate who returned from abroad, and she understood what I was trying to say perfectly. Ultimately, she gave me the wonderful title Breathe Beneath the Sun.

永武幹子
Mikiko Nagatake

Introducing the Musicians

In February 2020, this trio entered our third year together.

Ryoji Orihara, the trio’s senior member, supports the band on fretless bass. He’s active with his solo project “Invisible Furniture”, serves as a member and musical director of “Virtual Silence”, and plays with Lisa Ono’s band. He is a professional fretless bass player specialist.

After we finished recording this album, he went to perform in a concert in Taiwan with Lisa Ono’s band. This was at a time when coronavirus was spreading in Taiwan, and he was forced to stay quarantined in a hotel for two weeks. However, he wanted to keep working on this album even at that time. We made full of video conferencing and other specialized tools and finished the mixing (working on the sound balance of the recording)! I was so surprised at the modern technology that allowed us to do the mixing while being far apart, without any time lag.

After this album was recorded, our trio went on to perform at various locations. One thing I have to mention is Orihara-san’s lunch presentations. In the mornings, we would gather in the hotel lobby and be treated to his presentation of notable restaurants in the area, including their websites, business hours, distance, and travel time. There was a passion for food overflowing with hospitality. Kira-san is also passionate about food, and so all throughout the tour we would prepare for the evening concert by having delicious meals.

Drummer Sota Kira is active in a wide variety of musical acts, from Kei Akagi’s band and Junko Onishi’s band (that is to say, he started with jazz bands) to even STUTS’s band and others. Kira-san has been supportive of me ever since my student days. He also plays drums in “J.J.Soul”, another of our regular jazz trios. There, too, his incredibly energetic drumming always enriches the band’s sound and boosts the excitement of everyone present.

Recently Kira-san has been focusing his attention on the proper ways of body movement. Backstage, he has been sharing his techniques and instructing us on effective stretching methods. Even on the day of the recording, there was quite an odd scene when everyone was facing the same direction and doing stretches (ha ha).

At the live venue Nardis in Kashiwa, there was a three-day event where our trio was featured as the core band with special guests. At that performance, the masters Mine-san and Hayashi-san were each featured on a one-horn ballad. It was so intense that I absolutely wanted to capture that in some form, so I asked them to make a guest appearance on this recording.

Since my student days, I have often gone to hear tenor saxophonist Kosuke Mine play. I’ve listened to him with Mine-san’s Quartet, the Takeshi Shibuya Orchestra, and others. Recently I’ve been working consistently with him in live concerts as a duo, and as a trio with saxophonist Miyuki Moriya. I am always moved by his one-of-a-kind tone and phrasing, and his warm, charming personality.

As for alto saxophonist Eiichi Hayashi, it’s possible that I heard him on CD before seeing him play live. When I was a student, there were special listening sessions in the Waseda Danmo (Modern Jazz Research Group) study room between jam sessions. That’s where I heard CDs like the Eiichi Hayashi and Fumio Itabashi Duo, and Daidarabocchi with Shun Sakai. I was totally blown away. When I went to see him play live, I was even more amazed. I’m so grateful that I am able to play with Hayashi-san in duos and with Masayo Koketsu’s “Ataira no Ei-chan”.

This recording is a performance featuring these kinds of trio members and two special guests!

1.Introduction -Breathe Beneath the Sun-

In the same way that we can hear the chimes of nearby elementary schools, wouldn’t it be so interesting if we could hear the songs and sounds of foreign countries carried by the wind? I wrote this short motif with that kind of feeling in mind. I hope that the performance on this CD can also reach people in all kinds of countries and regions.

2.Not Even Heaven Knows

“God has six fingers on each hand and twelve fingers on both hands.”

“See, this is why the first perfect number is 6, time is divided into 12 parts, and the seasons also end with the 12th month.” This is what my private school principal taught me when I was in middle school.

I suddenly remembered this a few years ago and thought “I should write a song with a time signature that only God can count on his fingers!!” So I wrote a song titled “God Has 12 Fingers”.

Time passed, and the threat of the new coronavirus appeared in 2020. Conventional common sense changed in the blink of an eye, and the world was thrown into disorder. I couldn’t help but think that not even God could have predicted something like this. I wrote a 13-beat song with a theme that even Got could not count (but since 13 is an unlucky number, the improvisations are in a 7-beat meter. Lucky seven!).

3.Lucky You!

I wrote this song with Kira-san in mind. The image of Kira-san is happiness! Yet, around the time we first had met, no matter how many times we performed, drank, and hit it off together, the next time we met, it felt like we were meeting again for the first time. I tried to project a sense of that somewhat not-straightforward feeling into this song (ha ha). It feels as if 吉良(Kira)(-san) is taking on the meaning of “lucky” in the lingo of business buzzwords.

4.Just Like He Sings

I wrote this song inspired by Shinji Hashimoto, a guitarist I love who passed away in July 2020. One day, Shinji-san appeared in my dream. In the dream, Shinji-san was playing “Naima” by J. Coltrane, and his improvisational approach was melodious like a vocal jazz standard song. It made me realize the affinity between modal-style songs and vocal standard songs.

To be able to listen to Shinji-san’s guitar in my dreams was like a dream (well, it was a dream)!! That’s why I wrote this song. I would love it if Shinji-san would play this song in my dream someday.

5.Clover 9

The “deck of cards” series. The previous release Into the Forest included “Clover 2”, and this time it’s 9. There are currently eight songs in the “deck of cards” series. The goal is a complete 53!

6.Teoribata (手織り機, hand loom)

I wrote this song with Orihara-san in mind. The title is just a joke [/The title in Japanese is 手織り機, or hand loom, and Orihara is 織原, containing the same Kanji character 織/]. I spun the melody based on the image of Orihara-san’s sound. It’s really nice to play this kind of mellow song with such emotion, and I love Orihara-san’s simple style of singing.

7.Say No More

8.I’ll Send You Good Vibes

Sometimes I think that if I were close by, I could send some positive energy with just a single handshake. These days, when we live in a world where we can send messages immediately, it’s good to know that we can check on faraway friends’ safety when natural disasters and emergencies occur. On the other hand, it can feel stressful when there is just not enough time to reply.

It’s rare that the timing works out such that someone contacts you just at the right moment when you need encouragement. At time like those, I would love it if you suddenly remembered to play this song with a click as if it just came to mind, and to feel a sense of positivity. The strong emotions I felt when writing this song perfectly match Mine-san’s gentle yet powerful saxophone, and this makes it a song I cherish even more.

9.Nekokai no Ballad /(猫飼いのバラッド, Cat-keeping Ballad)/*

In the summer of 2021, there was a Mikiko Nagatake three-day event at Kashiwa Nardis. This is a song I wrote for that occasion while thinking of Eiichi Hayashi. I listened to Hayashi-san a lot in my student days. I wrote a melody for his kind of really cool Hayashi-san sound that stands out in all kinds of places, and the master was even more amazing than I expected!!

10.Get Ready to Say Goodbye

I wrote this song when I heard the news of the sudden passing of someone who always came to my shows with a smile. With the state of emergency and everything that began in 2020, it had felt as though time had stopped. But of course that wasn’t the case, and time passed moment by moment, and sometimes it was no longer possible to meet someone that you hadn’t seen in a while. Accepting a final farewell takes time, and I think it’s best to take it slowly and with a peaceful mind.

All Composed by Mikiko Nagatake

A Letter from Yoshiaki Masuo

Dear Mikiko Nagatake

I listened to the audio for your new recording. I apologize for the delay, later that the promised date. Although I was asked to write some liner notes, I decided to express my feelings in a letter to you after just listening to the music.

First, all the musicians beginning with you were fantastic. The songs are good and there’s lots of variety. I’m very impressed by how it sums up your current feelings and how it comes together as one story all the way through to the end. The music was inspiring, and there were many moments that touched my heart directly. I love that kind of music.

It’s been almost six years since we started performing together. But it’s true that, when I listened to this recording, I realized that I know nothing about you, despite our working so long together. We’ve been linked only through music during these six years, without even having a drink together after a concert (ha ha).

One reason that I don’t know much about you is because of your intuitive sense about music. Because you can pick up so much just from listening meant that there was not much need to talk about it. Of course, human interaction and communication is also important for many reasons, and I’m reflecting on that.

Six years ago, when I started to audition pianists for my new band, you happened to be the first person I called. By just hearing the music, you understood well without me having to say anything. You interpreted the songs with your own personal style a fresh sense and feeling. I remember how I instantly took to you, with your own free and delicate sensibilities, right from the start. I was planning to try out other people as well, but in the end it was just that one audition and it was over.

It may be quite impolite to put it this way, but when listening to this recording, I feel that I can truly understand your depth as a human being. Also, I’ve never thought too deeply about musicians being male or female before, but on this album I really get the sense of you as a women (with good meaning).

