Artist: Takuya Kuroda Album: Rising Son (2014) Japan-born/N.Y.C.-based trumpeter Takuya Kurodas Blue Note Records debut, Rising Son, is a funky, soul and hip-hop-infused affair featuring production from acclaimed jazz vocalist José James. Longtime collaborators, Kuroda and James met while students at Manhattans New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, and Kuroda later toured with James and wrote the horn arrangements for his 2012 album, No Beginning No End. Technically, Rising Son is Kurodas fourth album after three previous independent releases that found him working through a more swinging, post-bop jazz sound, with the occasional funk-inflected diversion. On Rising Son, Kuroda delves deep into a 70s fusion, funk, and Afro-beat-influenced sound that is at once contemporary and vintage in approach. Kuroda and his band play a clipped, muscular funk-jazz that shows the influence of artists like African-legend Hugh Masekela and trumpeter Roy Hargrove. While some hip-hop-influenced jazz can seem rhythmically static, sacrificing improvisation for beats, the tracks on Rising Son never get too smooth. James leaves just enough organic grit in the mix to remind you that that this is live, improvisational music, not that youd forget with Kuroda bursting through many of these cuts with a puckered intensity. And while this is unquestionably a jazz album, nothing on Rising Son feels like an intellectual harmonic exercise, as so many recordings by post-collegiate jazz artists sometimes do. Kuroda reveals himself to be a gifted melodicist with an abiding trust in groove, not to mention trumpet chops and charisma to spare. (from allmusic) https://youtube/watch?v=_mUymaxWmMw
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 16:59:28 +0000
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