Shinya Fukumori on Jazz of Japan | Brian McCrory https://www.jazzofjapan.com/tags/shinya-fukumori/ Recent content in Shinya Fukumori on Jazz of Japan | Brian McCrory Hugo en-us Sat, 26 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Shinya Fukumori Trio: For 2 Akis https://www.jazzofjapan.com/shinya-fukumori-trio-for-2-akis/ Sat, 26 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.jazzofjapan.com/shinya-fukumori-trio-for-2-akis/ <p><em>For 2 Akis</em> is a 2018 release from the trio of Japanese drummer Shinya Fukumori, French saxophonist Matthieu Bordenave, and German pianist Walter Lang. This album from the Munich-based trio is the realization of Fukumori’s long-held desire to record for the German ECM label. The recording itself was made at a studio in the South of France, a location that evokes scenes of peaceful warmth and slow serenity. In addition to the music, it is perhaps this picturesque presence that was also captured in Fukumori’s concept and the trio’s playing on <em>For 2 Akis</em>.</p> For 2 Akis is a 2018 release from the trio of Japanese drummer Shinya Fukumori, French saxophonist Matthieu Bordenave, and German pianist Walter Lang. This album from the Munich-based trio is the realization of Fukumori’s long-held desire to record for the German ECM label. The recording itself was made at a studio in the South of France, a location that evokes scenes of peaceful warmth and slow serenity. In addition to the music, it is perhaps this picturesque presence that was also captured in Fukumori’s concept and the trio’s playing on For 2 Akis.

Modern jazz records on the ECM label are sometimes described as having a tangible ambience: slow, experimental music living in wide-open crystal-clear recordings, where the reverberation seems to be used as an instrument. Even the CD booklets with their museum-oriented images and minimal text speak quietly of quality, careful curation of artists, and attention to detail. Drummer/bandleader Fukumori’s release For 2 Akis is right in line with this reputation. Added to those characteristics is the gratitude and humility carried in the album title’s meaning as a dedication to two early supporters of Fukumori.

The music on this album, like the natural world, can be serene but serious. While listening, one choice is to let it wash around you and allow the music to establish a soundscape as it happens. Pay as much or as little attention as you like, yet the mood sinks in still. Another choice is to let the music in freely and completely, becoming absorbed as it flows through you and washes the world away. Fukumori used similar words when describing the influence that the Showa era of Japanese pop songs had on him: “Music was a way to escape from the reality, but at the same time to be aware of it.” With this, he draws a parallel to the American blues form. (More of Fukumori’s words can be found on the ECM Records page for this album.)

Another fascinating thing about the music on this album is the time span covered by the songs. The modern compositions from Fukumori, Bordonave, and Lang are balanced by their interpretations of older Japanese songs. There is the early J-Pop era in Japan with the poignant “Mangetsu no Yube” (evening of the full moon), a hopeful anthem reflecting on loss and suffering after the Great Hanshin (Kobe) Earthquake of 1995. The graceful “Ai San San” (love radiantly) from 1986 has emotional enka and kayokyoku roots, and seems simple but is deep and moving. The older songs “Hoshi Meguri no Uta” (song of the circling stars) and “Koji no Tsuki” (moon over castle ruins), are from 1918 and 1901 respectively, and are filled with the sense of traditional Japanese sensibilities and poetic folk moods.

Incidentally, “Koji no Tsuki”, used as the first part of Fukumori’s “Light Suite”, is a song that has been interpreted by Thelonious Monk (as “Japanese Folk Song”), guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen, and the rock band Scorpions.

The wide range of years found in the song selection here brings something extra to the music, eliciting an awareness of how emotion can be timelessly stored and transmitted through the exquisite performances of the songs’ evocative melodies, and the unified rising from that, improvisationally and spontaneously.

