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April 23, 2024
 

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JAZZNICITY

Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Dec 1, 2006
Ub-X freely tinkers with the engine of jazz
Piano, bass and drums form the engine of jazz. Most jazz bands build on this foundation by adding other instruments, while a select few work from within to upend the conventions of the piano trio and fashion a completely new sound. Ub-X, one of the latter, is a group that sounds like no other.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Nov 17, 2006
Dutch invasion
Jazz has established many homes outside its country of birth, and recently musicians and fans in these widely dispersed countries have begun interacting far from jazz's Mecca of New York City. The scenes in Holland and Japan -- long two of the most thriving -- stepped up their cultural exchanges this year with more tours than ever. For the two countries, it is the latest chapter in a relationship established 400 years ago when Dutch ships arrived in Nagasaki.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Sep 15, 2006
Big-band education
On the sidewalk, in the parking lot and on the entrance stairs outside Fuchu Mori Art Theater Hall in western Tokyo last month, throngs of university students were fingering melody lines in the air, scrunching their faces trying to remember chord changes and counting out tempos in whispered voices.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Aug 25, 2006
Hot slabs of jazz
While summer rock festivals are as numerous as fireworks, outdoor jazz concerts have recently become as rare as a non-humid day. Just five years ago, Japan had so many jazz festivals all over the country that musicians had trouble making the tightly scheduled gigs. Then, sadly, economics caught up, distance and weather took their toll, and most jazz fests stopped what had always been, basically, a labor of love.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jun 30, 2006
Playing to projected light
A member of Sun Ra's Arkestra from 1958, Marshall Allen was there at the inception of the avant-garde jazz scene in the 1960s. Sun Ra, who died in 1993 -- or was transported to another planet, as the eccentric artist always insisted would happen -- led one of the most experimental, and controversial jazz orchestras of that, or any, time. Allen played saxophone, and any other instrument Sun Ra encouraged him to, and later took over leadership of the Arkestra and Sun Ra film and music archives. He has continued to innovate and collaborate well into his 80s.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Sep 23, 2005
Keeping the Hot Club flame lit in Tokyo
One of Europe's biggest contributions to jazz, Gypsy swing jazz -- now more correctly called "jazz manouche" -- comes down to one man, famed Belgian guitarist Django Reinhardt. Together with violinist Stephane Grappelli and a rotating ensemble of musicians, Django's Quintette du Hot Club de France shot to fame in 1930s Paris, playing a new energetic Gypsy mix of flamenco, Balkan music, folk and jazz.
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jun 19, 2005
Only one way to get that big band sound
Forming a jazz big band in this day and age is a somewhat insane undertaking. Scheduling the right musicians, writing elaborate arrangements and hiring a studio with the right equipment to record 16 players at once are headaches big enough to hold back even the most inspired leader. The bottom line for many jazz musicians in Tokyo's competitive jazz world is that it's easier to find regular gigs playing standards and feel content just to survive.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Mar 27, 2005
Swing is the thing for bassist Nakamura
Not many Japanese jazz musicians have played in front of a President of the United States, but Kengo Nakamura is one. After leaving his hometown of Osaka to study at Boston's esteemed Berklee College of Music in 1988, where he switched from electric to acoustic bass, and struggling for a while to find gigs, he has become one of the most in-demand bassists in New York City. His rock-solid swing and lyrical soloing also caught the ear of Wynton Marsalis, notorious for his high standards, who invited him to join his septet.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Nov 28, 2004
The power of one note
Power and imagination have been Kazumi Watanabe's mainstays for over 30 years. As a prodigy on electric guitar, his first release was in 1971 at the age of 18 and his ever-evolving guitar technique has served as the central pillar of near-annual releases. In the 1980s, his progressive and very muscular style of jazz fusion, captured most notably on the recording "Tochika," earned him international recognition. In Japan, he is a household name.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Aug 1, 2004
Pursuing a degree in bop and beyond
Senzoku University is different from other universities in Japan. Huge black cases jam the hallways; five parallel lines are etched onto the whiteboards; lecterns hold stereo systems; and many classrooms are empty but for a few metal stands or the occasional grand piano. It's all down to the study of one thing: jazz.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jul 18, 2004
Candela rise above definitions of East and West
Japanese culture is famed for importing artistic forms and converting them to new patterns, but one local group of foreign musicians is trying to reverse that trend. Candela, a group of four American musicians with diverse musical backgrounds, creates jazz-based music with Japanese melodies; folk tunes using that quintessentially Japanese instrument, the shakuhachi. They create an original sound that is rooted in jazz, propelled by Asian and Latin rhythms, and inflected by an original Japanese sensibility.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jun 6, 2004
A voice like none other
Though many postmodern jazz musicians are tireless experimentalists, they often end up producing interesting concepts more than good music. Pianist, composer and band leader Hiroshi Minami, however, is that rare jazz musician who sets up intriguing musical challenges that feel natural. He plays an engaging postmodern style that achieves that elusive jazz ideal -- an authentic voice all of its own.
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Dec 21, 2003
Big steps for Tokyo's little jazz labels
