Jazz Articles about Miki Hayama

About Miki Hayama

Album Review

Picture this: Having assembled a supporting cast, finalized the playlist and booked a studio, you are ready to make the debut recording as leader of your own ensemble, only to learn that, hours earlier, said studio in East Lansing, Michigan, had been devastated by a tornado. That is exactly what happened to trombonist Eli Howell in May 2025. Fortunately, thanks to some quick thinking and deft maneuvering by album producer Michael Dease and others, a room was found at Howell's ...

Album Review

Harvie S: Bright Dawn

Read "Bright Dawn" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 3, 2026

At a time when economics often dictates the size and scope of a jazz group, adding a guitarist to a typical piano-bass-drums trio makes a world of difference. And when said guitarist is Peter Bernstein, the difference is even more pronounced. That gives bassist Harvie S a clear headstart on Bright Dawn, a modest studio date with Bernstein broadening the usual trio setting on the bassist's 21st recording as leader of his own ensemble--the first, however, following a 15-year hiatus. ...

Album Review

Lakecia Benjamin: We Dream

Read "We Dream" reviewed by Andrew Schinder

by Andrew Schinder
May 29, 2026

In a genre full of peaceniks, Lakecia Benjamin is a killer. Benjamin, the alto saxophonist, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, has exploded over the course of the 2020's--both figuratively and musically. Her sound is brash and resonant, yet delicately composed and precisely structured. Benjamin is a focused musician, with all of her artistic choices brimming with intent, and the results are positively thrilling. She has become one of contemporary jazz's most popular and revered alto saxophonists, and she is just ...

Album Review

Lakecia Benjamin: We Dream

Read "We Dream" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
May 28, 2026

Lakecia Benjamin is clearly pulling no punches on We Dream. Not that she ever has, given a discography that includes 2020's Pursuance: The Coltranes (Ropeadope Records); 2012's intoxicating, groove-crazy Retox (Motema) or the spellbinding sister releases Phoenix (Whirlwind, 2023) and the super stoked Phoenix ReImagined (Live) (Ropeadope Records, 2024). We Dream drops the mic and leaves the rest up to the listener: What are you going to do to make the world a better place today? Excitable and ...

Album Review

Kate McGarry, Lenora Zenzalai Helm, Lois Deloatch, Nnenna Freelon: The Sistering

Read "The Sistering" reviewed by Jacob Sylvester

by Jacob Sylvester
May 24, 2026

The collaborative album created by jazz vocalists Kate McGarry, Lenora Zenzalai Helm, Lois Deloatch, and Nnenna Freelon, titled The Sistering, is a powerful musical journey that explores the bonds of friendship and heritage. Released in early 2026, the project uses the metaphor of “sistering"--a building technique where two boards are joined to make a structure stronger--to show how these four women support one another. The album begins with the “River Song," which introduces the idea of life as a flowing ...

Album Review

Don Braden: Earth Wind and Wonder, Vol. 2

Read "Earth Wind and Wonder, Vol. 2" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 20, 2023

As on the first recording of this two-volume series, acclaimed tenor saxophonist Don Braden pays tribute to a couple of his coming-of-age idols, singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder and the genre-defying group Earth, Wind and Fire. Braden has chosen four of Wonder's compositions and three associated with EW&F to accompany a pair of his splendid original themes. Braden plays tenor saxophone most of the way, flute and alto flute, respectively on Wonder's “Bird of Beauty" and “Creepin.'" Needless to ...

Album Review

Sheryl Bailey: Homage

by Jim Josselyn
May 15, 2023

Homage, Sheryl Bailey's 12th outing as a leader, is a welcome and well deserved musical love letter to the late, great Pat Martino. The opening track, with one of the great song titles in instrumental music history, “The Velvet Hammer," was written for Martino, and the decision to have keyboardist Miki Hayama play the Fender Rhodes throughout harkens back to one of Martino's masterpieces with Gil Goldstein, We'll Be Together Again (Muse, 1976). But make no mistake, Bailey ...