Jazz Articles about Yasushi Nakamura

About Yasushi Nakamura

Album Review

Christian Sands: Embracing Dawn

Read "Embracing Dawn" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
September 20, 2024

Way back in the mottled history of the 1950s and '60s, record biz guys in sharkskin might kick down a DJ's door and bark: “You gotta to hear this single!" But who truly listens to and what exactly is a single these days? Add in the disturbing though elusive truth that any single can take any physical or temporal shape and the evidence just points to one thing: First impressions have doomed many a pundit. If ...

Album Review

Amina Figarova & Matsiko World Orphan Choir: Suite For Africa

Read "Suite For Africa" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
July 12, 2024

Happenstance played a hand in two of pianist Amina Figarova's finest recordings. The first time around it was September Suite (Munich Records, 2005). Though based in the Netherlands at the time, Figarova was staying in New York City when the planes flew into the World Trade Center buildings on September 11th, 2001. The music for the album was her reaction to the event, to the grief and mourning it caused. Heading a superb sextet, she created a beautiful ode to ...

Album Review

Clarence Penn: Behind the Voice

Read "Behind the Voice" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
July 5, 2024

Drummer Clarence Penn, a serious force on the scene for more than three decades, has worked with a who's who of vocalists--Betty Carter, Kandace Springs, Luciana Souza, Kate McGarry, Nellie McKay, Claudia Acuña, Paula Cole, Melissa Walker and Nneena Freelon, to name just a few. He knows more than a thing or two about history and creativity behind the voice, and he's here to show it with this sharply-constructed date. Working with a stacked lineup of singers and instrumentalists, and ...

Album Review

Lawrence Fields: To the Surface

Read "To the Surface" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
March 15, 2024

As if chomping at the bit, pianist Lawrence Fields launches into his proper debut as a leader with “Parachute," a tune of his own making that strikes that perfect chord between piano trios past and present. And right away the listener is immersed in To The Surface. A fixture on Rising Star category since 2019, Fields, who has made his name in the piano chair for such determined and willful creators as Joe Lovano, Chris Potter, Terri Lyne ...

Album Review

Christian Sands: Christmas Stories

Read "Christmas Stories" reviewed by Dave Linn

by Dave Linn
December 1, 2023

Early on, Christian Sands had a passion for music. He was enrolled in music classes at age four and wrote his first composition at age five. He started playing professionally at the age of ten and studied at the Center for the Arts in New Haven, Connecticut before receiving his Bachelor of Arts and Masters degrees from the Manhattan School of Music. A protégé of Dr. Billy Taylor, Sands released his debut album at the age of 12 and came ...

Album Review

Emmet Cohen: Master Legacy Series Volume 5 Featuring Houston Person

Read "Master Legacy Series Volume 5 Featuring Houston Person" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
October 2, 2023

From its languid beginning, saxophonist Houston Person's own warmly engaging “Why Not?," to its closing, Etta James' slinky seduction “Sunday Kind of Love," Emmet Cohen's Master Legacy Series Vol. 5 Featuring Houston Person is a decidedly laid-back affair, unlike much of its predecessors which featured Jimmy Cobb, Ron Carter, George Coleman, Benny Golson and Albert Tootie" Heath. Maybe that is just the eighty-eight year old Person's influence. His big tone and big presence fill the studio with a ...

Album Review

Amina Figarova: Joy

by Dan McClenaghan
November 2, 2022

Pianist Amina Figarova released an album in 2005 that was about as far away from the theme of “joy" as could be. September Suite (Munich Records) explored the deadly events of September 11, 2001 (she was in New York at the time; she experienced it). It is an album that she called: “An Ode to Mourning striving to articulate the various stages of grief in musical terms." In 2022 Figarova turns 180 degrees to embrace optimism and a ...