Motoi Kanamori trio is playing for almost 10 years with this member. In 2018, they released the first album and started Japan tour. Since then, they’ve kept touring all over Japan together over 50 concerts per a year.
Even during the Corona period, Motoi Kanamori Trio continued touring all over Japan and increased the band’s cohesion, and their strong sense of rhythm and transformative and thrilling performances gained tremendous support throughout Japan. Influenced by Paul Chambers as well as Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Errol Garner, and Ahmad Jamal, this trio’s music has an authentic jazz style with a sense of freedom and magical arrangement with a lot of surprises.
Motoi Kanamori
Motoi Kanamori (bass) Motoi Kanamori was born in 1983. He spent a high school in the United State where he listened to the Jazz for the first time. In 2007, as he moved to Tokyo to enter the University Tokyo institute of technology, he started playing in the Jazz scene of Tokyo. In 2009, although he graduated and got a master’s degree of technology, he decided to be a Jazz bassist. He learned how to play the bass by himself. In 2012, he joined Japan tour with Vincent Herring(as) and Eric Alexander(ts).He did a live recording at Jazz club Smoke in NYC with Vincent and Eric in 2014. In the same year, he joined second Japan tour with them. In 2014, he joined China tour as a bassist of Yuichiro Tokuda(as) quartet.
In 2015, he joined Shanghi Jazz festival with Keisuke Nakamura(tp) quintet. In 2016, he joined the third Japan tour with Vincent Herring and Eric Alexander. In 2017, he did a recording with Vincent Herring, Eric Alexander, Anthony Wonsey(pf), and Erena Terakubo(as) in NYC and Joined Japan tour. Since 2019, he is touring all over Japan as a member of Lew Tabackin Trio every year. The record of his original trio “My Soul Meeting” was released in 2018 which was picked up in a radio in Germany and Mexico. He released 2nd album “Invisible World” in 2020, and 3rd album “The Live” in 2023.
His trio started to tour around all over Japan since 2018, and his sophisticated original compositions and his very unique arrangement of Jazz standards fascinated people. Now his piano trio is very popular in Janan and Europe.
Hiroyuki Takubo (piano)
Born on July 3, 1981. He began learning piano at the age of four. After discovering the music of Bill Evans, he began studying jazz on his own in high school, and after graduating from high school, he moved to the United States and enrolled in Berklee College of Music. After graduating from the same school in 2004 after studying in the United States, he boarded a Royal Caribbean cruise cruise ship and performed as a pianist for nine months. He returned to Japan in April 2005 after completing his contract.
In 2009, he won the Grand Prix at the Yokohama Jazz Promenade as a member of Takuji Yamada Quintet. In July 2011, he appeared on NHK-BS’s “Earth TV El Mundo” as a member of Eiji Taniguchi Band. In May 2017, he released the leader album “Tone Painting”. In November 2017, he appeared on NHK-FM “Session” with his own trio. In 2018, he released his second album “Tribute for Bill Evans”.
He captivates listeners with his outstanding technique and loving touch.
Akira Yamada (drums)
Born in Tottori Prefecture in 1992. Influenced by his father, an amateur drummer, he became familiar with music from an early age, and moved to Tokyo after graduating from high school. He has studied with Shigefumi Kobayashi, Takeshi Inomata, Tamaya Honda, and Gene Jackson, and began his professional career at the age of 18. In 2012, he participated in the Norio Maeda Trio for the first time. He was selected as a member of the Ryoko Moriyama with Norio Maeda Trio held on the luxury cruise ship “Asuka II”. Around this time, he joined bands such as Yoshitaka Akimitsu, a swing piano virtuoso, and Yasumasa Kumagai. In 2015, he joined the Shunzo Ohno band. In the same year, he participated in a Taiwan tour with the TOKU band. In 2016, she joined the Junko Onishi Trio. In the same year, he performed at the Baku Jazz Festival in the Republic of Azerbaijan with the band “Takumi’s friends”.
In 2017, he participated in the ASEAN TV Festival in the Philippines as a trio of Takeshi Obayashi. He served as a drummer in the dramatic version of the movie “Gundam Mr./Ms. Derbolt 2” and participated in performances in New York. He also participated in the movie version of “Apollo on the Slope” as a drum sound source. In 2018, he participated in Kikuchi Naruko “dCprG”. In the same year, he toured Tahiti with the band SK4. In 2019, she appeared in Beijing Blue Note with the Katsumi Watanabe Trio. In the same year, he participated in “East Meets West” at Tokyo International Forum Hall C as a house band led by Will Lee (b), playing twin drums with Chris Parker (dr), Randy Brecker (Tp), Mike Stern (gt), Sam Moore (vo) and others. In recent years, he has not only been active as a drummer, but also has been enthusiastically working on composition, and has led his own group, Kejime Collective, for live performances. In addition to his musical sensitivity, he is a jazz drummer who represents Japan in both name and reality, with overwhelming technique and natural swing feel.
