Bamboo, Jazz and Film: Five Albums Connected with Japan

A bamboo ensemble, a piano trio, a pop songwriter, an experimental composer and a film-score composer: these five albums offer very different ways into music connected with Japan. Moving between them changes the scale and focus of listening each time.

The connection with Japan lies in the musicians’ work, the ensembles or the repertoire. TakéDaké includes musicians of different backgrounds; John Kaizan Neptune was born in the United States and developed his shakuhachi practice in Japan. Hisaishi’s album is performed by London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Neither nationality nor pressing location defines an album’s sound.

This is an editorial selection with identifiable releases and varied entry points, rather than a survey of what all Japanese audiophiles play most often. Edition details help locate the programme; they do not settle questions of sonic preference.

01 · Bamboo ensemble

TakéDaké with John Kaizan Neptune
Asian Roots

Building the band before the recording

TakéDaké is a bamboo-instrument ensemble led by John Kaizan Neptune, an American-born performer, composer and instrument maker who developed his career in Japan. He plays the shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute blown at the end of the tube; Asian Roots places it within a group built around bamboo instruments.

Before Asian Roots could become a recording, John Kaizan Neptune had to build much of its ensemble. He traces the project to a 1995 visit to Bali: its bamboo ensembles inspired him, but finding instruments with the range and flexibility for his own compositions proved difficult.

His solution was practical. The vibrating surfaces had to be bamboo; supporting frames could use other materials. The baliphone is a bamboo marimba designed so Hitoshi Hamada could use his familiar four-mallet technique. Bamboo was therefore a design constraint, with the players’ existing skills helping to shape the instruments.

Asian Roots brings that workshop into a six-player ensemble: Neptune’s shakuhachi alongside baliphone, bambass, bamboo conga, drum set and percussion. His compositions were recorded in Tokyo on 1–3 September 1997. The interesting connection is between making an instrument and deciding what music becomes possible on it. Japanese Roots and Ocean Motion are entry points into that larger project, in which one material takes on the separate responsibilities of melody, bass and rhythm.

Start with: Japanese Roots; Ocean Motion.

Edition: the artist lists Asian Roots: TakéDaké with Neptune, 1998, Denon / Nippon Columbia CY-18072. The artist lists eleven composition titles; editions that split Angklung Journey into two tracks show twelve tracks. Later digital dates may differ.

Sources and listening links: John Kaizan Neptune: ensemble and sessions · John Kaizan Neptune: discography · Spotify: later digital listening edition; John Kaizan Neptune: building TakéDaké’s instruments; John Kaizan Neptune: official profile; John Kaizan Neptune: introduction to the shakuhachi

02 · Piano-trio jazz

山本刚三重奏 · Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio
Midnight Sugar

A debut that leaves room for change

Tsuyoshi Yamamoto is a Japanese jazz pianist who began playing piano as a child and taught himself jazz. The trio on Midnight Sugar consists of piano, bass and drums, the small-group setting in which he made his recording debut as a leader.

Midnight Sugar opens with a piece its composer never wanted to freeze in place. In a 2024 interview published by Sony Music’s otonano, Tsuyoshi Yamamoto recalled that the title tune emerged through improvisation as a slow blues. He initially wondered whether later performances should reproduce the record, then came to value its mood over an exact copy.

That recollection gives his 1974 debut as a leader a useful context. With Isoo Fukui on bass and Tetsujiro Obara on drums, Yamamoto places two originals around three standards: Midnight Sugar opens the album and Sweet Georgia Blues closes it. Between them are I’m a Fool to Want You, The Nearness of You and It Could Happen to You. The programme introduces a composer and an interpreter in the same sitting.

Start with the title track and The Nearness of You. The pairing suggests two starting points for a trio: an original blues and a melody already in circulation. Yamamoto’s recollection supplies a reason to return: a recording can preserve one performance while the musicians keep finding new versions of the piece.

Start with: Midnight Sugar; The Nearness of You.

Edition: original Three Blind Mice album, 1974. The specific reissue is Impex 24K Gold CD IMP8308, five tracks. The cited label page was published in 2019; that date is not definitive evidence of the reissue’s release date.

Sources and listening links: Impex Records: performers, mastering and catalogue · Discogs: original release cross-check (community catalogue); otonano: Yamamoto on the title tune’s beginnings; Tsuyoshi Yamamoto: official profile

03 · Pop songwriting

竹内玛莉亚 · Mariya Takeuchi
Variety

One songwriter, eleven songs

Mariya Takeuchi is a Japanese pop singer and songwriter whose recording career began in 1978. Alongside her own recordings, she has written songs for other singers. Variety belongs to her 1984 return as a singer-songwriter.

Variety introduces Mariya Takeuchi as the author of an entire album. Released in 1984 as her first MOON record, its eleven original songs all carry her lyrics and music, with Tatsuro Yamashita producing. Plastic Love is one part of that larger portrait.

