A merican and European jazz performers have been finding success in Japan for many years, but Japan's native artists have only recently begun to attract notice abroad. One of those quietly rising stars is Yushiko Kishino, a pianist and composer who will perform with her quartet in Taiwan this weekend.
Kishino's independent recording career began five years ago, when she became Japan's first jazz musician to sign with world-renowned jazz label Verve. Her four albums released since that time have drawn international recognition, meriting numerous reviews in both English and French language periodicals. Such Western success is expanding on the accolades she has already received at home, most notably two Golden Disc awards from Swing, Japan's premier journal of jazz.
In describing her own musical style, she says she doesn't wish "to change the melody. I may change the rhythm, the harmony, or the tempo, but the melody is something special."
The emphasis on keeping simple musical lines intact brought one reviewer to describe her music as following "in the lyrical tradition of Bill Evans." Evans was one of America's most influential jazz pianists of the post-bop era, and is known both for his own highly melodic compositions and his cool jazz collaborations with Miles Davis.
Kishino admits Evans is one of her major jazz influences, along with Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrel. But she says her influences do not stop there. She trained since the age of three as a classical musician, and has subsequently gone on through several other phases, including sojourns into traditional Japanese music and even her junior high participation in an all-girls Beatles band.
Laughing easily, she says she still loves the Beatles, and has adapted several of their songs into her own compilations. Her latest CD, You Are So Beautiful, draws from a number of sources and includes one Lennon-McCartney composition, "Here, There and Everywhere." On other tracks, she uses a consistently soft touch to reinterpret everything from jazz's great crooner tunes ("Tenderly," "April in Paris," and "Autumn Leaves"), to the bossa nova of Antonio Carlos Jobim ("O Grande Amor"), to Cole Porter ("Easy to Love"), to Bill Evans' best known composition, "Waltz for Debby."
Though such greatest-hits-style selections do not show much of the great breadth of jazz, Kishino demurs that one goal of her music is to make jazz more accessible to Japan's listening public, which she says must overcome many barriers in order to approach the music.
"Most people still don't know very much about jazz. They think listening to it is very difficult, but I'm trying to change that," she says. "And for most of those who are into jazz, the image usually comes first."
Yet image is a necessary part of any Japanese musical career, and Kishino is no exception. Now 39, she presents a winning picture of charm and grace, poised over a baby grand piano and backlit softly ‹ as she does both in some of her publicity photos and as she appeared in person yesterday at a Taipei press conference. Music journals have picked up the theme, repeatedly noting her beauty. Within the last few months, she even earned a spot in GQ Japan.
Her producers push the image thing to even greater limits, crediting hair and make-up stylists alongside recording technicians on her CDs. One French magazine, taking a stance of musical purism, even ventured the question, "est-il acceptable?"
At the mention of such issues, however, Kishino gives a ready smile and explains that that's just part of the industry. She says she complies patiently, because her focus is on the music. And while she plays many pieces that are written by others, she says she also has a particular interest in creating her own compositions, which she has done for both film soundtracks and independent release. Some of these will appear on her next album, which comes out later this year.
In coming to Taiwan, Kishino says she hopes to broaden her audience and to build bridges between Japanese jazz and the rest of the world. For her, music is the great communicator, the one she relies on.
When playing with musicians in New York several years ago, even though she couldn't speak much English, she found that her melodies transcended language barriers. "Even though we never met, we could communicate through the piano. It is a very amazing thing," she says. Again, using music as her language, she will communicate with Taiwanese audiences
this weekend.
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