In the generation that I grew up in, there were almost no female jazz musicians, and in the midst of that male-dominated jazz world, I hadn’t really thought about female jazz musicians. Because of preconceived notions of women, there must have been very difficult situations, including sexual harassment, even unintentional in some cases.

However, when I listen to your music, I feel strongly that we have already transcended that era and progressed forward one or two steps. Long ago, back in my day, all the role model jazz musicians that we looked up to were men, and Americans. Now, there is a big difference in the way of thinking between that generation and environment that we grew up in, and those of the young people of today. It’s good that this young generation is free of those previous boundaries, and especially the women of this generation.

Men tend to use authority and power as a basis of comparison, but I think women may be resigned in those aspects from the start, or consider them to not be problems, perhaps. That’s why there is no unnecessary ego in the music. I think that purity is also good. In this sense, women are very cool and aware. I can say this confidently. A conclusion from this is that there is a great potential for the future development of music to be shaped by the sensibilities of female musicians.

For the future, the advancement of women is absolutely essential not just in music but also in the world. If the ones at the top are always power-hungry men, then, well, we are doomed.

Sorry, I went off on a tangent.

Anyway, thank you for the wonderful music. I want to keep listening to it more and more. Please continue to push forward.

June 12, 2020 MASUO

GUEST

track8
Kosuke Mine (tenor sax)

Born in Tokyo on February 6, 1944.

He began playing clarinet when he joined the brass band in middle school. He played clarinet in part-time bands when he was around 17 years old, when he also started to play alto sax. He first encountered jazz in his second year of high-school when he would listen to records at jazz kissas. In 1963, he joined a jazz band and started to play at jazz clubs. In 1969, he was noticed by pianist Masabumi Kikuchi and joined his band, where he remained until the band ended in 1973. He released his first leader album, Mine, in 1970. In that year, he ranked second in the magazine Swing Journal’s reader popularity poll in the alto saxophone category, right after Sadao Watanabe, and attracted attention as a new alto sax player. After Masabumi Kikuchi’s band ended in 1973, he moved to New York where he stayed for two years. During this period he also made brief trips to Japan to continue performing in concerts with Masabumi Kikuchi and to record his own albums. After playing with groups including Four Sound with Fumio Itabashi, Nobuyoshi Ino, Hiroshi Murakami, and Masahiko Togashi’s J.J.Spirits, he formed his group Mine Quartet in 1992 and released his long-awaited leader album Major to Minor in 1993, which won the grand prize for Japan Jazz in Swing Journal’s Jazz Disc Awards that year. Currently, in addition to playing with his own group, he participates in many sessions including with the Takeshi Shibuya Orchestra.

track9
Eiichi Hayashi (alto sax)

He became a professional musician at 17 years of age by training in big bands and R&B groups. In 1980, he joined the Yosuke Yamashita Trio as “Plus One”, and a concert recorded during their ‘83 European Tour was released as a live recording. In 1990, he formed his own band MAZURU and released an album under that name which was well received. To this day, he is active and widely recognized as one of Japan’s top alto players, and his inimitable sound is an essential part of groups including the Takeshi Shibuya Orchestra, Fumio Itabashi’s band, and Akihiro Ishiwatari’s Mull House. In 2012, he released GATOS Meeting’s self-titled album featuring his three-horn arrangements. In July 2015, in the culmination of his work as an arranger, he led the 13-piece Eiichi Hayashi MAZURU Hokkaido Orchestra where he was showered with applause from large crowds of free jazz fans who gathered all over Hokkaido. Among his numerous releases, his representative work includes de-ga-show, Monk’s Mood, Oto no Tsubu, MAZURU no Yume, Mori no Hito, Birds and Bees, and Tsuru.

Obi Notes

“The music was inspiring, and there were many moments that touched my heart directly. I love that kind of music.” Yoshiaki Masuo

Audio and Video

• “Not Even Heaven Knows” (track #2):

• “Lucky You!” (track #3) — live performance (2021):

• “Lucky You!” (track #3) — live performance (2021):

• “Just Like He Sings” (track #4) — live performance (2021):

• “Clover 9” (track #5):

• “Say No More” (track #7) — live performance (2021):

• Excerpt from track #1: “Introduction -Breathe Beneath the Sun-”

As We Breathe, with nine tracks and about 70 minutes, is the second album out of the six released by the group. Despite the earliness of this and their previous album (their debut Wordless), their concept was already well-defined based on Hashizume’s compositions and musical direction, and the musicians show a cohesive personality with intuitively-linked playing and precise timing.

Over warm tones of electric guitar and fretless bass, the breathy, long notes of the tenor sax push through the air with an ethereal presence. The deep, round anchor of bass is necessary and comforting as active pinpoints of drums and cymbals light up and spark with energy. The sound of electrified strings inhabits the music, submerging and cresting unpredictably with a mesmerizing effect.

Most songs run at about seven to ten minutes, allowing the music to build slowly, confidently, and the musicians to move at their own pace. This is a consistent quality of Hashizume’s wisely crafted music: Things are done subtly but powerfully, melodic qualities change under your feet like shifting sand, and rhythms are often engineered to be atypical but stable. As deep tentacles entwine and pull down, keep in mind, remember as we breathe.

Track #1 “Last Song” is an abstract painting of sound where the saxophone and guitar duet a melody while the bass, drums, and piano paint a dreamy landscape background. Fluid, floating, swirling like liquid and vapor, smoothly merging into abstract shapes. A strong melody statement by the tenor sax pulls the mist and rhythm around in its wake. It lingers in the mind like a recollection of a mysterious dream as smoky drums loosely hypnotize.

#2 “Sakura-Ame” (桜雨, cherry blossom rain) (8:40) is a dark waltz, mysterious and extending the previously established misty feeling. There is some sort of magical tint, a casting of a spiraling spell.

#3 “Sign” is stylish and energetic as jazz drama and rock sensibilities meet. Crisp drums punctuate a simple but memorable theme over progressively intense harmonies and movements.

#4 “Fraise” (French for いちご, strawberry) is tender with the pulse of a rock ballad. The catchy melody plays out with a curiously familiar yet unfamiliar mood, heightened by the slightly offset melodic placements and syncopated offbeats.

The mid-to-uptempo 4/4 jazz/rock #5 “Encore” (9:31) has Orihara’s bass stating the opening and closing theme over piano arpeggios, setting up the dramatic stage for some great improv from the bass and piano (with incredible left-hand/right-hand scene-stealing conversation) before sax and guitar interplay. The drums and bass rhythms really propel things forward with deadly accuracy, as with many of the highlights here.

Track #6 “Keep in Mind” is an exploratory suite-like story, where the slow and poetic opening grows into a lilting song in 3/4 and unwinds midway to a piano solo, free group styling, and ambient sound effects. Here too, again, the feel of scenes set in a Bladerunner world arises with that sci-fi future vibe of neon and grit under the surface.

#7 “Structure” gets the band locked into a 7/4 meter for a suspenseful mood over bass note floors. The electric Fender Rhodes recalls vintage Chick Corea futurism, while the segmented melody (in spacey Jan Garbarek-ish sax with the guitar playing in unison), vibrant chords with subtly morphing tonal qualities, and the moody lower bass riff and drums. The music glides on a cool plane, like surface-skimming spaceships or the Light Cycles of Tron.

#8 “Friends” introduces the album’s prettiest, innocent moments through a tune recited freely, slowly with a subtle meter, playful but quietly yearning.

Finally, #9 “Epilogue” retells the music of #1 “Last Song”, more exploratory, slower, with its unforgettable melody and rich chords moving like clouds in flux through the sky’s invisible currents.

As seen in the track listing, there is an interesting use of self-reference in the song titles. The album starts with track #1 titled “Last Song”, and the last song is track #9 “Epilogue”, which is actually a redone version of “Last Song” (an epilogue, the last song). Also, in the middle of the disc is track #5 “Encore” — a strange place for an encore. Yet if you consider the album as one in-out of a single breath, then the midpoint could be the pause between, marking where the structure folds and loops back to the start (the end), and where it completes the circle to restart the next cycle of breath. (Perhaps a propos, “Cycles” is the title of a track included on both their Wordless and Visible/Invisible releases.)

Audio and Video

• Ryosuke Hashizume Group playing #4 “Fraise” live

• Ryosuke Hashizume Group playing #5 “Encore” live in 2008 (1/2):

• Ryosuke Hashizume Group playing #5 “Encore” live in 2008 (2/2):

• Ryosuke Hashizume Group playing #7 “Structure” live in 2008 (1/3):

• Ryosuke Hashizume Group playing #7 “Structure” live in 2008 (2/3):

• Ryosuke Hashizume Group playing #7 “Structure” live in 2008 (3/3):

• Excerpt from track #3: “Sign”

Links

• Ryosuke Hashizume store

This debut album from NHORHM was released in 2015 and rereleased/remastered in 2024 when the first run was sold out, and both new listeners and fans who originally missed out were clamoring for copies. The album contains ten tracks, nine cover songs and one original by pianist Nishiyama. All arrangements are by Nishiyama, and this is not something to take lightly; the whole project hinges on the idea of a jazz piano trio covering heavy metal tunes, and the success of the endeavor relies a lot on bridging the gap between those distinct sounds, styles, and instrumentation, and on making the music appealing, listenable, and great, despite the obvious novelty aspect that may precede the experience. Yet, never fear, Nishiyama took the challenge seriously and put a lot of work into this project.