Independent labels have always been a mainstay of the Tokyo jazz scene, but this year saw a bumper crop of good music coming from small labels. While many of these artists' recordings can only be found at their shows, stacked up neatly on fold-up tables at the back of the club, a number of the larger music stores have started stocking them. That alone must be considered progress for these little-known groups, since their small labels are dedicated to vibrantly creative Tokyo jazz, rather than churning out ear candy. Recorded at small studios, homes or out-of-the-way clubs and produced, mastered or mixed by the musicians, these recordings feel handcrafted. These CDs are the top 10 picks of the past year. If you want to hear them live, check out their Web sites to get the performance schedules.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Aug 31, 2003
Jazz and more under one roof
The exaggerated rumors of jazz's demise can be put to rest. The second annual festival Tokyo Jazz 2003 showed that jazz is not ready to be relegated to the museum of past musical styles quite yet. An amazing (for jazz anyway) 40,000 fans headed to Ajinomoto Stadium in western Tokyo for two days of music Aug. 23-24. These numbers were even more surprising considering the Mt. Fuji Jazz Festival in Shizuoka was competing for ticket-buyers the same weekend. In addition to admissions, the steady stream of T-shirt, book and CD purchases at booths around the stadium proved that jazz still sells.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Aug 10, 2003
Akagi nurtures organic lifeform
Jazz pianist Kei Akagi clearly relishes the dual nature of the human mind. This is no surprise coming from someone who has divided his time between the United States and Japan, his college studies between philosophy and music, his musical training between classical and jazz, his jazz playing between electric and acoustic, and his working life between teaching jazz at university by day and performing in jazz clubs at night. These bifurcating experiences have influenced his view of jazz as "heterogeneous" and "inherently unstable."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jul 13, 2003
The sum of their parts -- and more
One of the common impressions of Japanese jazz is of skilled technicians working studiously within the confines of jazz tradition to turn out polished music. Indeed, many Japanese jazz musicians fail to exploit the full potential of jazz improvisation, preferring instead to remain dedicated, humble craftsmen, honing their skills and leaving the boundaries right where they found them. Two new quintets -- the Shigeo Aramaki Group and the Hiroshi Fukumura Quintet -- delightfully smash this stereotype into smithereens. Both groups have a brash, open and unrestrained approach that follows the spirit of jazz more than the letter.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jun 8, 2003
Synergetic possibilities at the heart
The piano trio is the heart of jazz. This core unit of piano, bass and drums pumps life into the music. All jazz groups, big or small, rely on the piano, bass and drums (called "the rhythm section") for their crucial thrust of energy. Taken out of a larger group, the piano trio contains all the essentials of jazz -- rhythm, harmony and melody -- purely and directly. Without horns or other elements to duck behind, the piano trio puts the resourcefulness and collective feel of the players to the ultimate test. When a different trio's set can be heard one after another, what you get is not just energy but synergy, an apt name for a piano trio festival in Tokyo this month.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
May 11, 2003
A versatile jazz, classical and Latin lover
The typical image of Latin jazz comes mainly from salsa. Certainly, large bands playing fast-tempo dance music peppered by a hot horn section, thumping bass, razor-sharp piano and a small contingent of percussionists comprise the most common -- and perhaps most exhilarating -- form of Latin jazz.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Apr 13, 2003
Extracurricular cool at Hitorizawa
Hitorizawa High School in Kanagawa appears to be a normal Japanese high school. Plentiful shoe-boxes jam the entryway, a sign-in sheet for visitors dangles alongside the nub of an old pencil and lists of rules hang accusingly in the wide and somewhat dusty halls. After classes, administrative staff work late while classrooms rest empty with the day's chalkboard lessons erased to dust.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Mar 9, 2003
All of it . . . why not hear all of it?
"You took the part/That once was my heart/So why not take/All of me?"
Japan’s cannabis market growing rapidly amid regulatory shift
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Philippines wants U.S. and Japan to take over rail deal eyed by China
Delfin Lorenzana
'Sugar Baby Riri' gets nine-year prison term over romance scam
Mai Watanabe, who went by the moniker “Sugar Baby Riri,” dated older men and swindled them out of money by telling them fictitious heartbreaking stories about herself to gain their sympathy.
At least one dead, seven missing after two MSDF helicopters crash off Izu Islands
Contact was lost with the two SH-60K helicopters, each carrying four crew, in an area east of Torishima in the Izu Island chain during anti-submarine warfare training Saturday night.
Tokyo Rainbow Pride lights up capital as organizers celebrate 30 years
Rainbow flags were flown through the capital's busy Shibuya and Harajuku areas for Tokyo Rainbow Pride events this weekend as organizers hailed 30 years of one of Asia's largest LGBTQ celebrations.
A craft beer crawl through Tokyo’s top bars, brewpubs and dives
If all you drink is Asahi, Sapporo and Kirin, you're depriving yourself of some of the best craft beer Tokyo has to offer — and there sure is a lot of it out there.
'Sugar Baby Riri' gets nine-year prison term over romance scam
Mai Watanabe, who went by the moniker “Sugar Baby Riri,” dated older men and swindled them out of money by telling them fictitious heartbreaking stories about herself to gain their sympathy.
Tsukiji 2030s: A stadium, culinary center and transportation hub
A computer-generated image shows redevelopment plans for the former site of the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo.
Hearing the impact of climate change in Okinawa, one bird call at a time
Toshihiro Kinjo (center), a research support technician at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, inspects an audio recording device in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, on April 3 as Masako Ogasawara, a research support specialist at OIST, looks on.
Japan’s cannabis market growing rapidly amid regulatory shift
The legality of products that contain cannabinoids, a group of substances derived from the cannabis plant, has been somewhat murky in Japan.

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Vol. 34: Tokyo, a vanguard city for sustainability
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