Shigeharu Mukai

Shigeharu Mukai ( jap. 向井滋春 , Mukai shigeharu * 21st January 1949 in Nagoya ) is a Japanese jazz - trombone .

Mukai played in the Big Band at Dōshisha University and won the Yamaha Light Music Contest in 1970 . He then moved to Tokyo in 1971 and began his career in the bands of Yoshio Otomo , Fumio Itabashi , Ryō Kawasaki , Terumasa Hino , Sadao Watanabe and Yōsuke Yamashita . With Hiroshi Fukamarau he led a band with two trombone parts. In 1972 he founded his own band, with which he won the Shinjuki Jazz Festival award. After the group broke up, he lived in New York in 1977/78 ; after his return to Japan he led various bands and worked with Kazumi Watanabe , Naoya Matsuoka, Akira Sakata, Yuichi Inoue and again with Yosuke Yamashita; he also played with guest musicians, including Elvin Jones and Billy Hart . In 1982 he recorded the album So & So - Mukai Meets Gilberto with Astrud Gilberto , which was released on Denon. He later founded the Hot Session quartet with Ryōjirō Furusawa , Fumio Itabashi and Mitsuaki Furuno, with whom he toured Japan in 1991/92. 1997 appeared his album Better Day Of on the Japanese sub-label of Columbia Records ; In 2004 he caused a sensation with the album Super 4 Records , in which he created the illusion of a big band with a “horn section” made up of alto and tenor saxophone, trombone and trumpet; Stephen Loewy reminds Mukai's trombone playing of Carl Fontana and Frank Rosolino .

Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler call Shigeharu Mukai one of the most respected trombonists on the Japanese jazz scene, who is also known for his mastery of Latin and ethnic rhythms in the various groups.

Awards

Mukai won several times from 1975 to 1993 in the reader polls of the Japanese Swing Journal and their critics award .

Lexical entries

• Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .

Web links

• Entry and discography in Allmusic
• Shigeharu Mukai at Discogs (English)