Although both jazz fans and metal fans may look on this type of crossover hybrid with understandable suspicion (both audiences appreciate musical purity and authenticity, or genuineness, in their respective forms), it’s a homerun from the trio, as the reinterpreted songs exist in a new dimension or sub-genre.

Based on just the sound of the music, and the piano-bass-drums trio sound that is common in modern jazz, NHORHM certainly has more of a jazz sound than a metal one. There are no distorted guitars, no double-bass kick drums, no ear-splitting cymbal crashes or hyperspeed electric solos.

But the material on New Heritage of Real Heavy Metal is all drawn from the heavy metal canon. The trio plays Nishiyama’s modified versions (reharmonized, restructured, re-instrumented) of original songs by the bands U.K., Pantera, Rainbow, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Angra, Babymetal, Deep Purple, and Mr. Big.

Being jazz, the solos are also improvised in the jazz style, not run-throughs of the original works. These songs are not covers in the sense that they aim to replicate or reproduce the original songs, structures, and guitar solos present in the original recordings.

Nishiyama also includes one of her own compositions, “The Halfway to Babylon”, setting up a story that will be continued on the follow-up II and III albums.

While all ten of the songs feature the trio, three of the ten also feature guest musicians. Vocalist Tomomi Oda sings on #4 “Skin O’ My Teeth (Megadeth)”, guitarist Takayoshi Baba plays on #5 “Fear of the Dark (Iron Maiden)”, and trumpeter Hikari Ichihara plays on #8 “Demon’s Eye (Deep Purple)”.

The translated liner notes (further below) go into the song selections, so here is just a brief overview of the flow of the album.

Track #1, “In the Dead of Night” (from the band U.K.’s 1978 debut album) is progressive uptempo, getting slightly aggressive with power(-ish) chords, dynamic drums, and silky fretless electric bass dexterously covering the heavy metal guitar duties.

Track #2 “Walk” (Pantera, Vulgar Display of Power, 1992) is medium-heavy and dark, with powerful riffs, deadly serious drumming, and an attitude and sound close to the original song.

Track #3 “Man on the Silver Mountain” (Rainbow, Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow, 1975, with Ronnie James Dio on vocals) is a highlight of odd-meter, fantasy escapist metal, a more significant reinterpretation of the original hard rock beat.

Track #4 “Skin O’ My Teeth” (Megadeth, Countdown to Extinction, 1992) is another highlight for its close-to-the-bone edge and faithfulness to the original song, even with vocalist Tomomi Oda covering Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine role. It’s fun, uptempo 4/4 with some extra twists and reharmonizations, and, like the original, a relatively short song. The source Megadeth version also features a guitar solo from Marty Friedman, who contributed a blurb for this album along with some other famous metalers. This track may be the cleanest onramp for diehard metalheads, with the song’s catchy rhythms and riffs present in NHORHM’s version, not to mention the female vocals that are a perfect fit.

Track #5 “Fear of the Dark” (Iron Maiden, Fear of the Dark, 1992) is reformed as a slow-to-medium 4/4 ballad, starting softly with piano and acoustic guitar, then getting into a rock beat and changing meters for emotional impact. There’s an anthemic (Iron Maiden music perfect for this) yet meditative feel, and this song fills the important role of the sole ballad on an otherwise in-your-face heavy metal jazz album.

Track #6 “Upper Levels” (Angra, Secret Garden, 2014) is exciting, full of irregular signatures and complex moving lines and quick changes. It’s virtuosic, fulfilling the role that this song was chosen for. Their prog metal sounds are melodic with intricate licks, patterns, and different sections linked together. It summons the sounds of bands like Fates Warning, Dream Theater, and Queensrÿche, groups that blend classical, power, and progressive influences. This must be attractive for Nishiyama, who is often said to incorporate these styles and European music into her compositions and playing style.

Track #7 “Akumu no Rinbukyoku” [悪夢の輪舞曲, Rhondo of Nightmare] (Babymetal’s debut album, 2014) is quieter, lighter, and delicate, while still being a whirlpool of jazzy depth. The interesting band Babymetal invented the Japanese subgenre of “kawaii metal” (cute metal) by combining the sounds, power, and technique of heavy metal with the image of J-Pop vocals, theatrics, and culture. This medium 3/4 tune stands out as a highlight of the more straightforwardly modern jazz piano trio sounds on this album, and fits very well with Nishiyama’s personal style.

Track #8 “Demon’s Eye” (Deep Purple’s Fireball, 1971) is a bluesy and swingy hard-rock shuffle, and another song leaning towards the traditional jazz sound complete with walking bass and ad-libbed solos. It’s distinct on the album for a jazz stage centerpiece, especially with Hikari Ichihara’s essential trumpet tone and gut-pulling improvisation sharing the spotlight.

Track #9 “The Halfway to Babylon” is Nishiyama’s original composition, with a “Caravan”-like exoticism, darkness, and suspense combined with a “Parallax”-type sound (another of Nishiyama’s bands).

Track #10 “Green-Tinted Sixties Mind” (Mr. Big, Lean Into It, 1991) is all fun and groove, with extra tones delivered by guest saxophonist Hashizume. There’s the feel of a power pop/prog song, but also with glances of hair metal (as Mr. Big was included in, fairly or not) from the ‘90s. The mood is happy and infectious, and this tune serves as a great wrap-up, balancing the power and grit of the album as a whole by locking into the good times and disappearing in a volume fade-out.

Much more is described in the liner notes, translated below. From Nishiyama’s NHORHM song selection process and preparations (and going to see some of these bands live as a fan for the full experience), to her careful reformatting, rewriting, and rearranging, a lot of effort and energy was devoted to this. It resulted in a finely imagined and perfected product through NHORHM’s fantastic performances and the final recording. There are even extended notes on Nishiyama’s blog that go into further detail. It all goes to show how seriously Nishiyama, Orihara, and Hashimoto took this project. It may have seemed like just a quirky whim at first, not only to Nishiyama and the project director, but even to listeners who glance skeptically as such a monstrous hybrid, or rather, a musical experiment. Nishiyama puts a lot of thought and work into her projects, into her playing, composing, releasing new albums, and communicating her thoughts, and the fans rejoice, whether jazz or metal or both or other.

What is NWOBHM?

Although I was a mildly rebellious kid in America who was heavily into ‘80s metal and “The Big Four” Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax, the abbreviation NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) was not one I remember being familiar with. As far as those bands from overseas, I knew the obvious gods Iron Maiden (whom I also adored), and the British and European legends that would show up in videos on Headbangers Ball or through offers from Columbia Record Club: Motorhead, Judas Priest, Def Leppard, Diamond Head (who was specifically raised to my consciousness by Metallica’s cover of their song “Am I Evil” on The $5.98 E.P.—Garage Days Re-Revisited)… And this is even glossing over the likely more influential ‘70s with groundbreaking bands like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Ozzy (and “Iron Man” is later covered by NHORHM on New Heritage of Real Heavy Metal II…), Deep Purple, UFO, Budgie, Queen, Thin Lizzy, Scorpions, and on and on). In general, I didn’t distinguish too much between many American and overseas bands at the time, and this may have been why categories like NWOBHM passed me by. Apparently however, the youthful, raw, and energetic DIY influence of this New Wave (of British Heavy Metal) was definitely strongly felt in Europe, the Americas, and Japan—whether the abbreviation was prevalent as a category term or not—where the above-mentioned bands would sell out large arenas and influence Japanese metal bands like X Japan, Loudness, Bow Wow, and Ningen Isu.

There is some controversy and debate over whether the NWOBHM label is a legitimate label or merely a marketing term coined by a journalist in order to categorize bands and boost magazine sales. Still, the grassroots energy and group affinity this movement started is undeniable, musically and culturally, and what may have started as marketing eventually became useful as a shorthand and a cultural identity for the music fans and the bands themselves, not to mention a historical touchstone.

Enough of the history, and back to this NHORHM album.

Liner Notes

(Translated from the booklet quotes and Hitomi Nishiyama’s original Japanese liner notes.)

I made my debut in 2006 with “Cubium”, a recording made in Sweden and released on the Spice of Life label under the umbrella of the company Amuse, and have since released 13 more albums.

From time to time in various jazz magazine interviews and liner notes, I’ve touched upon the fact that, in high school, I was a fan of Yngwie Malmsteen.

