Yuto Mitomi - Epicycle (2025) Hi Res

In 2021, the name of the US-based Japanese jazz saxophonist Yuto Mitomi has already appeared on our electronic pages in connection with the Utopia project, in which he plays in a duet with his namesake, guitarist Yuto Kanazawa. As part of this project, they released their second album, Imaginably, that year. But for Yuto Mitomi, this is not the only project. He performs a lot, participates in various festivals, tours Japan every year and works in a variety of formats. The album Epicycle, presented today, was recorded by a quartet of musicians, in which Mitomi's saxophone supports a classical jazz piano trio.

It is curious that the quartet formed by Yuto is 100% Japanese in composition, although all of its members now live and work in the States. Mitomi invited famous representatives of the large Japanese jazz diaspora in the United States to record Epicycle. Takahiro Izumikawa, who has worked with Vincent Zerring, Russell Malone, Cyrus Chestnut and also leads his own project, sits at the piano and keyboards. A native of Kobe, Moto Fukushima plays not only the six-string bass guitar, but also the traditional Japanese shamisen (though not in this project). He is one of the leaders of the House of Waters trio, and his musical interests range from classical music to African motifs in Latin American music. Drummer Keita Ogawa is perhaps the most famous musician in this lineup. He is a three-time winner and five-time Grammy nominee, a partner of such musicians as Snarky Puppy, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Charlie Hunter and other famous personalities. In the album, named by the ancient term "epicycle", denoting the route of the Sun, planets and stars around the Earth in the geocentric system of Ptolemy, Yuto Mitomi included eight compositions. Of these, five were composed by him himself, including the large two-part title canvas Epicycle, and three tracks - Morning Haze, Grappling Cats and Moony Night - are purely improvisational compositions, born directly in the studio during the recording of the album. I "declassified" here the names of the improvisational tracks of the program, but when listening to the album, I was not able to notice any particular difference between the pre-composed and improvisational compositions. This speaks both to the high level of mutual understanding between the partners, and to the merits of Mitomi's music, which provides his partners with a wide field for demonstrating their own skills, although, of course, he himself remains the main soloist. Mitomi's music is very modern in style and is located on a thin isthmus between the mainstream and the avant-garde, which promises good prospects for creative development for the talented composer and saxophonist.