Songs in Motion is a 2018 release from guitarist Yudo Matsuo that he recorded with a quartet featuring Junichiro Ohkuchi on piano, Yoshimasa Otsuka on bass, and Sota Kira on drums. While this album follows his previous debut release Bonanza (2012), there was a full six years in between, so the guitarist/composer surely had a lot to say. As a result, Songs in Motion is an album full of his stored-up musical ideas and performances, and that spirit is bursting forth as the quartet’s energy lets loose. ...

This I Have Heard is a 2025 release from pianist Otohito Fuse, a second album as a leader quick on the heels of his Isolated from 2024. Joining him on this release are his regular trio members, Riku Takahashi on bass and Kaito Nakamura on drums. It’s a continuation and evolution of the trio sound created on their previous release, with an increased maturity and depth added to the new music. This music is patient and deep, and while there are intense tempos with free-flowing jazz improvisation and burning solos, the musicians do not hurry to get there, as if there is an abundance of confidence in building beautiful moments that will come together when the time is right. ...

Semendo Sementes is a jazz piano trio album from bassist Yuki Ito released in 2021. While bassist and composer Ito has recorded albums with different forms and combinations of musicians, and even a solo bass album, this is her first physical full-album release where she leads a piano trio. Joining her in the trio is pianist Yuka Yanigahara and drummer Hiro Kimura, regular members who were also on her previous digital mini-album release. As the leader for this group and live recording, for this set Ito plays original compositions that she wrote and arranged. To this set list, Ito includes one cover song, the old jazz standard “Time After Time” that was arranged by drummer Kimura. ...

Introducing Koichi Hirata is the 2024 debut release from jazz guitarist Koichi Hirata. Hirata is a young, up-and-coming player who has established himself as a popular musician in the live Tokyo circuit, playing live often as a support musician or a leader at his own gigs and popular jazz jam sessions. His style is unadorned with a comfortably warm sound and style that immediately brings to mind the much-admired jazz guitarists of previous generations. ...

Cheers! is the happy-go-lucky title of pianist Saki Ozawa’s debut release from 2023. It’s a fitting greeting as an introduction to this set as one that is pleasantly nimble and widely lighthearted in style. The merriment of this statement begins even from the front cover image: a fun shot of the smiling pianist in an illustrated setting with friendly-looking characters including happy drinkers, a cat on a couch, and a duck with a backstory. ...

The Tokyo jazz club Velera features live jazz in a calm, cool room hiding amid the energetic Akasaka-mitsuke business district. Guests at this hidden music refuge are able to relax at several small tables and padded seats that face the musicians, who are bathed in calming color-changing lights and of a purplish-blue curtain. Considerate of providing a safe, comfortable environment, guests are encouraged to accept a hand-sanitizing spritz upon entering, and there are also bottles of cleaning gel available at the tables. ...

Ochikochi is the 2013 album released from a trio of the same name consisting of Taiichi Kamimura on sax, Norikatsu Koreyasu on bass, and Manabu Hashimoto on drums. All songs are by the group’s front horn player Kamimura. It’s adventurous jazz music in the uninhibited hip style of rugged jazz legends like Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. Even through to the current day, when Kamimura plays live, he still often leads Ornette Coleman-style concerts and jam sessions at various jazz spots around Japan. ...

Struttin’ is saxophone player Ayumi Koketsu’s jazz quartet album released in Japan in 2010. This is her debut album, the first of over a dozen killer jazz albums that she has been releasing through the years, each filled with material ranging from straight-ahead, cool jazz, hard bop, ballads, bossa nova, and other themes. This first album features Koketsu on alto sax with her quartet of Yoshihiko Naya on piano, Masayuki Tawarayama on bass, and Mark Taylor on drums. ...

Jazz violinist maiko’s new album Reminiscence is a milestone release for the Tokyo-based musician. It’s both a look back at her start 25 years ago when she moved to Tokyo and began to play jazz, as well as a gratitude-filled mark of appreciation to the many musicians she’s played with and the experiences she’s had through her years of development as live musician in Japan’s music scene. This is her twelfth album spanning those many years, but her prior album Solo was released in 2018 so it’s been several years between that and this 2024 work. In her online notes for this album, she explains how the unsteady times for musicians during the coronavirus period sparked a period of reflection on her Tokyo-based musical life and introspection about her next musical statement. For this project, she choose nine new songs she had written during that period, and settled on the musical partners she would bring this new record to life with. The process involved thinking back over those formative years spent with these and other co-musicians, and especially her hometown of Kobe where it all began. ...