I had been diligently studying piano up until the second year of high school, and then one day, something suddenly snapped, and I stopped playing piano completely for one year. During that time, the thing I was totally fixated on was metal.

I had a lot of friends who were in bands, so I developed an interest in the music that they were listening to and trying so hard to copy. When I heard it, it was tremendously interesting. I joined in on the listening and became absorbed in the music. In particular, by the album The Seventh Sign by Yngwie Malmsteen. I listened to it like crazy.

When I decided to record my debut album in Sweden, the first thing that I thought of was that it was Yngwie’s country.

Probably as a reaction to classical piano, I discovered the joy of the guitar. During the time that I was focused on Yngwie, I also listened a lot to others: Steve Vai, Dream Theater, Stratovarius, Mr. Big, and others. Going down this path, I also listened to a lot of Deep Purple and Rainbow. After that, when I entered the jazz department of a music college, I became so immersed in jazz that I ended up not listening to metal.

The idea for this project started from a conversation I had with Jun Abe, this album’s director, about making an album of covers of current animation songs.

As Abe and I were chatting, I mentioned that as far as animation song covers went, I liked the cool Animetal USA the best [Animetal USA is an American heavy metal group that plays animation covers in a heavy metal style, and is a tribute band to the original Japanese band Animetal]. About thirty minutes later, Abe said, “Going back to what we were talking about, I wonder if, in the opposite direction, you can cover metal songs with jazz?” I immediately thought, “I want to do that!” And so this project began.

In fact, for years I had been thinking that I’d like to cover the song “In the Dead of the Night” by U.K. with my band Parallax. This song, more progressive rock than metal, is one that I first heard on Yngwie’s album “Inspiration.” When I actually went and heard it live at a Yngwie concert, this cool song made the biggest impression on me. Plus, it was the first song we worked on with my first cover band, and for that reason, in addition to my memories of metal, it’s an extremely important song in my musical life.

Initially, Abe and I talked about how many jazz musicians have previously done songs by bands like Led Zeppelin and Frank Zappa, and how there is an affinity between jazz and the progressive side of things. Could we do something that had not been played much in jazz up until now?

As it worked out, I hadn’t really been into Led Zeppelin or Frank Zappa during my high school days. I was just listening to metal, and mainly Yngwie. Moreover, as an acoustic pianist and considering the instrument itself, there was absolutely no relation to the metal genre. With the thought that I might be able to create something interesting, I started to work on this project.

For the song selection, only the previously mentioned “In the Dead of the Night” was decided upon. For the rest, I re-listened to all of the metal CDs I had at home starting in January of this year, and I added some new ones. I selected the songs from listening to a grand total of about 100 albums.

I truly wanted to capture the spirit of that era of the early 1990s, and of those who started bands then and aspired to play metal. Most of the people in bands at that time must have played songs by Mr. Big, Megadeth, and Pantera, which I thought were essential to include.

In addition, I had to pin down some metal classics representing the kind of historical standards of that era, from groups like Rainbow and Deep Purple.

Then, as I was looking into various things after the project started, I bought an album by Babymetal that piqued my interest. It was so intense that I got completely hooked on it and promptly came up with a cover version. On a related note, producers will often tell artists to be sure to include one recent popular song in order to increase sales, which the artist ends up covering dispassionately. In this case, though, I chose to include Babymetal of my own volition. To be honest, at first I thought of them as a novelty idol group, but they are a truly wonderful project that is reshaping the course of the history of metal, and I’m a big fan. Director Abe had requested that I include one song tackling head-on the technical style of metal, so to that end, I decided to do a new song from Angra, a band I had re-listened to for this project and thought was interesting. I wanted to hear them live, too, so I went to listen to them on their Japanese tour. This was my first standing metal concert since seeing Ningen Isu [人間椅子] back in my college days, and I was worried whether I’d be able to handle it well physically, but it was very fun and I came away in high spirits. It was exactly what is meant by “They became what they were fighting against.”

I spent a lot of time on the song selection process. Something that was different from before was that I was listening not only from the perspective of a listener, but also as a player and a producer. When it comes to acoustic piano covers, instrument-wise, it’s impossible to imitate the essential metal qualities of “heavy, fast, strong.” Plus, the use of repetition to make the music stronger is somewhat at odds with the improvisational nature of jazz. So, I chose songs considering the song essentials—even if they didn’t have power chords, or guitar palm-mute chugging, or double-bass drums, or repetition—songs with strong melodies whose personalities definitely wouldn’t deteriorate, and songs that I could nevertheless arrange into my own music. And while it might sound smooth when it’s written out like that, in the end, these are just songs that I personally like. As a result, this selection includes a collection of songs from a wide range of generations, from Deep Purple to Babymetal, and I aimed to cover them from the standpoint of someone in their 30s as much as possible.

The trio’s members are all excellent players of the same generation and active at the forefront of the Japanese jazz scene. We all came through metal, of course, and at rehearsals we’d talk about those times, the songs we had listened to in common, and stories about those bands. It felt like we were high school students again.

With jazz, knowing how much and what to improvise according to the situation, and managing what happens on any particular day, you must maintain an extremely high degree of constant idling while in the midst of performing at live events almost every day. It can feel like living in a state of tension on a daily basis. Somehow, I had felt that the excitement and freshness of music was standing apart from myself. But when I began listening to metal again, I felt as if I were prostrating myself before its overwhelming power and perspective. A feeling of a “Wow, this is so cool, what is this!”-type of excitement returned. I had the sense that this stimulation, so critically important when starting out, had somehow become lacking in my daily musical life. But thanks to this project, my usual musical performance activities have become more distinctive as well, and I am deeply appreciative of this.

When putting together this album, there were songs we recorded but could not include, and other songs we wanted to record but already had too many. I’ve now already started fantasizing about the song selection for a second, follow-up album.

西山瞳 Hitomi Nishiyama

(These liner notes are from the time of the 2015 album release.)

Really Great approach to Angra’s song. The original metal version is very influenced by Latin Fusion, and it’s very cool to listen to it in this Latin jazz format. Excellent arrangement.

KIKO LOUREIRO (ANGRA/MEGADETH)

This is completely different from any metal cover album I’ve ever listened to…not to mention, jazz!

It exquisitely captures the parts familiar to fans of the originals and hard rock/heavy metal and transforms them beautifully into jazz.

This is a wonderful cover album that, in addition to making you realize the charms of jazz, also makes you want to listen to the original versions again.

Marty Friedman (guitarist)

All of the covers keep the original flavor while adding new melodies to the song themes, and it’s really fun, killer to listen to! Mr. Big’s “60’S MIND” is especially great!!! As a true metalhead, after listening to this “NHORHM”, I have the feeling that I’ll start getting addicted to jazz too!

大村孝佳 Takayoshi Ohmura (guitarist from C4, LIV MOON, BABYMETAL, etc.)

When I listen to NHORHM, I am surprised to hear that heavy metal can be so stylish! All of the arrangements are very nice. As a metalhead, I always thought that jazz musicians didn’t recognize metal as music, but in this case, I could feel their enthusiasm and respect for metal. And the melodicism of the accompaniment is even more interesting than the original songs!! Unbelievable! (laughs)

鈴木ヤスナリオ Yasunario Suzuki (Koenji Metal Meshi)

Extended Liner Notes

As an extension of the liner notes, Hitomi Nishiyama’s post on NHOHRM goes into more detail about this release. This page also contains links for Nishiyama’s track-by-track notes (links are in the 曲解説 section), with a few extra video links and behind-the-scenes photos of the recording. Some quick excerpts:

• #1 “In the Dead of the Night” - From the very first song, you might say, that’s not metal!…
• #2 “Walk” - Swing, groove, and timing in jazz and metal.
• #3 “Man on the Silver Mountain” - Yngwie, Rainbow, Dio, and impressions of this song.
• #4 “Skin O’ My Teeth” - Keeping true to the original, bridging the gap between jagged metal and the smooth sound of piano by using vocals.
• #5 “Fear of the Dark” - How Iron Maiden was one of Nishiyama’s first inspirations for songs for the album. Also explains the NHORHM initialism a bit, and how acoustic guitar over electric was chosen for this jazz/metal hybrid.
• #6 “Upper Levels” - About tackling the technical side head-on, and how producer/director Abe is not by nature a metal fan and left those decisions (song choices, etc) completely up to Nishiyama. Also, about Nishiyama’s love and respect for Angra’s album Temple of Shadows (2004).
• #7 “悪夢の輪舞曲” - Nishiyama’s exposure to new music and metal through MTV, and how heavy metal became uncool as new trends (grunge, alternative) took over. And how Babymetal links back to Amuse, a company under which she released her debut album.
• #8 “Demon’s Eye” - Including the hard rock roots of heavy metal to do heavy metal properly, and how the trumpet lends an immediate jazz tone to the music.
• #9 “The Halfway to Babylon” - Answering the question “Why did you include one song you composed yourself?” and a deep exploration of genres and open-mindedness.
• #10 “Green-Tinted Sixties Mind” - On the famous guitar-tapping intro, the fusion feel, the addition of sax, and the laugh-out-loud elements
• Member Q&A - Brief bios, influences, and recommendations from each member of NHORHM.

