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Tadataka Unno

Born in 1980 in Tokyo, Japan to parents who are music fans, Tadataka Unno grew up listening to many kinds of music. He began playing the piano at age 4. At age 9 he started to play jazz. He attended Tokyo University for Music and Fine Art where he studied music composition.

After he spent first 10 years in Japan in his career, he move to the birthplace of jazz, the United States, in 2008 and start from scratch.

He is the member of Jimmy Cobb Trio, Roy Hargrove Quintet (He sadly has become the last pianist of the late great Roy Hargrove for 2016-2018), Winard Harper and Jeli Posse, Clifton Anderson Quartet, Jazzmeia Horn and many more.

He is considered one of the Japanese most gifted jazz musicians and his technique, creativity, balanced sense and beautiful tone continue to mesmerize audiences. Towards the end of their lives, both the legendary Hank Jones and Frank Wess mentored Unno, having the highest trust in his talents. Unno looked up to them not just as mentors in music, but as mentors of life.

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Album Review

Jimmy Cobb: Remembering U

Read "Remembering U" reviewed by Pierre Giroux


The death of Jimmy Cobb earlier in 2020 at 91 years of age marked the end of a singular era in jazz, as well as the career of one of the tastiest drummers in the field. Beginning in the 1950s, Cobb participated in numerous seminal recordings stretching from Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue (Columbia, 1959), John Coltrane's Giant Steps (Atlantic, 1960), Wes Montgomery's Full House (Riverside, 1962), through to a number of stellar trio sessions with pianist Wynton Kelly and ...

3
Album Review

George DeLancey: Paradise

Read "Paradise" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Is it acceptable to label a musical recording as “delicious"? If so, it describes bassist George DeLancey's sophomore release Paradise. He presents eight compositions, half from his pen and the remaining from Oscar Pettiford, John Lewis, Thelonious Monk, and Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein. The eight tracks, none of which tops five minutes, are well balanced with solos commensurate with that concept. Delancey is a young man (b.1988) with a very old soul. His music brings to mind the aforementioned ...

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Album Review

Ken Fowser: Morning Light

Read "Morning Light" reviewed by David A. Orthmann


Throughout Morning Light, Ken Fowser's latest Posi-Tone Records release, he poses a welcome alternative to the fast-lane excesses of some of his peers on the tenor saxophone. The first thing that sets him apart is a medium-weight tone which doesn't crave attention or take up too much room. His sound sets an example to the rest of the band and discourages an overly aggressive, no-holds-barred approach to the music as a whole. Fowser's eleven serviceable, original compositions spring from recognizable ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Morning Light

Posi-Tone Records
2020

buy

Paradise

Self Produced
2020

buy

Remembering U

Jimmy Cobb World
2019

buy

It's About Time

Point of Departure, WMPG-FM
2011

buy

Been Down This Road Before

From: Been Down This Road Before
By Tadataka Unno

Paradise

From: Paradise
By Tadataka Unno

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