Michihiro Morisada on Jazz of Japan | Brian McCrory

Yukari Sekiya: Duets Till Now, From Here

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Pianist Yukari Sekiya released Duets Till Now, From Here fourteen years after her 2011 debut recording It’s Ordinary Love And…. This new album offers both a retrospective and a forward view of her music and musical partners through her years of playing. Duets is a two-disc album with 16 songs, and the temporal themes of past and future are reinforced by the label assigned to each disc, with disc one titled “Till Now” and two as “From Here”.

As the title reveals, the songs on this album are duets played by Sekiya with one other musician. That is, each song is performed by a duo of piano and bass, or piano and drums, or piano and sax, and so on. Sekiya plays two songs a piece with each of her eight guests, another link to the overall duality theme that references the number two. Her guests include three bassists (Michihiro Morisada, Megumi Otsuka, and Masaki Kai), two saxophonists (Taiichi Kamimura and Tsutomu Takei), a guitarist (Suomi Morishita), a vocalist (Yuzumi Tanimukai), and a drummer (Jin Mitsuda).

Along with the dual perspectives, a similar division can be found in Sekiya’s music itself. As pianist Akira Ishii’s introduction on the obi sleeve describes, Sekiya’s playing comfortably swings between composed themes and free jazz playing. The composed versus free division is not aligned by disc, but programmed into the track listing in different places. This porous boundary is arranged within certain songs on Duets as well.

Most of Sekiya’s compositions are just that: composed scores that the pianist and her guest read from and play to. As with jazz music, the players are not strictly bound to the written notes and chords and can ornament and transform the music, or play extended solos created through their musical skill, experience, and spontaneous feeling, all while coordinating in time with their musical partners. And, as with free jazz, the players are able to jump off of the score even more. It’s like floating in space with no tether save their individual self-controlled guidance and confidence in navigating an unknown territory together.

For instance, there are a few mostly freely played tracks. The first track “Nobody Is There” is a great patient introduction from piano and drums, a pre-workout stretch with specific harmonic statements embedded in the free-form movements. Similarly, #4 “Forest Valley” features a bass and piano dialogue that pings back and forth briefly before building to an intertwined sculpture of abstract sounds, a raw and improvised self-portrait of the duo’s musical personality. Sax player Sam Newsome’s recent article Embracing the Unscripted describes this type of improvised music from a first person point of view very well.

Other songs have free sections between arranged intro and outro themes, such as on disc one’s #5 “Happa” and disc two’s #2 “In Touch” and #7 “Octopus Blues”. These sections are wild and fun, as the musicians completely adlib and veer off the written score with unconstrained musical creation that is neither noise nor chaos.

Free playing aside, Sekiya leans strongly into her composer role for the most part. Much of the music is penned with detailed chords, melodies, and assigned sections that the pianist and her duet partners follow carefully. These songs run the gamut from suspenseful to peaceful, with doses of jaunty jazz, quirky oddness, and somber developments that extend the tonal variety in always interesting ways.

Liner Notes

As a duo, we can closely feel each other’s inner voice

Important sounds that I’ve cherished “till now”

Sounds that I want to deepen “from here”

A colorful time with eight musicians

Yukari Sekiya | pianist/composer

Born in Osaka. She is a musician with a unique performance style that utilizes swells and pauses, who creates vivid, original songs that practically sing themselves. She works nationwide focusing on collaborations across genres with performers and artists from both Japan and overseas, her solo project “Out of the Window” which includes improvisation and landscape, seamlessly connecting and deepening improvisation and composition — the abstract and the concrete. Her music is adored, not only by music fans, but also in various fields as “music that shakes your emotions”.

Obi Notes

There are no “thorns” in the piano she plays. That is not something with a hidden meaning. With accompanied tension, it is a pleasurable world that also contains a sense of “poison”. Through this album I want to keep an eye on the past and the future of this pianist who moves at will across the borders of free improvisation and coordinated, composed music.

— Jazz pianist Akira Ishii

Audio and Video

Promotional video #1 (Disc 1 excerpts):

Promotional video #2 (Disc 2 excerpts):

Promotional video #3 (brief introduction):

“Making Of” video, behind the scenes of the recording of this album:

Live performance of “Room 401” (track #8):

Yukari Sekiya Trio with Yuko Tanaka: It’s Ordinary Love And…

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Yukari Sekiya (Sekichu) is a jazz pianist, composer, and free improvisationalist who released her first album in 2011 with the group Yukari Sekiya Trio with Yuko Tanaka. The Japanese title of this debut is ありふれた愛なので・・・ translated on the cover as It’s Ordinary Love And… Sekiya’s trio is completed by Michihiro Morisada on contrabass and Tatsuya Hashimoto on drums, and Yuko Tanaka joins as guest vocals and voice.

This album is a live recording of seven of Sekiya’s original compositions, performed on one night in December 2010 at the jazz club Big Apple in Kobe. The four musicians all embrace spontaneous, simultaneous creation, and Sekiya’s music is wide open for creativity. Bounding several free jazz sections are the pianist’s composed musical themes and thoughts, written down on the page as clear melodies, structures, accents, and band signals that are coordinated parts of Sekiya’s musical design. At the same time, whole sections of several pieces are set free to allow the musicians to stretch out together. In those sections, the four members improvise freely but together as a group, reaching towards one musical mind, and building to wild crests of sound or subtle unified soundscapes as feelings and the moment dictate.

Voice artist Yuko Tanaka performs on six of the songs, switching between vocals and voice to match Sekiya’s music to her lyrics or voice effects. On about half the songs, Tanaka sings Japanese lyrics written by herself, and on other songs, she unites with the instrumentalists using all manner of unconstrained non-speech sounds, gibberish words, and nonsense syllables to dynamic effect.

Here’s a brief overview of the music. The absorbing opening track #1 “Stop call” unleashes a band that is energized and eager to flex their group improvisation muscles. #2 “Night lights” shifts down to a gentle ballad with light Japanese lyrics. #3 “floating” continues the graceful mood and lyrical singing with a soft waltz feel. #4 “KOSAME” (小雨, light rain) is an instrumental exploration, as the trio draws a scene that builds to a rousing climax. #5 “Ballerina at midnight” evolves from a vintage loose swing to the uncontrolled passion of a mad dance. #6 “In the Cave” stir up chaos with glazed fragments of multiscalar notes and intense free association. Finally, the closer #7 “Grampa’s Hand” features vocalist Tanaka returning to sweetly sung lyrics as the band holds steady and brings the intoxicating experience of this live set back to ground.