Obi Notes

Groundbreaking! A jazz pianist releases a cover album of famous heavy metal songs!!! Hitomi Nishiyama’s new project “NHORHM” begins! <Cover model: Lukino Fujisaki>

Audio and Video

• Promotional video with #1 “In the Dead of the Night (U.K.)”, #6 “Upper Levels (Angra)”, #7 “Akumu no Rinbukyoku (Babymetal)”, and #4 “Skin O’ My Teeth (Megadeth)”:

• “Walk (Pantera)” (track #2) — live version:

• “Man on the Silver Mountain (Rainbow)” (track #3) — live version:

• “Fear of the Dark (Iron Maiden)” (track #5) — live version:

• “The Halfway to Babylon” (track #9) — live version:

• “Highway Star (Deep Purple)” (album outtake) — studio version:

• Excerpt from track #6: “Upper Levels”

Links

• NHORHM Information

• Hitomi Nishiyama’s post on NHOHRM (December 10, 2015)

In particular, guitarist Motohiko Ichino and fretless electric bassist Ryoji Orihara have been a constant and large part of the sound of the group. They are brilliant electric partners to Hashizume’s breathy and sawtoothed acoustic sax sound (Hashizume also dips into electricity a bit when playing his sax as cycles and drones looped through a device, occasionally).

With his other main live and recording partners pianist Koichi Sato and drummer Manabu Hashimoto (and some other members along the way), the group has developed the alternately freely abstract and grooving sound that has explored, finessed, and breathed life into his music over many years.

That flexible and imaginative sound is made up of subtly serrated edges of saxophone, digitized guitar tones like signals from outer space, tender piano touches and finessed melodic fragments, fluffy mists and lightning of drumset accents, and thick currents of low bass notes. The sound is both shapeshifting and solid.

This is applied to Hashizume’s compositional ideas of ethereal lushness, with all of its colorful layers of sound, transforming tonalities, nuanced time and meter misdirection, and dramatic development and suspense. These compositional ideas, together with the group’s sound and individual mastery, are the novel recipes that are interpreted through the musicians’ steady cooking for inspired, enjoyable results.

This 2014 album, Side Two, is his second-most recent album and was released a few years before his latest album Incomplete Voices from 2017. Yet, as a marker on Hashizume’s album release timeline, Side Two has an even stronger connection to the two prior albums released just before Side Two, those being his albums Visible/Invisible (2013) and Acoustic Fluid (2012). In a way, Side Two could be considered a combination of live extras and alternate versions of songs from those two prior albums and recording sessions.

With a 44-minute runtime, Side Two contains just four tracks (Hashizume’s original compositions, as with all his albums). The songs were all recorded live during the same performances, and with the same members, as the songs on Visible/Invisible. This fact can give meaning to the title Side Two when interpreting this album as a continuation of the previously released live album.

But, additionally, three of the songs on Side Two were also featured on Hashizume’s 2012 studio album Acoustic Fluid, although here with longer run times:

1. Conversations with Moore (Side Two: 13:48 / Acoustic Fluid: 8:04)

2. The Color of Silence (Side Two: 10:49 / Acoustic Fluid: 4:20)

3. Slumber (Side Two: 13:44 / Acoustic Fluid: 7:50)

4. Duet (Side Two: 5:12 / not on Acoustic Fluid)

The album opens on solid ground with light rhythms and a short repeated piano motif. Otherworldly melodies float around faded guitars, scratchy brushes, and shimmering cymbals with a feeling of curiosity and eeriness. The next song is more abstract with a loose time feel. Long notes flow freely with tones of cautious storytelling. Suspenseful drama builds, rising and falling through the controlled touch of all five musicians acting as one. Track three builds slowly towards energetic excitement through longer melodies played in unison over echoey guitar arpeggios, repeated vamps, interesting time signature changes, breaks, and shifting structures. Finally, encore-like, the album wraps up with five minutes of the mellow and uplifting sounds of a swaying waltz with old-world charm and plenty of captivating sax, piano, and group improvisation and interplay.

All this together makes 2014’s Side Two a delight especially for diehard fans, as it becomes both an extension of the 2013 live album and of the 2012 studio album with three of the songs in alternate extended versions. These extended versions get more time to breathe with more life and patient development. For the listeners, more time to absorb and dwell in these aural environments. And for the musicians who recorded this live and in the moment, no doubt more time to enjoy the freedom to give and receive inspiration from each other, from the performance setting, and from the live audience who was silently tuned in and becoming part of the experience.

Liner Notes

(Translated from an excerpt of Nozomi Hirano’s and Mitsutaka Nagira’s original Japanese liner notes.)

…

This album, Side Two, was recorded during the same sessions as Visible/Invisible, but the colors of the songs are clearly distinct. Considering that Visible/Invisible could be considered relatively “visible” with many songs having visible (easy to catch) rhythms, this album Side Two could be called “invisible” with a close-up on unseen elements. Many of the songs here do not have simple time senses, but that’s not to say that they are completely devoid of rhythm like ambient or drone, for instance. The rhythm is always there as it surfaces to places where it can be seen, to submerge again, and to repeat.

…

If I recall correctly, I was able to chat with [Ryosuke] Hashizume a little bit at the bar when I went to his performance at No Trunks in Kunitachi. Putting aside the fact that I had already been drinking, we had a pretty serious discussion about music in this short interval. It left quite an impression on me so I thought I’d indulgently write that about here. My recollection is vague but the substance of the conversation was along these lines.

“It’s hard to generalize but I think that New York musicians play notes that match their jazz bars, that environment, and the atmosphere of New York. It’s the same for Nordic musicians. The sound of New York musicians may be loud, or Nordic musicians may use space in a relaxed manner when performing… it’s a question of how they adapt to the place and atmosphere. Similarly, I want to put out sounds that match Japan’s places and atmospheres, and I want to perform with a volume, tone, and phrasing that matches the location and the scale of the venue on that day.”

I don’t remember how we ended up talking about this, but I have the feeling that these words are an apt description for the music of Ryosuke Hashizume. That is to say, they describe the Ryosuke Hashizume Group.

I’ve also met [Motohiko] Ichino a few times, and I interviewed him once, when he said the following.

“Wherever I go, I don’t find it that interesting to go to the place with a feeling like ‘/this is my sound/.’ It’s more interesting to arrive with nothing in store, get some kind of inspiration, and then use my skills to add something to it to make it music. As instrument characteristics go, the guitar is an accompaniment instrument, isn’t it? That may play a big part. My way of making music is the same as having a conversation. If something is brought up, say, for instance, manga, I’ll try to talk about manga to the extent that I can. I’m always unarmed, you know.”

Although my conversations with these two musicians were different, I felt that they had something in common. Apart from having a similar tension somehow, there was a commonality in gravitating to harmonize with each distinct environment rather than putting themselves out in front. Listening to the Ryosuke Hashizume Group with these conversations in mind, I could understand a lot more.

Ichino continued, “Basically in jazz, it’s common to find players taking turns, telling life stories with a bang and then giving way, then the next player tells a story, bang, and gives way… I’m not very interested in that.” This conversation that I had with Ichino was probably about the same ideas.

By the way, for me, listening to this album is excellent for chilling out. So are Acoustic Fluid and Visible/Invisible.

None of the songs make use of the “modern jazz cliché” of cycling through solos. A beautiful melody starts and flows smoothly into a performance where the melody and improvisation surge in and become hard to distinguish, continually swaying before subtly reaching the ending. Each performance overlaps and intersects, blurs together, and continues in a relaxed way that makes you lose track of time. You can tell that the music is played with a high degree of concentration. But there’s no excessive tension in the notes or the spaces between the notes. Although there are moments of gradual acceleration, crescendos, or natural deceleration, there is never a time where dynamics are used inappropriately or to catch listeners off guard. If anything, you can only hear a performance where the notes overlap seamlessly and transition smoothly, without being aware of note groupings and pauses.

