Echos follows her debut recording Tip of Dream (2009) and solidly establishes Chiba’s focus on original compositions evocative playing continued on her later albums Roguequeue (2015), Beautiful Days (2017), and Canvas (2022).

Liner Notes

(Translated from Fumie Chiba’s original Japanese liner notes.)

1.echo

Echo imagines a trio that reverberates and dissipates together and is often played at the beginning of our performances. This song received a finalist song award in the 2012 John Lennon Songwriting Contest.

2.dawn

As my train headed towards a place I was visiting for the first time, I had complex feelings of anticipation and anxiety mixed together. The dawn sky gradually moved from the east, overflowing with bright colors. I wrote about that time combined with my scenes from my imagination.

3.snow

I opened a window and, without realizing it, I saw the roundness of the sky’s ceiling through silently falling snow.

4.flow

Floating, the trio’s sound flows comfortably through space.

5.closer

In a distant foreign country, dancers step and clap their hands as they continue to dance on…

6.garden

A large green garden spreads out and brims with gentle feelings where a melody is played through warm bass tones.

7.parabola

Just as an athlete’s thrown javelin seems to go on forever drawing a parabolic path in the sky, this song also goes.

8.memai

This was originally a song I wrote thinking that it would be played by string or wind instruments. I perform this as a classically arranged solo carried on the clear notes of a Bechstein piano.

9.trinity

With a simple theme based on a trinity, the trio’s performance goes on to change kaleidoscopically.

10.H.M.

One song, recorded as a piano solo, was added as a epilogue to the album.

千葉史絵/Fumie Chiba/Piano

From Saitama Prefecture. Started classical piano at 6 years old. After graduating from Shizuoka University Graduate School, studied under Manabu Oishi and Yukiko Nishi. Studied composition with contemporary music composer Satoru Ikeda. Currently active in the metropolitan Tokyo and Yokohama areas.

Released her trio album Tip of Dream on June 27, 2009.

Her trio performed at the 2009 Yokohama Jazz Promenade Competition and won the Jazz Club Award.

In September 2012, her original song “Echo” received a finalist award in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest. She likes rabbits. She also likes curry. She is blood type A and bad at organization.

铁井孝司/Tetsui Koji/Bass

Born in 1974. From Tokyo. With a father who was a woodblock artist and who loved jazz and classical music, he became familiar with various types of music by listening from a young age. Majored in jazz music at the University of North Texas College of Music. Studied bass under John Adams and Lynn Seaton.

Currently performing as a regular member of Shimpei Ruike’s band as well as with popular jazz diva Karen Aoki on the recording of her album Voyage and as touring support bassist, in addition to various live recording sessions in the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan area​. Received accolades as an arranger and composer, and supplied original songs and direction for singer-songwriter Yurika Ohishi’s third album gleaming line.

鈴木カヲル/Kaoru Suzuki/Drums

Started drums at a young age as a member of the Kawasaki Boys and Girls Choir. Received a scholarship in 1997 to attend the Boston Berklee College of Music. Obtained an artist visa and performed at events including a reception party for former American Vice-President Al Gore and as the opening act for Ray Charles. Returned to Japan in 2001 and is currently active in the Tokyo area as a member of groups including the instrumental band RF and Takeshi Nakatsuka’s support band.

Audio and Video

• “Echo” (track #1):

• “Flow” (track #4):

• Excerpt from track #2: “dawn”

The five songs maintain that mystery and beauty with light, neatly arrayed piano trio frameworks filled out with painted backgrounds via orchestration of the trumpet, saxes, and guitar on the two septet/sextet tracks.

The title track “Rougequeue” opens with a crystal edge and rich use of the seven instruments for color and texture. The piano trio takes over on track #2 “Ringlight”, a dramatically swinging waltz that was a semifinalist in Japan’s 2014 International Songwriting Competition.

Chiba plays solo piano on track #3 “Orange Sky”, playing the piano with melodic tension and timing as if pulling the strings of a marionette to create life and feelings from wood and strings. Here as with other of Chiba’s compositions, the balanced mixture of pop, jazz, classical, and Japanese folk charm invokes captivating images.

Track #4 “Backstroke” is a six-member piece with characteristically modern, progressive jazz elements like a Herbie Hancock/Wayne Shorter outfit. A foreboding pedal note and vamp motif underpin slow-moving arrows of melody, leading to exciting sax and piano solos and a funky interlude with a guitar solo.

Chiba returns to solo piano for #5 “Water Flower” (ending with a solo piano piece is a pleasing tradition with this pianist’s albums). This song, in medium tempo in 5/4 time, approaches the jazz/classical piano boundary with minor tones, low notes, and emotional heft. With its slowly expressive melody over busier left-hand terrain, the album closes in a melancholic mood and evokes empathetic resonance on the wings of Chiba’s inspiration.

Audio and Video

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

• Live quartet version of “Backstroke” from 2014, track #4 on this album:

• Full playlist for this album

• Audio samples of #1 “Rougequeue” and #4 “Backstroke”

• Excerpt from track #2: “ringlight”

Canvas features ten songs with a running length of 53 minutes, all original compositions from pianist Chiba. The music is modern and brilliant and seeks to avoid common structures and patterns. With a breathy lightness and touching nostalgia, the trio fills out the space with convergent and intersecting layers.

