Rising Son – Takuya Kuroda
In Rising Son, trumpeter Takuya Kuroda treats groove as a meeting point. Afrobeat, soul, hip-hop, and jazz do not appear as references meant to be recognized separately; they coexist within the same pulse, sustained by a band that understands how much can be said through repetition. Produced by José James, Kuroda’s Blue Note debut finds its identity by allowing different musical languages to inhabit the same body.
“Rising Son” establishes this from the outset. Nate Smith on drums and Solomon Dorsey on bass create a circular motion over which Kris Bowers layers his keyboards and Corey King thickens the horn line with trombone. Kuroda’s trumpet enters later, with no need to impose itself on the surrounding texture. His sound is warm and direct, capable of carrying a melody with only a handful of notes while the rhythm continues to transform beneath it.
On “Piri Piri,” Dorsey’s bass and Smith’s drums push that minimalist logic toward funk, allowing Kuroda and King to turn the exchange between trumpet and trombone into part of the groove itself. “Sometime, Somewhere, Somehow” moves in the opposite direction. Dedicated to Kuroda’s grandfather, it leaves the flugelhorn and King’s trombone suspended above Bowers’ Rhodes and a restrained rhythm from Smith. The same band that had been propelling the music forward only minutes earlier learns here how to remain still.
The interpretations of Roy Ayers reinforce this sense of continuity. On “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” José James’ voice creates an architecture far denser than the original, stretching across more than nine minutes of bass, Rhodes, and horns. “Green and Gold” slows the pulse even further, allowing the trumpet to reveal its texture—each attack, each breath.
Rising Son appeared in 2014, yet its relationship with time remains elastic. Kuroda did not choose between the tradition he had studied and the rhythms he heard within it. He found a way to make them move forward together. The result is an album in which sophistication never stops the body: every thought eventually becomes movement.