Female jazz acts are the real Cool Japan
One of the highlights of my Golden Week this year was a concert by the Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin Jazz Orchestra at Blue Note in Tokyo. Reuniting her big band for the first time in a decade, Akiyoshi rolled back the clock with a superb ...
Pianist provides a tribute to Canadian jazz legend for his debut
One decision that faces jazz musicians toward the start of their careers is whether to continue the traditions of what's gone before them or to try and strike out in a new direction. Pianist Yuki Futami, 26, has chosen the former path and has just ...
Pianist Onishi to come out of retirement
Pianist Junko Onishi will come out of retirement to perform one more time, at the finale of this year's Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto in Nagano Prefecture. According to a statement released Friday, the 46-year-old musician was convinced to come back to the stage by overtures ...
The first lady of Japanese jazz comes home
For Japanese jazz musicians these days, going to the United States to further mastery of the genre is a much-pursued rite of passage. This route has enabled a number of acts to gain international recognition and success.
Playwright imprint focuses on newer jazz acts
At a time when stories about declining music sales are frequent and major labels aren't investing in new talent, hearing about an indie label like Playwright is music to the ears. The young jazz label's first release came out in October, and in the space ...
Newbies to Japanese jazz get a soundtrack to a primer
For a music fan wanting to explore jazz for the first time, an ideal starting point may be the current chart-toppers, which includes Robert Glasper, Esperanza Spalding and Jose James. Alternatively, he or she may choose to start with the classics, diving into the ...
Japanese acts play music ambassadors at Canadian Music Week
After rock group Jake Stone Garage hit the final chord of one of their powerful guitar-heavy songs, the crowd let out a few hoots and applauded politely. For a Western band this may have seemed a bit unreceptive, but luckily Jake Stone Garage are from ...
Jazz Week Tokyo pairs Pink Martini with Saori Yuki
Coming out of winter lineups are beginning to be announced for the many summer festivals, but music is always in the air and next week those sounds will be jazz. Jazz Week Tokyo will be held at Tokyu Theatre Orb in the Shibuya district's Hikarie ...
Jazz acts must embrace some new standards
Drop by your local jazz club and on an average night there's a fair chance the band will at some point play a rendition of "Autumn Leaves," "My Favorite Things" or " 'Round Midnight" — or maybe all three. You might hear an inspired ...
It's believed that time spent living abroad can be a journey of self-discovery, and for Miho Hazama that has certainly been the case. Moving to New York to study for a master's degree in jazz composition at the Manhattan School of Music (MSM) was ...
Building off that four-letter word — 'jazz'
Something I've noticed recently when browsing the jazz sections of record shops is the proliferation of sub-genres among the Japanese artists. Just hearing the names is enough to get a fan excited about the apparent explosion of creativity. For example, postrock jazz acts such as ...
Rediscovering Japan's 'lost generation' and Tokyo Beatles
LIFE.com unearths photos of pill-popping hipsters, doing the hippie hippie shake, back in the day.
