Jazz Articles about Chie Imaizumi

Interviews with Chie Imazumi and Tenia Nelson

by Steven Roby
September 22, 2023

One of the most well-received musicians of her generation, composer, and arranger Chie Imaizumi (pronounced Chee-ay Ee-my-zu-me) has won many awards as an ambitious and active voice in the jazz community. She received the Herb Pomeroy Award, The Rocky Mountain Jazz Artist of the Year, and was recognized by DownBeat Critics Poll as a “Rising Star Composer & Arranger." Tenia Nelson performs regularly at jazz venues in the Denver metro area, including Dazzle and Nocturne. Nelson is a ...

Chie Imaizumi: A Time of New Beginnings

by Woodrow Wilkins
September 27, 2010

Two coasts and the Mile High City--therein lies the talent pool from which composer and arranger Chie Imaizumi selected her team. Soloists and leaders themselves, they form the orchestra for A Time of New Beginnings. Imaizumi scored DownBeat Magazine's Rising Star Composer honor for her 2007 debut, Unfailing Kindness (Capri Records). That same year, she achieved the Rocky Mountain Jazz Artist of the Year award. Her career started at age four, when she played electric organ in her ...

Chie Imaizumi: A Time Of New Beginnings

by Bruce Lindsay
August 14, 2010

Composer and arranger Chie Imaizumi's second album, A Time Of New Beginnings, is filled with star players from the jazz world. It's a beautifully crafted, beautifully played album, with a warm and familiar feel to its nine tunes that, at times, creates a real sense of nostalgia. Imaizumi began her musical career in her homeland of Japan, joined Berklee College of Music as a student in 2001 and released her first album, Unfailing Kindness (Capri Records), in ...

Chie Imaizumi: Unfailing Kindness

by Budd Kopman
April 22, 2007

To all but the most jaded of cynics, Chie Imaizumi's Unfailing Kindness is sure to provide many hours of comfort for the soul as this extremely accessible and yet deeply rewarding music washes away all that might ail it. Imaizumi is letting us see her up close and personal as each tune translates her emotional being at various times in her recent life into music. The fact that this music is for large forces (ten players most ...

Chie Imaizumi: Unfailing Kindness

by Michael P. Gladstone
April 21, 2007

The youthful composer/arranger Chie Imaizumi has released a debut album after befriending trumpeter Greg Gisbert along the way. After making a demo from her performance at the 2004 North Sea Festival, she sent it to the Denver-based trumpeter who picked up the musical ball and ran all the way with it per selection of the musicians, rehearsals and full production of the album with Capri Records.

Originally an organist at age four, the Japanese-born Imaizumi switched to piano ...

Chie Imaizumi: Unfailing Kindness

by Jerry D'Souza
March 18, 2007

Chie Imaizumi became involved with music when she was four and began playing electric organ. She switched to piano at eighteen, and later in 2001 while at Berklee she moved to composing.

This recording came about after she gave Greg Gisbert a demo tape. He was taken in by her music, suggested she record it for Capri, chose the musicians, rehearsed, got the musicians into the studio and finished the recording in a day.

Imaizumi sets up “A Change for ...

Chie Imaizumi: Unfailing Kindness

by Jack Bowers
March 12, 2007

Chie Imaizumi Unfailing Kindness Capri Records 2007

Thanks, Greg. Sometimes all it takes to launch a promising career is a chance meeting, in this case between trumpeter Greg Gisbert and young composer/arranger Chie Imaizumi. The two met in March 2005 at the Jazz Standard in NYC, where Gisbert was playing with Maria Schneider's orchestra. Imaizumi asked Gisbert if she might send him a demo tape she had made at the North Sea Jazz Festival ...