Also, the sound of each instrument rings with a tone and texture that seems to have been chosen for the sound to be heard here. This is also a reason why I began to like listening to this for chilling out. The tones are chosen for the overall sound more than for their own individual sounds. Manabu Hashimoto’s dry percussion sounds harmonize with Ryoji Orihara’s thick fretless bass. The reason for having a fretless bass rather than an upright bass is quietly but eloquently heard. I don’t know of any other jazz like this. And, along with Hashizume’s sax, Ichino’s guitar, and Koichi Sato’s piano, everyone plays just the right number of notes and volume for the tone and texture here, without addition or subtraction. The perfectly balanced and smooth sound is built through the improvisation. This gentle thrill is the joy I feel when listening to jazz with the stimulating tranquility of everything in harmony. Considering New York jazz descended from West Coast and cool jazz, or the soundscapes of ECM and Hubro, or the Americana lineage related to Bill Frisell and Brian Blade, this is a different soundscape from all of those.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for this album:

• Audio for Ryosuke Hashizume Group’s “The Last Day of Summer”

• Excerpt from track #3: “Slumber”

One of bassist Ryoji Orihara’s many projects is his solo work BGA (Back Ground Ambient), where he conjures transparent or intangible furniture to create ambience, as opposed to playing a standard live set with starts, ends, and discrete songs. This seems to be the seed from which Virtual Silence grew. The BGA sound transforms the space of a room through his fretless electric bass and effects like guitar pedals, loopers, Jaco Pastorius-style playing, and a stringed bow for atmospheric drone notes. In addition to writing four of the five songs on Virtual Silence, he also contributed the original artwork, design, logos, sales, and video editing.

Vocalist Chie Nishimura’s background and previous albums exhibit a love for classic jazz that started at a young age (with an influential Ella Fitzgerald phase), training in classical and opera, and experience with R&B and jazz performance. Although jazz standards have been a mainstay, her recent albums include more impressionistic and grand views of music. This vision permeates Virtual Silence, which began as Orihara’s duo project with Nishimura. Playing in a duo format with bass is not new for the vocalist, and her previous album Funky Duo also follows this format. She has a deep appreciation for singing with a bassist, an experience that stretches back to her early years as a jazz singer.

There are no lyrics sung on the five tracks of Virtual Silence and the stories are not told through words, yet the song titles describe the mood of the music. Orihara’s four compositions have both Japanese and English titles printed in the track listing, with some interesting differences between the two:

1. 溶けた日常 (Metamorphosed) / _toketa nichijo, “dissolved daily life”_
2. 矛盾の街 (Vain Pursuit) / _mujun no machi, “city of contradictions”_
3. Beyond The Flames
4. 人間が住んでる (The Past Decade) / _ningen ga sunderu, “humans are living”_
5. 汚れた群青 (Grief Runs Deep) / _kegareta gunjo, “dirty ultramarine blue”_

An excellent Mikiki article with an interview from 2021 explains the songs and background ideas. In summary, Nishiyumura and Orihara alight on the importance of sound, dynamics, and restraint: From starting very quiet and grabbing attention, to having tightly controlled and compressed sounds and voices with patience and layered sounds; from the influence of certain ECM records and bassist’s solos to the use of ambience, ostinatos, and loops, and how every member and no member is the solo instrument; how being simple but passionate is a constant goal, arrived at most powerfully on the last track.

As the songs progress, the flow mutates from quiet and calm at the outset to larger and more chaotic towards the final stretch, helping the album as a whole to feel like a concept or an encapsulated experience. There is the feeling of being part of a rapt audience during a live performance. Immersed in the music from track #1, a haunting combination of fretless electric bass and voice sing together and imagine an abandoned factory with sheet metal echoes. Loose drumset accents and guitar effects float and linger like dust in the air. As with much of the music, a simple theme is established in union by bass or guitar with voice and repeated slowly. Simple linear steps of melody rise slowly toward high ceilings, tempting meditative moods.

The next four tracks slowly turn up the heat like one extended crescendo, with musical roiling, rumbling, and riffing, layers abutting and adjoining, superimposing and repeating. Free and floating space alternates with thick, steady rhythms. A David Lynchian feel comes into focus at times with odd, lovely, and nostalgic oldness and a slightly sinister feeling. Guitar improvisation and overdrive level increase the drama on the last two tracks, where the stepwise up-and-down themes invoke spiral staircases slowly turning. Although Nishiyama’s voice dynamics are often intentionally moderated for a controlled effect, Nishimura begins to roar and peak on the last two tracks, the plaintive oohs and aahs spinning deep with universal gravity.

The guitar tones and drum patterns veer between heavy density and light ambience, adding quite a lot to the quartet’s distinct, atmospheric qualities. Each instrument (voice included along with guitar, bass, and drums) contributes to the overall sound of shimmering, bright, melodic, and melancholic. Effects like delay, reverb, and chorus flicker like New Wave music (early Radiohead or The Cure, minus alt-rock hooks, plus Norma Winstone and Azimuth colors), where the spacious textures create a mosaic of background effects, smoothed loops, and jangly accents.

Particularly impactful, the last track #5 “Grief Runs Deep” starts with a heavy drum beat resembling the iconic booming of John Bonham’s drum intro to “When the Levee Breaks” (and perhaps it’s no coincidence that drummer Tamaya Honda is a member of ZEK3, an all-Led-Zepplin-songs jazz trio). This head-turning beat maintains its rock rhythm framing as guitar riffing and band jamming layer in near-psychedelic grunge riffs and painted streaks of Nishimura’s slow, soul-piercing vocals. Led Zeppelin meets Pink Floyd with Jimi Hendrix and Faith No More swirling in the stars, a dramatic high point to end the experience, and to return safely to earth.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for #5 “Grief Runs Deep”:

• Excerpts from the album release concert:

• Impressions and an excerpt from #4 “The Past Decade” (at 17:45):

• Live rehearsal for #5 “Grief Runs Deep”:

• Excerpt from track #2: “矛盾の街 (Vain Pursuit) (City of Contradiction (Vain Pursuit))”

Links

• Album introduction and song descriptions from bassist Ryoji Orihara

• Mikiki article and interview with Chie Nishimura and Ryoji Orihara

• Label information

Based in jazz but extending beyond the genre, the music contains a great mix of moods: creatively jaunty, dark and brooding, fanciful, quirky, gentle and sensitive. The personality of the duo surfaces in fun and sensitive ways as the duo moves intuitively through shades of color, mood, and style.

A first-time listener’s ears will no doubt perk up on tracks #1, #3, #5, and #8, songs that are filled with moments of bright energy, whimsy, speedy cool jazz, and funky soul. Yet the music is heightened by the balance offered by the other tracks through slowly captivating ballads, fantastical edifices, and intimately beautiful playing from the two musicians which blooms with repeated and attentive listening.

Of pianist Nagatake’s two evocative and memorable contributions, #2 “Sakuragochi” recalls her duo album with Tetsuji Yoshida with its poignant moods and heavy riffs, while her #8 “Along With You, Sunnyman” skillfully lays out the good-feeling catchy hooks and grooves based on the pianist’s appreciation for Stevie Wonder-like positivity.

Nagatake and Kano’s playing on the saxophonist’s compositions #6 “Foggy Mind” and #7 “Mysterious Dress” feature some of the most exquisitely performed music on the record. These two songs are played consecutively, continuously linked through Nagatake’s piano which infuses the music with wisps of Debussy and Duke Ellington while Kano’s emotionally intense melodies arise bravely and flow gracefully.

Liner Notes

(Transcribed from Nami Kano’s and Mikiko Nagatake’s original Japanese liner notes.)

Jabuticaba (ジャボチカバ) is a tree native to South America whose fruit grows directly on the trunk.

During our second tour, we were discussing what we wanted to call our unit, and at first, we were looking for something cool, maybe something in Italian or French.

One late night, I received images from Mikiko of a jabuticaba tree with lots of fruit on it. I remember clearly how I lost sleep after seeing the astonishing images.

“The character 幹 (tree trunk) from Mikiko (幹子), and the character 実 (fruit) from Nami (奈実)… what do you think about this? Also, it’s a great word, isn’t it?” Coming up with clever ideas is part of Mikiko’s charm, as seen in her performances as well.

That was how Jabuticaba started. Synchronization born from sharing many stages together. And scenery that can only be drawn by these two people with similar sensibilities.

This is an album filled with that which makes us us. I hope you enjoy it.

Nami Kano

Samambaia

When I moved to Tokyo from Nagoya, I was sorting through a lot of music scores when among them I found the music for “Samambaia”, which I had never played before.

I felt like I definitely wanted to try it with this duo, and it fit us great.

As I kept playing this with Mikiko, I began to realize the song’s richness of expression, and it became one of my favorites.

(Kano)

Sakuragochi (桜東風, Sakura East Wind)

In the spring of 2020, all of my performance work was canceled due to the influence of the coronavirus, and the amount of time I spent at home drastically increased. I was so disappointed by losing the opportunity to perform, but conversely, I realized this was my chance to compose songs slowly! I created a melody based on the rhythm of India’s unique tabla drums, and this song was born.

I was hoping that in the spring of the next one or two years, together with my friends, family, and partners, I could remember the gentle feeling of the cherry blossoms of 2020. From this idea, I added the keyword “Sakura” to the title.

