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Short Songs
Hina Oikawa
Label: Tiny Storage Music
Released: 2026
Duration: 00:44:
Views: 108
Tracks
Introduction (comp. Hina Oikawa); Manhattan (comp. Hina Oikawa); Broken Meter (comp. Naoya Ogura); Yuba no Kuni [湯葉の国] (lyrics: Hina Oikawa / comp. Naoya Ogura); You Are Still Here (comp. Hina Oikawa); Beyond the Night, Swallowing the Morning (comp. Hina Oikawa); Summer Song (comp. Dave Brubeck / arr. Hina Oikawa); Short Songs (comp. Hina Oikawa / arr. Naoya Ogura); Thirty-One Syllables (comp. Hina Oikawa)
Personnel
Hina Oikawa
saxophone
Naoya Ogura
trumpet
Summer Camargo
trumpet
Marty Kenney
bass
Alon Benjamini
drumsSkylar Hagner
saxophone
Altin Sencalar
trombone
Ben Rosenblum
piano
Sam Dillon
saxophone, tenorMỹ Tâm Huynh
vocalsAdditional Personnel / Information
Music Supervisor / Advisor: Ryan Keberl; Assistant Producer / Conductor: Joseph Herbst Recording: Todd Carder ; Mix & Mastering: Dave Darlington; Photography: Mana Hiraki; Design: Ken Ito; Liner Notes: Koji Murai; Tanka Advisor / Special Contribution: Hiroshi Yoshikawa
Album Description
New York-based alto saxophonist and composer/arranger Hina Oikawa releases her debut album, Short Songs, on August 9, 2026. Produced with Ryan Keberle as music supervisor and Naoya Ogura on arranging and co-production, the album brings together a roster of standout young musicians from today's New York jazz scene. It grew out of a project pairing large ensemble jazz with tanka, the traditional Japanese poetic form — the album's title is a direct translation of tanka (短歌), literally "short song," Oikawa's second mode of expression alongside music.
Built on a traditional large ensemble format, the record doesn't simply set tanka text to music: several compositions are built directly from a poem's ideas, and the strict 31-syllable, five-line structure of tanka (5-7-5-7-7) is woven into the architecture of the compositions and improvisation itself. The opening track, "Introduction," reconstructs the syllable count of a tanka as a metric structure, while the closing track, "Thirty-One Syllables," carries all thirty-one syllables directly into a melodic skeleton. A conviction runs through the album: that real freedom lives inside formal constraint.
Contemporary tanka also captures the texture of everyday life, finding new light in it. Oikawa uses improvised music to draw out feelings and moments that might otherwise slip away before they become words — the urgent, private emotion of an individual living in a city. Renowned contemporary tanka poet and Tō Tanka Society leader Hiroshi Yoshikawa served as the album's tanka advisor.
Vocals are handled by Vietnamese-American singer Mỹ Tâm Huynh, whose clear, unaccented delivery — sung in a language that isn't her native tongue — lets the words dissolve naturally into the music. Oikawa herself plays alto saxophone throughout, including a striking solo on the title track, "Short Songs."
Among today's active large ensemble jazz scene, few records tie the structure of poetry this organically to improvisation. Short Songs is a vivid statement of introduction for Hina Oikawa's singular creative point of view.
"Hina Oikawa's debut album, as a saxophonist and composer, is a striking first statement from an important new voice in the New York jazz scene. Featuring some of New York's finest young musicians, the record combines high musicianship, deep personal expression, and exceptional craft. Oikawa's arrangements are rich in creativity and built on real compositional strength, naturally weaving contemporary jazz together with her own Japanese roots — several tracks incorporate Japanese poetry directly as lyrics, a genuinely distinctive approach. This is a record like no other, and it announces the arrival of an artist with a truly original creative vision." — Ryan Keberle
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