The first three tracks lead off by displaying curiosity and fun, rich, mellow music composed with maturity. “Prologue” contains various turns as an enticing invitation, leading to the mysterious thrill of “Breathless” and the exciting footrace of “Run, Run Melos”. From there, the struttingly catchy anthem of “Pechika Pachika” establishes one of the strongest lingering melodies on the album, and leads to more original music full of mystery and evolving structures.

Liner Notes

(Translated from the original Japanese liner notes written by Fumie Chiba.)

Introduction

In a world full of so many CDs, thank you for picking up this album.

This unusual trio of guitar, drums, and piano started with the aural image of three people on the same circumference and has been performing live for about three and a half years now.

As the number of songs written for this band kept increasing, I kept thinking that I wanted to record someday.

It would be our greatest pleasure if you could enjoy a journey of free imagination with us and the sonic world of FNK. (Fumie Chiba)

1.Prologue

I wanted to write a song to serve to introduce the band. When I came up with the motif for this song, putting aside whether or not this could serve as a band introduction, I felt as if this song with its fluid time and tonality could go anywhere. The actual recording started from this song, and we decided that the first take recorded at the original soundcheck was a good one. However, after recording all the songs, it was decided to take one song for promotional video use, and we performed this song again, recording this take. Since this was both the first and last song of our recording, there was a sense of it being both a prologue and an epilogue.

2.Breathless

This song is often played at the opening of FNK’s live performances. Recalling the Japanese form for “breathless”, the three of us are forming synchronization within one of this band’s themes, the sense of three people circling in the same orbit. Quietly, warmly, a scene of penetrating light arises.

3.Run, Run Melos

The frustration of never arriving at your destination no matter how much you run and run, but you keep taking another step. The guitar riff with an extended delay gives this impression. When I wrote this song, I adopted the title from a book I remember reading in elementary school. I get a feeling like I’m running with Melos every time we play this song.

4.Pechika Pachika

When this melody came to me, I didn’t know the time signature or chord progression, but for some reason, the title “Pechika Pachika” came to mind. There’s a floating kind of feeling every time we play the simple melody, a strange song that brings fresh surprises.

5.Way Back Home

The guitar’s gentle bottleneck tone creates a nostalgic feeling of being enveloped in the orange light of the evening. We try to play it with the feeling of moving slowly, slowly, at the end of the day.

6.Green Field

This song depicts a scene where a person stands alone atop a hill, surrounded by 360-degree wind. One of the characteristics of this band is songs that are not bound by usual jazz formats. For this take only, the drums were recorded a second time, overdubbing a new drum track over the original drums, creating a panoramic feeling of scattered notes being carried along by the wind.

7.Kansokyoku (Interlude)

This is a song written for this recording. It’s a short song that seems to add several layers, with the melody theme moving from piano to guitar, swaying and slightly changing little by little.

8.Aqua

The piano starts without a count-off, the drums come in, and then the guitar takes over the melody statement. Flowing notes gradually increase in energy with a guitar solo, then a piano solo, and ending in a dramatic drum finale.

9.Canvas

I was moved by the story of how John Lennon and Yoko Ono met. I wrote this song because I also wanted to become a canvas for the two musicians and listeners to draw on using notes from their imagination.

The first three minutes begin with piano improvisation followed by the main theme. Then guitar and drums sketch an improvised painting on the canvas of this melody.

10.Reminiscence

The reminiscence of a short and simple motif appears several times. From the album’s opening “Prologue” and the general tonal center of Am, and after visiting various other keys, “Reminiscence” finally ends this journey in C, the relative key of Am.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for “Prologue”, track #1 on this album:

• Live excerpt from “Breathless”, track #2 on this album:

• Live excerpts from “Breathless”, “Mi Fa Sol”, “Someday My Prince Will Come”, and “Restart” from 2020:

• Excerpt from track #3: “走れ、走れメロス (Run, run, Melos)”

As suggested by the bright album photos, the music inspires verdant images from nature: gentle, green, flowing, water… and of course, swinging. Not bebop or a conventional big band swing feeling, but almost a classical, fantastic beauty and pulse.

With eleven songs over an hour, most songs run for five to six minutes, ample time to establish a mood and rhythmic patterns to develop over. Chiba’s music often sets up a repeated riff on which the harmonized horns and vocals soar in graceful crescents. On top of this, the music is detailed like corners adorned with decorations and interesting pathways running to and fro. Some moments almost bring to mind the British contemporary jazz trio Azimuth’s music, with cell-like patterns phasing in and out while wordless vocal improvisation floats around and joins with the music and rhythms.

As the music is consistently interesting and the songs are varied, it’s hard to pick excerpts from this packed album, but some current highlights include the breezily modern opening track “Asayake No Uta”, the stylish and delicate “Invisible Colors”, the inspiring reverie of “Kite”, and the beautifully crystalline “Water Drops”.

Most songs feature the full group, with songs for two piano trio and one solo piano piece. As with Chiba’s other albums, Beautiful Days concludes with the pianist alone, playing a moving solo piano feature with full notes and heartfelt passages.

Audio and Video

• Promotional video for this album release:

• Excerpts from a 2019 live performance of the Fumie Chiba Trio:

• Excerpt from track #8: “Water Drops”