(Nagatake)

Wrong Key Donkey

There’s a jazz cafe in Waseda that I really love, and I often went there after classes when I was in college. When I went there, the owner would play albums that I loved like Jackie Byard, Lee Konitz, and Masahiko Togashi. It was there one day that I heard Carla Bley’s album Songs With Legs. I thought it sounded like such a great album that I had to immediately place an overseas order online. This “Wrong Key Donkey” is one of the songs on that album.

Both Nami and I love Carla Bley, and we often play her songs at Jabuticaba performances.

(Nagatake)

What Kind of Fool Am I?

When I was in the sixth grade of elementary school, it was my first time performing in a big band and I got to play on this song as a soloist.

It was the first time in my life that I played on a ballad, and for me at the time it was so difficult, but it’s full of so many memories that it’s still a favorite song of mine. For this recording, Mikiko has added a wonderful arrangement.

(Kano)

Play Fiddle Play ~ Kary’s Trance

One time, we were playing Lee Konitz’s “Kary’s Trance” and Nami said, “It would be interesting to arrange this in a trance-like state”. With that in mind, I took up this arrangement.

“Kary’s Trance” was based on a preexisting song called “Play Fiddle Play”, where Lee Konitz took the chord progression and added a new melody line. When I listened to “Play Fiddle Play” again, I thought it had a really nice melody. I wanted Nami to play both melodies, so that became part of this arrangement. The last part of Nami’s solo is amazing!

(Nagatake)

Foggy Mind

An easy feeling of being in an unfamiliar Tokyo, but with an ambitious feeling of not wanting to give up, and filled with hopes for the future of music that is not yet visible… this is a song which expresses my spirit after just having moved to Tokyo.

(Kano)

Mysterious Dress

When I finished this song, I asked my mother to listen as I played it with my clumsy piano skills. She said it reminded her of a girl wearing a pleated skirt. I had an image of being in a strange forest, so I combined this with my mother’s image and this title easily came to mind.

Continuing from “Foggy Mind”, I think this song expresses the feeling of entering a forest together with Mikiko’s beautiful piano.

(Kano)

Along With You, Sunnyman

I usually have a tendency to write songs that are a little difficult. One day I was listening to Stevie Wonder’s songs on iTunes, and I thought “This person’s songs can make anyone feel good no matter where or when” (it’s a subjective opinion [/laughs/]). This song was motivated by wanting to write a song like that. As I was thinking this, there was a Jabuticaba performance in three days and I wanted to play it there, so wrote it up with Nami’s sound in mind. Sunnyman is a coined word for the thought I had that sometimes there are people just like the sun. Like Anpanman.

This song is a collaboration between Jabuticaba and the Mikiko Nagatake Trio! Since we’re on the same label and can be released together, I was so happy to be able to blend my two favorite sounds!

(Nagatake)

Lastly…

There’s an expression “It’s easier to do something than to worry about it,” but when it comes to CD production it’s certainly not the case! We have nothing but admiration for musicians who overcame so many hurdles to release a CD. Looking back now, it seems so reckless trying to release independently without the know-how.

Jabuticaba was formed at the end of 2017 and our first live tour was in the spring of 2019. When we finished our second tour we talked about wanting to record just like that. Around the time we were setting up our third tour, we were thinking about which songs to include and which arrangements, and the ideas for a recording continued to grow steadily.

Having decided to self-produce and looking for a recording studio, we considered a studio in Eifukucho equipped with a Yamaha piano. Around that same period, it had been decided that Mikiko Nagatake’s trio recording would take place at the same studio and on the same label, so we consulted with Owl Wing Record’s managing director Yuichiro Aratake. He suggested, “Why don’t you release this on my label?” It was a dream-like idea.

So, after our autumn tour finished, we spent two days recording at Eifukucho Power House Studio. Right then, we really learned how hard it was to release a CD, and keenly felt gratitude to everyone at Team Owl Wing Records.

The fact that Jabuticaba is entering our fourth year and was able to release our first album is entirely due to our great fans, the live house barmasters, mamas, and staff, and everyone who has been supporting us. Thank you so much.

The fact that we were able to record in the turbulent year 2020 is also largely significant, we believe. We hope that this CD reaches many homes and that the sound deeply touches many people.

Jabuticaba Mikiko Nagatake Nami Kano

Audio and Video

• Promotional video with #3 “Wrong Key Donkey”, #4 “What Kind of Fool Am I?”, and a short interview:

• Audio for “Samambaia”, track #1 on this album:

• Audio for “Wrong Key Donkey”, track #3 on this album:

• Jabuticaba live at Nica’s in 2021:

• Excerpt from track #7: “Mysterious Dress (Nami Kano)”

The music on this album alternates between slow, free sketches and mid-tempo modern jazz. The slower tracks are beautifully patient, somewhat open-ended with room for the group to pulse and grow organically while trekking through the movements.

Whether on the undertow of “Current”, the storytelling of “The Color of Silence”, or the tranquil, soft “Home”, the slower numbers are soundscapes for creating acoustic moods, a vaguely Blade Runner Vangelis-esque setting of future nostalgia. The recorded warmth of the instruments adds to this with a dynamic mix of warbling guitar, artistically nimble drums, fluidly echoey sax, the magnetic attraction of fretless electric bass, and full, graceful piano.

Among the slower songs, the mid-tempo songs are latched to frames in motion through riffs, loops, or steady rhythms on which longer themes develop. Songs like “Last Moon Nearly Full”, “Conversations with Moore”, and “The Last Day of Summer” thrill with emotional, shapeshifting suspense through the peaks and valleys of the compositions layered with individual improvisation. Throughout, the album is a chimera of imagination, a satisfying journey from the initial pull of the opening “Current” to the last welcome of “Home”.

Audio and Video

• Live performance of “Last Moon Nearly Full”, track #2 on this album:

• Live performance of “The Last Day of Summer”, track #4 on this album:

• Excerpt from track #3: “Conversations with Moore”

Whether singing in English on four tracks or Japanese on five tracks, Ishikawa’s voice is crystal clear and up front in the mix, directly conveying her skill and emotional power storytelling through song. The album works to maintain interest with arrangements and compositions influenced by jazz, pop, rock, Latin, musicals, and classic songwriters such as Stevie Wonder and Freddie Mercury.

As for jazz covers, the album opens with the refreshing “It Might as Well Be Spring” and the ballad “Angel Eyes”, performed here with an enticingly sultry nightclub vibe. The cute throwback “Goody-Goody” takes the role of a traditional swing jazz tune embellished with Japanese bamboo flute, and the exciting title track “Fever” is played with uptempo verve and abandon. The Japanese pop hit “Hanamizuki” is also covered, a well-known 2004 song from Japan used in an acclaimed movie by the same name and popular in karaoke rooms.

In addition to jazz, Trigraph also features five of their well-crafted original compositions: the sweetly tender “Appreciation”, the passionate “Akanegumo”, the restful “Etude for Shakuhachi and Guitar”, the ballad “Eternal Snow”, and the grand and swelling “Barau”.

Audio and Video

• Trigraph performing the title track “Fever” live:

• Trigraph performing the Cyndi Lauper hit “Time After Time”, opening with a live-looped shakuhachi intro:

• Excerpt from track #1: “It Might As Well Be Spring”

Guiding the music is the full voice of the vocalist Ueda, singing in Portuguese and booming with honey richness and strength, swirling around and through the music with a gravitational pull on the dynamics. The music sizzles with kinetic energy and sheer pleasure, and Ueda’s confidence and control fits the bill grandly.

As with her debut album Agora, the singer is supported by her familiar guitar and piano mates Shinji Hashimoto and Junichiro Ohkuchi. For Dois, she adds bassist Ryoji Orihara and drummer Nobuyuki Komatsu to the rhythm section for extra vigor and irresistible samba beats, experts at creating the rhythmic currents that soothe, pulse, and energize. Guest Jo Da Babylonia also joins on cavaquinho on three tracks, adding a classical guitar/ukelele sound which enhances the Brazilian sound with keen, invigorating vibrations.

Audio and Video

• Yuka Ueda performing live in 2015:

• Yuka Ueda performing live in 2018:

• Excerpt from track #1: “Meu Escudo”

Through his modern music, with a clean recording sound and deep reverb, the style of ECM and similar European jazz music is brought to mind. Hashizume’s group for this album is a quartet built on sax, electric guitar, fretless electric bass, and drums, and creates a sound that is both organic and electric, sleekly modern. Hashizume also uses effects to loop his sax on a few tracks, heightening the otherworldly effect on portions of the album.

With a length of 72 minutes spread out over ten tracks, the songs breathe and bloom with energy, pushing towards fusion jazz through graceful melodies riding over sharp beats and beguiling frameworks. Song titles include “Face”, “Seven Four”, and “Cycles”, where the music ranges from cool with futuristic floating qualities to sparse, freeish poems and mysterious, rocking adventures, each song offering up a thematic musical drama, thoughtfully constructed and stylishly executed.