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]]> Koichi Sato: Embryo https://www.jazzofjapan.com/koichi-sato-embryo/ Fri, 23 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.jazzofjapan.com/koichi-sato-embryo/ <p>Koichi Sato’s two-disc album <em>Embryo</em> is another remarkable showcase for the talented composer/arranger/pianist. Unfolding the gift-like box presents two CDs enclosed in an <a href="https://www.nagalu.jp/embryo">all-paper-and-cardboard-constructed package</a>, a pleasing way to open the concept album. The placid cover art also carries a surprise, one that is illuminated when the lights are turned down for a listening session.</p> <figure><a href="L1230481x-1200.jpeg"> <img loading="lazy" src="L1230481x-1200.jpeg"/> </a> </figure> <p>The concept is made clearer in the titles of the two discs, Disc 1 “Water” and Disc 2 “Breath”. The two titles perhaps symbolize the transition from womb to world, and describe the sounds of each side. The first disc has Sato playing fourteen of his songs on solo piano, and the second finds Sato playing with small ensembles on twelve tracks, with some of his songs rearranged and repeated between the two discs.</p> Koichi Sato’s two-disc album Embryo is another remarkable showcase for the talented composer/arranger/pianist. Unfolding the gift-like box presents two CDs enclosed in an all-paper-and-cardboard-constructed package, a pleasing way to open the concept album. The placid cover art also carries a surprise, one that is illuminated when the lights are turned down for a listening session.

The concept is made clearer in the titles of the two discs, Disc 1 “Water” and Disc 2 “Breath”. The two titles perhaps symbolize the transition from womb to world, and describe the sounds of each side. The first disc has Sato playing fourteen of his songs on solo piano, and the second finds Sato playing with small ensembles on twelve tracks, with some of his songs rearranged and repeated between the two discs.

Apart from his jazz and piano work, Sato has recently been involved in movie music, and this seems to influence the personality of this album’s music: evocative and descriptive, beautifully moving and played with finesse.

The first “Water” side features Sato alone on a richly-sounding piano, a Bösendorfer tuned in Vallotti temperament for a subtly changing sound character which is said to produce expressive feelings that can produce different effects for different chords and keys on the piano. Ever thoughtful, no doubt Sato considered and experimented with the harmonics and resonances unique to this particular tuning to enhance his music.

His solo piano is delicate and dramatic on disc 1, and most songs on this side fall in the 2-4 minute range. Some pieces sound like sketches of emotional moods, and others are expertly and cinematically developed, with melodies and constructions with that ideal quality of being perfect musical ideas that were just waiting in nature to be discovered and performed, to be made apparent by an artist.

Like statues from blocks of marble, the shapes emerge as if they were latent forms, waiting for a natural genius to expose them. Sato pulls his shapes out as formed tunes that are sublime, and unlike stone, soft, warm, and gentle, or dramatic, melancholic, and suspenseful. They are tunes that may seem preexisting or obvious later, when looking back, but only after the composer discovered them, wrote them down, performed them.

The ensembles on the “Breath” side also feature Sato’s compositions and piano, adding in variations of subsets of a jazz quartet (piano, guitar, bass, and drums) and subsets of a string quartet (two violins, viola, and cello). Disc 2 songs are generally longer and in the 4-6 minute range.

After Sato, long-time collaborator and guitarist Motohiko Ichino has the most playing time, joining Sato for a majority of the twelve songs. The other instruments (bass, drums, cello, two violins, and viola) weave in and out on different tracks in combinations of duos, trios, quartets, quintets, and octets. One suspenseful song, #4 “Draw” also includes an ambient soundscape musician, who colors the music with water and rain sounds for added tense imagery.

The comfortably pleasing audio quality for Embryo features a slightly muted sound evoking a dark, spacious chamber. The recording is mono, which can be easily assumed to be part of the conceptual environment that the album constructs.

Yet, this non-stereo choice is a decided characteristic of this album’s record label Nagalu. This label was founded by drummer Shinya Fukumori, who also plays on this album and has had monaural hearing since birth. The sound is pristine and connects with the transcendent music for a direct effect.

While some tracks (8) are rearranged and repeated on the two discs, group formations and performances differ (as do the physical pianos and their tuning systems), but so does the track sequencing order.

For example, two of the album highlights, the folksy nostalgic “Hua” and hopefully uplifting “May Song”, are played on both discs, but in reverse order: On disc 1, Sato plays #10 “May Song” followed by #11 “Hua”.

On disc 2, a guitar/piano/bass/drums quartet plays #11 “Hua” followed by #12 “May Song” with a piano/cello duo, the final track that tenderly ascends to high peaks for both this side and the double album itself. This choice is a great one, emphasizing the care and thought put into the music and overall direction.

Audio and Video

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