The release history helps restore the album’s scale. Takeuchi’s official discography dates Variety to April 1984, while the twelve-inch Plastic Love single followed in March 1985. Mersey Beat de Utawasete had already become a single in August 1984. Returning to the complete programme puts those songs back among the pieces that first surrounded them, before a single track could stand in for the whole record.

The 30th Anniversary Edition offers a small window into the collaboration. Its extras include karaoke versions of both Plastic Love and Mersey Beat de Utawasete. After the original eleven songs, these provide a way to hear the backing arrangements more directly, then return to Takeuchi’s vocal delivery. The bonus material becomes useful evidence of how a written song is turned into a finished recording.

Start with: Plastic Love; Mersey Beat de Utawasete (マージービートで唄わせて).

Edition: original album, MOON, 1984. Identified CD: Variety -30th Anniversary Edition, Warner Music Japan WPCL-12007, 19 November 2014, with seven additional tracks after the original eleven.

Sources and listening links: Warner Music Japan: credits and CD edition · Apple Music: anniversary programme; Mariya Takeuchi: official album discography; Mariya Takeuchi: official single chronology; Warner Music Japan: Mariya Takeuchi profile

04 · Experimental and ambient sound

坂本龙一 · Ryuichi Sakamoto
async

Collecting sounds, then finding a form

Ryuichi Sakamoto was a Japanese composer and pianist whose work ranged from electronic pop to film scores and sound installations. He played keyboards in Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), a Japanese electronic-pop group; async draws on his later exploration of everyday sounds as musical material.

For async, Ryuichi Sakamoto began collecting again. In a Q&A on his official site, he describes setting aside his old sound archive and recording heaters, pouring coffee and rain around New York. He also travelled to Kyoto to play restored Baschet sound sculptures he had first encountered at Osaka’s 1970 Expo. Everyday surroundings and a remembered encounter with art became material for the same record.

Piano, orchestral instruments, programmed sounds and location recordings share the album’s palette. Milan describes how an imaginary Tarkovsky-film soundtrack gave these materials a framework. A soundtrack normally answers images and a story; here the absent film leaves the listener to imagine the connections.

Sakamoto’s explanation of the title adds another clue. He linked async’s lack of synchronisation to an idea he had carried since YMO’s precisely synchronised music. Begin with andata and disintegration, the opening pair. Rather than requiring every sound to move together, this premise makes coexistence itself a compositional choice: individual sounds can retain their own pace and character within a larger work.

Start with: andata; disintegration.

Edition: async, 2017. Japanese CD: commmons RZCM-86314, 29 March 2017; Milan Records provides the international official entry point. ASYNC – REMODELS is a separate remix project.

Sources and listening links: Milan Records: concept, sessions and official preview · commmons: official Japanese release catalogue; Ryuichi Sakamoto: Somewhere Between Sound, Noise, and Music; Ryuichi Sakamoto: official track sequence; Ryuichi Sakamoto: official biography

05 · Symphonic film music

久石让 · Joe Hisaishi／Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
A Symphonic Celebration

Film themes given a concert-length shape

Joe Hisaishi is a Japanese composer, conductor and pianist who writes for films and the concert hall. His scores include My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away, animated films by director Hayao Miyazaki. This album brings music from that partnership into a symphonic programme.

A Symphonic Celebration gathers music from a collaboration that began with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind in 1984. For his first Deutsche Grammophon album, Joe Hisaishi returned to music he had written for Hayao Miyazaki and made new symphonic arrangements, conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London.

The programme makes that change of perspective concrete. Universal’s CD listing groups the main album into ten film-based sections; Hisaishi’s own work catalogue gives the Howl’s Moving Castle sequence about twelve minutes and Princess Mononoke about seven. These spans invite more than recognition of a favourite tune. Each section has room to move between ideas before the next film’s music begins.

Start with those two suites, letting Howl’s Moving Castle continue beyond the familiar Merry-Go-Round of Life theme. The useful question is what holds each longer sequence together when no image is supplying the next scene. Film memories may colour the experience, but the new arrangements offer their own route through the material. Hearing a complete suite gives the favourite excerpts their context.

Start with: Howl’s Moving Castle; Princess Mononoke.

Edition: A Symphonic Celebration – Music from the Studio Ghibli Films of Hayao Miyazaki, Deutsche Grammophon, 30 June 2023; Joe Hisaishi conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Check individual formats and expanded editions against the label catalogue.

Sources and listening links: Deutsche Grammophon: official announcement · Deutsche Grammophon: album catalogue; Universal Music Japan: main programme and bonus disc; Joe Hisaishi: suite lengths in the work catalogue; Joe Hisaishi: official biography

Catalogue, preview and playback availability vary by territory. Match the artist, title and programme when choosing a local edition.