J. Jazz – Ami Nakazono

Ami Nakazono – She is one of the most versatile saxophonists working in a music explorer of compositional form, which she is building her fan base everywhere. Her style is a medley of jazz and soul executed. Ami began classical piano and also playing the alto saxophone. After that, she won the “City Solo Instrumental Competition.” After graduation at Fukuoka Daiichi High School, she entered Senzoku Gakuen University. With a Jazz major, Nakazono studied how to perform many recording sessions. During this time, Ami began playing gigs in and continued to perform and study music. Ami began her second musical journey at Berklee to study saxophone with Walter Beasley, and also directed by George W Russell Jr. Then, Mr. Russell became her mentor to start performing with the band, Violette. Ms. Nakazono recorded for two albums, “Joie de Vivre” with Violette and “Shine” with George W Russell Jr.. Then, Ami Nakazono continues to perform and has started work on her album, like, “Soleil”.

J. HipHop & Rap & Reggae – AK-69

AK-69 – As an independent artist, Takeshi Hiroki武士 尋己, AK-69, is one of the important Japanese Hip Hop & Rap artists from Komaki, Aichi, Japan. He often uses different name as a rapper or singer, like his stage name of AK-69, also people call him ‘Kalassy Nikoff’ or ‘REDSTA’. In addition, he has began to build his own fashion line known as ‘BAGARCH’. He released many singles or albums, like, “Flying B”, “With You / KINGPIN”, “I Still Shine (feat. Che’Nelle) / Stronger”, and “BRAVE feat. Toshi (X Japan)”. One of his single albums ‘Public Enemy’ was nominated and won the space shower Best Hip Hop music video award in Japan.

 

J. Music – Symphonic Suite: Final Fantasy交響組曲

Symphonic Suite: Final Fantasy交響組曲 – The famous video game features a mixture of action, adventure, PvP, strategy, and more. It has remained same throughout all different stand-alone stories. Each plot of the games centers on warriors who are fighting powerful demons. but also explores the characters’ relationships. Despite of its long detail story, the music soundtrack of Final Fantasy is an integral part to every title of the Final Fantasy sound tracks. One of the sound tracks offers a variety of music which is based on theme in the games to a melodic arrangement as being as recognizable gaming circle, like “Prelude”, “de Chocobo”, and “Prologue”. Square Enix also released different CD albums, like, “Kiss Me Good-Bye”, “Symphonic Poem ‘Hope‘“, “Because You’re Here君がいるから”, “Before Crisis”, “Last Order”, “Redemption”, “Why”, “Come with Me”, “Eternity ~ Memory of Lightwaves”, “Sound of the Windカゼノネ”, and “A World Without Stars星のない世界”

 

J. Music – Symphonic Suite: Kirby Super Star交響組曲

Kirby Super Star交響組曲 is a classic video game developed by HAL lab and Nintendo from Super NES to latest Nintendo device……   …….In game, players can play as Kirby can fight with enemies by copying their abilities and use them as his own. He can transform it as a helper character. Despite of its long detail story, the music soundtrack of Kirby is an integral part to every title of the Kirby sound tracks and music CDs, like Victory Star, Peanut Plain, Grape Garden, Going after Dynablade, Boss Battle, Battle Windows, King Dedede’s Theme, Candy Mountain, Kirby Dance, Cocoa Cave, and so forth.

 

Music Culture – Biwa琵琶

Biwa琵琶 – It is an instrument of music, eloquence, poetry, and education in Japan. During ancient time, the biwa hoshi player helped others to develop and overlap with the performance in an evolution which made it very popular until now. Since the period of Meiji, Biwa reformed again that led to massive western modernization which included to extend into the area of art and music. Because of collaborative western efforts by Japanese biwa musicians, interest in this interesting instrument being revived. Many artists and performers today continue to use biwa in many way they want to. In addition, there are many types of biwa, characterised by number of strings, sounds it can produce, like Gagaku-biwa雅楽琵琶, Gogen-biwa五絃琵琶, Mōsō-biwa盲僧琵琶, Heike-biwa平家琵琶, Satsuma-biwa薩摩琵琶, Chikuzen-biwa筑前琵琶, and Nishiki-biwa錦琵琶. Biwa instruments have four or five strings. The first string is thickest and the fourth string is thinnest that creates different timbres when stroked from different directions. Also, different sized plectrums produced different textures, like, the plectrum used on a moso-biwa and the plectrum used on satsuma-biwa.

