Anyone else been on a jazz kick recently? Spotify’s algorithm has definitely picked up on my current obsession with the genre. I recently got blessed by Ryo Fukui through their Discover Weekly playlist, a curated mix of your current favorite sounds. It didn’t take many listens for me to be entranced in his work. His music has a hypnotic feel to it, lulling me from one track to the next.
In specific, it was Fukui’s track “Embraceable You” that really got me hooked. I was captivated by its shifting time signatures, selection of instruments, and peaceful melody. This led me to explore more of his discography, grabbing me by the hand, and pulling me into his warm, jazz embrace. As I listen to his music, I like to pull a chair out onto my apartment’s porch as the sun starts to set. As the sun slowly drops behind the trees, the sky is undercut with streaks of pink and orange. I pour a cool drink, like cucumber water, close my eyes, and envision where Fukui’s tracks take me. I start listening to him with, “Embraceable You”. I see a small gathering with an earnest musician in a small room in the far side of Hiroshima, Japan.
Smothered in umber light, a Jazz pianist whirls away in the corner of the room, turning his fingers and the keys into a tornado of motion, shifting from chord to chord with fluid movements that look all-so natural. This light reaches the rest of the crowd in the small hole-in-the-wall Jazz club. The space is only big enough to fit about twenty people comfortably, but more could squeeze shoulder to shoulder if a big enough musician came.
The food is alright, nothing to write home (or in this article) about. There’s a few chairs and tables pushed up against the wall across from the bar. There’s only enough space between the tables and bar for two people holding hands to walk through. A light gray cat with eclectic black spots arches its back and brushes against the legs of both chairs, tables, and people alike. The club’s owner doesn’t know when the cat started coming in, but it’s one of the bar’s most consistent regulars, so he doesn’t mind.
Tonight, a Japanese man with a short, buzzed head sits hunched on the piano’s bench. He crouches forward with his nose hovering a few inches above its eggshell white keys. Sweat beading and sliding off his face, and glasses millimeters from falling off and crashing into his hands. His name is Ryo Fukui and he’s playing his debut album Scenery from start to finish. The music ricochets from the bar’s midnight black Yamaha off of cheap glasses of brandy, dinner utensils, and tailored suits on young men barely able to afford them.
Yet as Fukui plays, it doesn’t matter what anyone is wearing or eating or drinking. Everyone in the bar is blanketed in his cool, passionate Jazz that could only come from a master in the genre. Class, race, and who came with who doesn’t matter as he plays. The music removes those unnecessary thoughts of hierarchical interests and equalizes the crowd.
And it’s loose, his playing. To Fukui, playing the piano must be like walking. An organic and natural exercise, like an extension of his body. He attacks the piano with “It Could Happen to You”. Then eases into “I Want to Talk About You”. Only to tense up, protrude his shoulders into the sky and rock his head, hammering away at “Early Summer”. This seasonal pattern of relaxation and concentration, passion sweated with interest, repeats for Scenery’s 41 minute, six track album.
It’s an album that sways and enlightens its listeners. Fukui’s playing loosens tight knots in their muscles, through his methodical rhythms and upbeat tempos like a massage gun on a tense back. Scenery, in all of its short glory, sounds like how Japanese author Haruki Murakami writes. Fukui’s six tracks in this album are filled with stories of love and mystery. But each story is individual to each listener. Crafting unique and visually enlightened experiences within the audience on every listen. It’s music that makes you want to sit down and stay, smoke a cigarette late at night, reminisce on past and new relationships. Fukui alters the thoughts of each listener by asking probing questions through his playing. He stirs conversations that only take place under a sea of stars, or in a thin, shared blanket with a lover; and it’s needed. They’re conversations not held enough.
Ryo Fukui’s Escapism
As Scenery comes to a close, my vision is returned to the now charcoal toned night outside of my apartment where the sun has also closed its performance. The prior short story was what came to my mind as I listened to Fukui’s music. Because of Fukui’s transcendent Jazz, the listener is able to be transported to new settings and scenarios. As mentioned earlier, other miniscule problems fade away through his sporadic and meditative playing. Fukui pushes his listeners through his music like water under a moving oar. It is gentle yet purposeful.
So, Who is ryo fukui?
After a musical experience so intimate and beautiful, I had to know more about the man behind it. Ryo Fukui was a self-trained pianist from Sapporo, Japan, who regularly played at a jazz club that he and his wife owned in the region. Fukui moved to Tokyo to learn to play piano when he was 22, an inspiringly late start to the instrument. Then many years later, he settled down with his wife in Sapporo. Fukui taught peers and students his knowledge of Jazz before passing away from lymphoma.
His life was quiet yet nuanced like his music. Fukui didn’t receive a large spotlight on his work until much later, through a niche online Japanese jazz resurgence in the 2010s. He would be heard of and recognized through his album Scenery.
Fukui’s Meaningufl Impression
Through his music, one negates the essence of time through its pure qualities. It proves itself as an important listen, as it makes its listeners lose all sense of settings and external problems. Fukui’s audience can lay back, prop their feet up on their coffee table, and drift away. In a non-corny-you-matter type of way. For me, that is why Ryo Fukui’s music is so great. He is able to spur thoughts and emotions in me through his music that are otherwise hard to feel or think about.
You can find Ryo Fukui’s music on most all streaming platforms, such as: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, etc.
