On my second night in Kyoto, I went to Candy Live Jazz in Gion to see the trio of Kotono Nishimura 西村琴乃 (alto and soprano sax), Yuka Yanagihara 柳原由佳 (piano), and Ayuko Ikeda 池田安友子(percussion). I was not familiar with any of them, but from the start, I found their music infectious, rhythmically adventurous, and uplifting. 

Candy Live Jazz is an intimate yet comfortable and classy-looking club with a reputation for booking quality musicians. Like many jazz clubs in Japan, it offers a variety of alcoholic beverages and a selection of snacks. Admission was ¥2300 with the purchase of a small appetizer (¥500 minimum) + drink (¥600 minimum). Even without the favorable exchange rate, the fee is extremely reasonable for such a nice club in a major city. I arrived early and had my choice of seats. Later, it filled up, a good sign. 

Kotono did most of the speaking between songs, most of which were written by her or Yuka, and was evidently the trio’s leader. They exhibited a relaxed camaraderie, and I could tell they were quite familiar and comfortable with one another and delighted in playing together. If forced to classify their style, I would call it smooth jazz, enlivened by the creative choices each brings to it. 

At times, most notably during Kotono’s number “Milky Way” from her album “Favorable Move,” I felt as if I’d been transported to a landscape untarnished by humans, where dawn is breaking over mountains in a river-fed valley of verdant splendor where you can hear birds singing and take a breath, like in a Thomas Cole painting, a place where you can look up on a clear, moonless night and be awestruck by the majesty of the Milky Way, so far away and yet seemingly so close. Yuka’s piano confidently paints the terrain, Kotono’s bright tone invokes the energizing sun, and Yuka’s wide-ranging pallet of organic sounds steep us in birdsong and fragrant earth. I think of Joni Mitchell’s refrain from “Woodstock,” where another new/old world was invoked, “We are stardust. We are golden. And we’ve got to get ourselves / Back to the Garden.”

From song to song, their compositions feature a wide range of melodies and adventurous rhythms. Some are more spare and introspective, others fast and funky. Many of them, such as “Sunny Rain,” “Vinca (Periwinkle),” “Sakura,” “March 2018,” and “Milky Way,” take inspiration from nature, as does their choice of cover song, “Haru Yo, Koi (Come Spring),” a children’s song composed in 1923 with lyrics by Gyofuu Souma and music by Ryuutarou Hirota. While the song is familiar to almost everyone inside Japan and has enjoyed surprising longevity, especially for a children’s song —  a 1994 pop cover by Yumi Matsutoya has been played nearly 37 million times on YouTube — Kotono said that it would be a little uninteresting to play straight so she gave a contemporary twist to this arrangement.

Although they performed it as an instrumental, I believe every Japanese in the audience was recalling the song’s lyrics, which vividly describe a young girl, little Mii-chan, taking her first steps in straw sandals with red thongs, longing for spring to come quickly so she can explore this beckoning new world. In front of the house, a peach tree’s swollen buds echo her growth and eagerness to bid farewell to the snow-covered landscape.  

Memories of our children when they were very young or of our own childhoods fill us with nostalgia. By introducing greater harmonic complexity to her arrangement, Kotono scraped some of the cuteness and sentimentality from the song to excavate the insistent energy of youth, the inevitability of the changing seasons, and the bittersweetness of the ephemerality of such moments. Kotono’s own daughter had just recently taken her first steps and must have shared Mii-chan’s eagerness to greet the new world outside. I wondered if she was thinking of her as well as the seasonal theme when she selected this song.

After the show, I asked them what was different about playing together as a female trio. They each said they’ve noticed no difference playing with male or female musicians; what matters is the feeling and musical groove, not the gender or sexuality of the person playing. Yet, these three do love playing together. They couldn’t remember precisely when they began, four to six years ago, but their busy schedules have only allowed them to get together one to three times a year. 

Still, Kotono says this is her favorite ensemble. When she first heard Yuka’s compositions, Kotono knew she wanted to play with her. They both knew of Ayuko, who is famous as a percussionist, and thought she would be interesting to work with. When she agreed to join them, they realized that the sound as a trio was good and decided not to add a bass player. Now, even though they are all so busy and Kotono has the added demands of caring for her young daughter, they want to record another album together.