J. Pop – LiSA

LiSA織部 里沙  – It is a J. idol anime singer who at first started her career as the vocalist of the band group and later she  released her major important debut songs for the anime series – Angel Beats! ………. Several favorite songs from LiSA have been featured as anime theme songs, like, Fate/Zeo and Sword Art Online.  She has been reached in the top ten of the Oricon weekly charts, with the songs of “Crossing Field” , “Catch the Moment”, and “Oath Sign”………

J. Pop – Kalafina

Kalafinaカラフィナ – The group is mainly to perform idols songs and anime theme songs, like “Kara no Kyokai”.  It consists of different members: Yuki Kajiura, Wakana Ōtaki and Keiko Kubota, Maya and Hikaru. The band have released many albums, like, “Seventh Heaven”, “Red Moon”, “After Eden”, “Consolation”, “Far on the Water.”  With Yuki Kajiura leaving and rumors said that Hikaru and Keiko would also leave the band, the group agency of the band decided to continue their plans to keep singing. The future of the band is still unknown………..  ……….

J. HipHop & Rock & Reggae – Aisha

Aisha is an African-American-Japanese girl who has done her performances everywhere on earth. Her father has accompanied many different musician while her mother acts as a singer in Japan. After Aisha learned ballet and jazz dance, she learned how to do modern and classical music. With her achieving high scores after all of her best efforts, she performed at Billboard Tokyo as a single singer of the hip hop legend. This gave her a chance to collaborate with many best friends, like, house DJs, producers, and the cover album people. In additon, she also sings at different places, such as mini concerts and clubs. She has released albums, such as “I, Shout!!!”, “Pink Diamond”, “Aisha. EP & EP II”, “Candy Love”, and “Make Love”.

J. Pop & Rock – Checkers

Checkersチェッカーズ – It was a famous pop and rock band especially in the 80s. The group consists of different members, like, Fumiya Fujii(vocals, chorus), Masaharu Tsuruku (vocals, chorus), Yoshihiko Takamoku (vocals, chorus), Tohru Takeuchi (guitars, chorus), Yuji Ohdoi (bass, contrabass, chorus), Yoshiya Tokunaga (drums, percussion, chorus), and Naoyuki Fujii (sax, flute, back-vocals, chorus). They made a debut on ’83 and then disbanded on ’92. Many went on to pursue their own solo career. Their singles and albums were always stayed on top 10 in music charts, such as “Without Fail Checkers/絶対チェッカーズ “, “Motto Checkers/もっと!チェッカーズ “, “毎日!!チェッカーズ “, “Flowers”, “Go”, “Screw”, Seven Heaven”, Oops!”, “I Have a Dream”, and “Blue Moon Stone”. 

J. Rock – Princess Princess

Princess Princessプリンセス・プリンセス – It consists of five J. rock members: Kaori Kishitani, Kanako Nakayama, Atsuko Watanabe, Tomoko Konno, and Kyoko Tomita. The band was mainly active in 80s and 90s. After they have been struggled for a success, in late 80s, they finally reached to the peak of their success. They released the first popular single of all female group, “Diamonds”. Then, quickly after the group released many albums, like, “Lovers”, “Oh Yeah!”, “Julian”, and “Kiss”, and all become top hot seller singles and albums on the Japan Oricon chart. They also have held concerts for 2011 Tohoku earthquake event. In addition, sometimes they appeared to perform at the important Kohaku Uta Gassen event at the end of each year.