Jazz Articles about Junko Onishi

About Junko Onishi

Album Review

The world has been a slightly less happy place since Junko Onishi's last record. After establishing herself as one of the finest young jazz pianists around with her debut, Wow (EMI, 1993), Onishi released a string of fine Blue Note recordings: Live At The Village Vanguard Volume 1 and Volume 2 (both 1994); the superb Cruisin' (1994), featuring her majestic “Eulogia"; and Piano Quintet Suite (1995).With Fragile (Blue Note, 1999)--a virtual rock covers album that took ...

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Album Review

Junko Onishi: Fragile

by AAJ Staff
January 21, 2003

Combining a variety of keyboard models and styles with a number of percussionists and grooved electric bass, the quickly-recorded Fragile is ironically quite pliable and coarse at times, wielding an oft-unwieldy arsenal of moods and sounds which occasionally (and admittedly) lose their sense of form and function. Though “Complexions" was wrapped after just one take, it is perhaps the most “standard" and clean track of the seven. On the contrary, “BWV" is a wild and at times bangy keyboard and ...

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Album Review

Junko Onishi: Fragile

by David Adler
October 1, 1999

I’m slightly ashamed to say that before I put on this CD, I had never before heard Junko Onishi play. Perhaps that’s a testament to the difficulty female jazz musicians have being heard and taken seriously. One look at Onishi’s credentials and you know she’s a contender, having occupied the piano chair for Jessie Davis, Gary Thomas, Joe Henderson, Jackie McLean, and Joe Lovano. She recorded a trio album some years back with Billy Higgins and Rodney Whitaker. Fragile is ...