TAKEO MORIYAMA Vinyl & CDs

Review: The collaboration between Kyoto Jazz Sextet and Takeo Moriyama on their album Succession delivers a mesmerising fusion of traditional and contemporary jazz. Through intricate rhythms and soulful melodies, the album offers up a seamless blend of past and present that manages to honour jazz traditions while pushing new musical boundaries. Moriyama's percussive mastery adds depth and authenticity to the ensemble's dynamic compositions and creates an immersive vibe that captivates from start to finish.

Review: Kyoto Jazz Sextet are an acoustic jazz 'unit' established in 2015 fronted by Shuya Okino. After their first two albums 'Mission' and 'Unity' this new third album channels only the best of what Tokyo's jazz scene has to offer, illuminating both past and present musical narratives in Japan by enlisting both new artists and legends (Takeo Moryiama appears on drums) alike.

Review: 1980 was the year of Watarase, and bore witness to jazz drummer Takeo Moriyama as he reached an orogenous peak, leading a fierce, intuitive quartet with pianist Fumio Itabashi, bassist Hideaki Mochizuki, and saxophonists Yoshio Kuniyasu and Koichi Matsukaze. Moriyama had already carved a place in Japan's avant-garde through his work with the Yosuke Yamashita Trio in the late 60s and 70s, but here he pivots from explosive freeform to lyrical measurement, with no loss of intensity between each moment of peripety. The title track marks the first recording of Itabashi's revered composition 'Watarase', forever since covered widely in Japan, and remains a touchstone for emotional resonance in Japanese jazz.

Review: Japanese-British avant-jazz greatness notably graced the singular hall of London's Cafe OTO in September 2019; drummer Takeo Moriyama and pianist Masahiko Satoh performed for the first time at the esteemed experimental music venue as part of Peter Brotzmann's four-day festival at the venue, and saw their peers, bassist Leon Brichard and tenor saxophonist Idris Rahman, join them for several pieces. While Satoh and Moriyama both formed part of the blistering Yosuke Yamashita Trio - whose output helped spur a critical period in the development of free and modern jazz in Japan - Rahman and Brichard functioned, for a moment, as their contemporary British doppelgangers as splinter members of one of the UK's most notable experimental jazz groups, Ill Considered. The result is a blisteringly free, metrically rule-flouting live performance born of a real confluence of greats.