The Japanese trumpeter’s dense and cosmic sixth album blends jazz with Afrobeat, hip-hop, neo-soul, and funk.
Takuya Kuroda hails from Kobe, Japan, a nation that to a dedicated strand of Western jazz obsessive serves as a sacred tomb of rare riches. You can place the trumpeter next to 20th-century Japanese virtuosos such as Toshiko Akiyoshi, Masabumi Kikuchi, Ryo Fukui, and Koichi Matsukaze, and he looks extremely comfortable in the lineage: All respected the core tenets of jazz while offering their own unique interpretations. Kuroda, after all, is a guy who has name-dropped Lee Morgan as an inspiration while playing in DJ Premier’s touring outfit, the Badder band.
Having relocated to New York to study jazz and contemporary music at The New School in the mid-2000s, Kuroda has since traversed the city as a recording artist—he notably spent some time on Blue Note Records—and musician for hire. Sixth album Fly Moon Die Soon is the work of a man who has undertaken his own musical Gulliver’s Travels. The album’s nine cuts are united by Kuroda’s determination to branch out from jazz and into hip-hop, funk, Afrobeat, electronica, and neo soul. But Kuroda isn’t simply quoting corners of his own record collection; he skillfully synthesizes his influences, hitting sweet spots that feel purely of his own creation.
Most apparent is the music of 1970s West Africa (Kuroda has previously collaborated with a group of similar interest in New York’s Akoya Afrobeat). The horns, guitar stabs, and rattling percussion of “ABC” gesture heavily toward Fela Kuti, while the driving rhythms of “Moody” recalls 1970s Afro-funk bands like the Funkees and Monomono. The brass instruments throughout Fly Moon Die Soon are often used to deploy catchy riffs, Kuroda’s trumpet frequently amalgamating with Corey King’s trombone. The title track shows a more experimental side, with programmed beats and a Moog bassline that swirls like a Thundercat jam. It’s the kind of dense and cosmic jazz hybrid that would blow minds over at Brainfeeder.
Kuroda allows his collaborators significant space. King’s singing voice comes in and out of the album with mixed results—his textured tones skip satisfyingly through opener “Fade,” but “Change,” the least impressive tune on the album, features a hiccuping melody that goes nowhere in a hurry. Much better is the cover of the Ohio Players’ “Sweet Sticky Thing,” featuring Russia-born singer Alina Engibaryan. Retaining the sensual melody and cranking up the heat until it’s balmy, it’s the kind of track you can put on a playlist that might grab a non-jazz fan’s attention.
Then there’s the Herbie Hancock composition “Tell Me a Bedtime Story,” which pushes Hiroshima pianist Takeshi Ohbayashi front and center as he plays over the softly bumping backdrop. Kuroda, meanwhile, unleashes a flugelhorn solo that evokes some vintage urban-noir vision of Manhattan. Coming late on Fly Moon Die Soon, it returns the ever-journeying artist to the city that has proved his fulcrum, and asserts that Kuroda’s skill is not drawing influence from so many different forms, it’s radiating joy in doing so.
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