Jazz Articles

like 179

Saco Yasuma: Another Rain

by Jerry D'Souza
July 13, 2007

Saco Yasuma discovered jazz in New York when she moved there from Tokyo in 1989. While she loved the freedom that the music offered, she also immersed herself in Afro-pop, salsa and Brazilian music. It was a defining moment when she discovered that free jazz was the ultimate form of improvisation.

Yasuma shows strong evidence of her ability to dissect, deconstruct and build. She stamps these attributes completely on “A Wind Blew Into My Hands, a solo outing. In less ...

like 171

Saco Yasuma: Another Rain

by Elliott Simon
July 9, 2007

When a classically trained musician arrives in NYC from Japan and falls in love with jazz it can often times result in impressive technique and a sterile sound. Saxophonist Saco Yasuma's Another Rain is her debut as a leader and flies in the face of that stereotype in a big way. Yasuma, trained on piano, switched to alto saxophone soon after her arrival in NYC from Tokyo and played in a wide variety of ethno-centric bands that included Afropop, Salsa ...