Jazz Articles about Erena Terakubo

About Erena Terakubo

Album Review

Michael Dease Big Band: Return Trajectory

Read "Return Trajectory" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
July 3, 2026

While it is not true that a photo of Michael Dease appears in Webster's dictionary next to the word “versatile," the metaphor does not seem too far-fetched once one considers the many tasks Dease carries out on his latest recording, Return Trajectory. Not only does Dease lead his big band, he wrote three of the album's half-dozen themes, solos on trombone on four, baritone sax on the other two (unaccompanied on his composition “Up South"). Rumor has it that he ...

Album Review

Ulysses Owens, Jr. and Generation Y: Around the World with U

Read "Around the World with U" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
April 8, 2026

Drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. has a keen eye and ear for talent, which is obvious from the first notes of Around the World with U, his second recording as leader of the Art Blakey-style quintet, Generation Y. When marshaling the ensemble, Owens chose his teammates with care, and they repay his confidence by producing a splendid album that pleases from start to finish. If the aspirants had to pass an exam before the hire, there could be no ...

Album Review

David Sneider: Introducing David Sneider

Read "Introducing David Sneider" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 5, 2025

What better way to introduce young trumpeter David Sneider than with one of his half-dozen buoyant new compositions, “Marvelous-Lee," the opening number on Sneider's congenial debut recording. That delightful salute to fellow trumpeter Lee Morgan also introduces one of Sneider's two front-line partners, tenor saxophonist Jacob Chung, and the ensemble's able rhythm section: pianist Tyler Henderson, bassist Joey Ranieri and drummer Willie Bowman. Sneider, who placed first in the 2021 Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Competition, is ...

Album Review

Joe Elefante's Wheel of Dharma: Return of the Light

Read "Return of the Light" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 6, 2025

The second act of Joe Elefante's laudable jazz career was born in tragedy: the loss in 2024 of his wife of sixteen years to cancer. It was then that Elefante, who once led the world-class Joe Elefante Big Band, decided to leave his long-time position as a schoolteacher and return to his first love, jazz, and devote the time he had left to writing and performing again with his talented colleagues and friends. Return of the Light ...

Rising Stars

Meet Alto Saxophonist Erena Terakubo

by Sanford Josephson
August 2, 2025

For many years, trumpeter/educator Tiger Okoshi has been directing the Hokkaido Grove Jazz Camp during summers in Sapporo, Japan. At one of his first camps, he met a 12-year-old alto saxophonist named Erena Terakubo."She was shining, and she knew it," he recalled. “She was determined, driven, and already sounded like a young Charlie Parker." When Terakubo was 15, Okoshi, a professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, awarded her a full scholarship to Berklee's five-week summer ...

Album Review

Peter Lin AAPI Jazz Collective: Identity

by Jack Bowers
July 30, 2025

Taiwanese-American trombonist Peter Lin formed the New York-based AAPI Jazz Collective in 2018 to amplify the voice of jazz musicians of Asian American and Pacific Island lineage. Identity, the group's debut album, confirms that those voices are essentially strong, clear and eloquent. AAPI's core quintet places Lin out front with alto saxophonist Erena Terakubo, adeptly escorted by pianist Mike Bond, bassist Daseul Kim and drummer Wen-Ting Wu. Guest trumpeter Brandon Choi sits in on four numbers, vocalist ...

Album Review

The Empress: Square One

Read "Square One" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
April 16, 2025

The Empress is a New York City-based co-op septet whose front line consists of four saxophonists. Based on its title, the assumption is that Square One is the group's first recording as a unit. The Empress is the idea of award-winning saxophonist Pureum Jin, who enlisted the renowned German writer and saxophonist Michael Lutzeier to arrange ten of the album's eleven durable and decisive numbers and recruited a trio of all-star saxophonists to share the stage and lend their awesome ...