Audio and Video

• Ryosuke Hashizume Group performing live in 2016:

• Excerpt from track #1: “Face”

The core band is made up of guitar, trumpet, fretless electric bass, and drums, with guest keyboard on three tracks adding a warm bluesy sound for extra soul. While much of the music is built around a fusion jazz/rock mood which runs through the album, the dial also moves to include smooth jazz sounds, evocative jazz waltzes, and pop, including a rendition of “Blackbird” by The Beatles. One track, “Loplop”, comes closest to pure bop guitar with a fast swing beat and walking bass, where Matsuo plays quick jazzy lines in the style of guitarists such as Tal Farlow and Pat Martino.

Bonanza’s jazz/fusion side is displayed best on the track “Wicked Wind”, an 11-plus minute jam which boils with energy and echoes the electric fusion periods of Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock to some extent. With developed excitement on extended trumpet and guitar solos played over a rousing bass and drum riff, and including a drum feature near the end, one almost expects to hear a crowd’s roar after the final note is played. In fact, a second alternate take of this song is included near the end of the album, a welcome encore of this satisfying set piece.

All the musician shine with visceral playing and a clean sound, with solos, duos, and group features arranged among the songs. Adding to the variations in mood are Matsuo’s use of acoustic and electric guitar selected to suit the material, as well as trumpeter Keisuke Nakamura alternating between trumpet, flugelhorn, and even adding real-time delay, wah-wah, and distortion effects to his horn at several dramatic moments. As for the indefatigable rhythm section, the impressively twisty lines from bassist Ryoji Orihara move with glissando slides, deep pops, and high ringing harmonic tones, and add a lot to the music along with the tight patterns and quick reactions from drummer Yasushi Fukumori, who uses the complete set to great effect with brilliant dynamics and incredible playing.

Audio and Video

• Bonanza performing “Loplop” live, the seventh track on this album:

• Excerpt from track #4: “Wicked Wind”

While jazz musicians have traditionally interpreted popular music and Broadway musicals for inspiration, NHORHM harvests heavy metal for a surprisingly fitting and rich source of material.

Pianist Hitomi Nishiyama expertly rearranges heavy metal songs for piano jazz trio arrangements, imbuing the music with her characteristic elegance, darkness, intelligence, and fun. The intricate harmonic lines that Nishiyama excels at playing fit well with the dense heaviness of her carefully curated metal choices, complemented marvelously by the dexterous energy of Ryoji Orihara’s fretless bass and the rhythmically clever dynamics of Manabu Hashimoto. Far from benign cocktail jazz, the resulting music has a smart sharpness inspired by the volume and roughness of the metal spirit. While not distorted or aggressive, it is both light and heavy, and definitely rocks in its own way.

NHORHM is described as a heavy metal cover jazz band, but this is not just a mimicking of the original metal material. Rather, the music is heightened by the reformatting of the material through intricate arrangements, creative time signatures, harmonic changes, and skillful performances by the members honoring the music with fondness; they are having fun with the recital of music they genuinely appreciate.

Similar to how the first three NHORHM albums covered music from major metal bands (Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Pantera, Megadeth, AC/DC, Dream Theater, Extreme, and many others), this Extra Edition release features songs from the bands Stratovarius (“Galaxies”), Deep Purple (a delicate and fantastic “Highway Star”), Metallica (an unexpectedly funky “Enter Sandman”), Slayer (a straightforward and interestingly arranged “South of Heaven”), and Yngwie Malmsteen (“Don’t Let It End” and “The Seventh Sign”, both seriously lovely, melodically moving). As with previous albums, this album also contains an original number from Nishiyama.

While a background familiarity with the original heavy metal songs is not necessary, for some listeners it is quite satisfying to experience how distorted guitars and heavy metal aggression can be transformed and handled by a jazz trio such as NHORHM. Not just a gimmick, this is talent on display and a successful experiment for a modern jazz trio, and the end result, the music, is heavily satisfying.

About the name: Perhaps an unwieldy moniker at first, NHORHM - New Heritage Of Real Heavy Metal - is an affectionate nod to the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) of the 1970’s and 80’s which included many great heavy metal bands such as Black Sabbath, Motörhead, and Iron Maiden, and many more. Incidentally, the name NHORHM also nicely serves as an acronym for the three musicians read in Japanese name order: Nishiyama Hitomi, Orihara Ryoji, Hashimoto Manabu.

Audio and Video

• NHORHM performing “Don’t Let It End”, track five on this album:

• Promotional video for NHORHM I (first album):

• Promotional video for NHORHM II (second album):

• Promotional video for NHORHM III (third album):

• Excerpt from track #1: “Galaxies”

Links

• New Heritage Of Real Heavy Metal

Active in many groups and collaborations, Kishi returns to the classic piano trio form on Life Is Too Great and leads a powerhouse jazz trio, showcasing talent and songwriting with new original tunes, with the ever-hardy, invigorating Ryoji Orihara on fretless bass and crisp rhythmic master Akira Yamada on drums.

From the swinging modern-jazz opener “DON PAPA”, the trio sparks a fire, and with such variety on the album highlights abound: the smooth fusion groove “Kin No Doto”, the darkly dramatic and tense “Madoka”, and the snappy up-beat samba “Palette” are all addictively ear-catching tunes. In addition, the album includes cleverly-arranged jazz on “I Have A Dream”, Sayaketts-style funky pop jazz on “Trip! or Tweet?”, and honestly sweet ballads on “Life Is Too Great” and “Dai Ni No Furosato”, a great album-closer full of emotion and charm.

In addition to her eight original offerings, three cover songs are included: Chick Corea’s “La Fiesta”, Thelonious Monk’s “Evidence”, and the jazz standard “Guilty”, performed as a dreamy piano solo.

On Life Is Too Great, Kishi’s tunes and performances are great and full of life, prismatic and memorable, befitting this polished modern jazz trio.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for this album:

• Excerpt from track #1: “DON PAPA”

Virgo follows the pianist’s previous albums Another Ordinary Day (2002) and Belinda (2007) and completes a trio of records that progressively show an expansion of creative vision and songwriting tact. Through arrangements honed at Japanese jazz clubs through prior years, the music was released to eager fans with this album of seven originals plus an arrangement of Thelonious Monk’s “Green Chimneys”, which gets a unique slow-and-low groove treatment here.

Aside from straight-ahead jazz, leader Harumi Nomoto and bandmates fretless electric bassist Ryoji Orihara and multi-genre jazz drummer Sohnosuke Imaizumi have perfected a jazzy, funky groove for modern jazz, apparent throughout on tracks such as “Green Chimneys”, the effervescently modern and angular “Hirari”, and the entrancingly catchy “Avocado” which kicks into a flashy high-gear for an impressive trio showpiece.

Exotic musical elements also surface on Virgo, as African music inspires the strong crowd-pleaser “Do Re Mi”, a joyfully bouncy tune with an upbeat bass and drum groove with fun breaks. Similarly, an adventurous mood arises on “Azurq”, mellow and modal, and evoking foreign vibrations in the vein of Yusef Lateef’s Eastern explorations.

Plenty of peaceful space is also offered and balances the energy well, with the tender ballad “Aru Hito No Koto” and two versions of the song “Rain”, an ode to the beauty of wet weather and contemplative moods.

Audio and Video

• Album promo video #1:

• Album promo video #2:

• Album promo video #3:

• Album promo video #4:

• Excerpt from track #6: “Do re mi”

Through sounds ranging from ethereal and delicate to deep and groovy, the music steadily develops in dramatic style, patiently, with nooks and crannies of musical texture creating a fulfilling, lush experience. This is art music, creative jazz with rock, modern classical, and free elements, carefully crafted with space for the skilled musicians to stretch out together, painting fantastic and vivid colors with harmonic richness and rhythmic dynamicism.

With six songs ranging from eight to 16 minutes each, the music breathes with life: From the opener “Journey”, flowing like water over a delicate lattice of cymbals and drums, moving into “The Last Day of Summer”, a mysterious melody storytelling over a jazz/rock fusion riff, contrasted against the sound effects of “15 Night”, a darker poem-like atmosphere, floating with the stimulating “Cycles” and settling into “Park”, an anthemic, never-want-it-to-end pop/rock jazz tune, before reemerging from dreams with the final song “Sketch #1”, each composition offers a fascinating path through the seen and unseen facets of this compelling music.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for this album:

• Excerpt from track #4: “Cycles”

The music is sleek, organic, and hypnotic at times. For example, track #3 “Synesthesia” is particularly magical as time and pulse slip and shift as the music develops; at other times, the group locks into a detailed groove, or opens up the framework and allows timekeeping to fade from the audio palette. The roomy improvisational passages are filled with emotional passion and rooted by the quintet’s empathy established through years of live and recording experience.

High-caliber musicianship and exquisite songcraft make this an absorbingly satisfying listen, cerebral yet bodily grooving.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video with clips from the album:

• Excerpt from track #1: “Still”