COMING SOON: TSUYOSHI YAMAMOTO TRIO - PLAYS SONGS
When a piano trio reaches this level of understanding, the music no longer feels merely performed - it begins to speak.
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Plays Songs reunites Japanese jazz master Tsuyoshi Yamamoto with recording engineer Yoshihiko Kannari, one of the defining architects behind the celebrated Three Blind Mice sound. Their new collaboration was recorded entirely in the analogue domain at Tokyo’s ONKIO HAUS Studio No. 1 in March 2026, directly onto ½-inch master tape running at 15 ips.
The musicians are:
🎹 Tsuyoshi Yamamoto — piano
🎻 Hiroshi Kagawa — double bass
🥁 Toshio Osumi — drums
🎚️ Yoshihiko Kannari — recording engineer
The guiding idea is beautifully simple: “The Piano Sings.”
Yamamoto has built a remarkable career around precisely that quality. His playing combines a strong blues foundation, an unmistakable swing and a touch capable of moving from delicate lyricism to dramatic rhythmic authority. Since his landmark 1974 recordings for Three Blind Mice, including Midnight Sugar and Misty, he has become one of the most internationally recognised figures in Japanese jazz. His present trio with Kagawa and Osumi has also been described by concert presenters as one of Japan’s foremost piano trios.
On Plays Songs, the trio turns toward melodies already embedded in our collective memory: “Violets for Your Furs,” “Angel Eyes,” “These Foolish Things,” “Everything Happens to Me,” “Serenade to a Cuckoo” and other enduring songs. Rather than treating them as museum pieces, the album promises to make each melody breathe again through Yamamoto’s vocal-like phrasing, Kagawa’s resonant bass and Osumi’s finely judged rhythmic colour.
The complete programme is:
1. Violets for Your Furs
2. My Melancholy Baby
3. The Lonely One
4. Red Sails in the Sunset
5. Quizás, Quizás, Quizás
6. Angel Eyes
7. These Foolish Things
8. Everything Happens to Me
9. Serenade to a Cuckoo
10. The Night We Called It a Day
11. Will You Still Be Mine?
12. Everything
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This is the fourth instalment in Yamamoto and Kannari’s modern reunion series, following Blues for K, Sweet for K and Requests. That pedigree gives listeners good reason for anticipation. In a technical comparison, Sweet for K was praised for its finesse, dynamics and “soft but precise” analogue character, while a review of Requests celebrated the way Kannari’s studio craft preserved the energy of a live Yamamoto performance. These assessments concern the preceding albums - not Plays Songs - but they reveal the exceptionally high standard this partnership has already established.
The forthcoming AudioNautes release will be presented as a limited, individually numbered UHQCD, pressed by Memory-Tech in Japan and playable on a conventional CD player. It is sourced from the original ½-inch analogue master tapes and housed in premium gatefold packaging. The UHQCD edition is currently listed for shipment in January 2027. Edition specifications
EDITORIAL PREVIEW
Plays Songs appears designed to unite two kinds of beauty: the emotional directness of familiar melodies and the physical realism of carefully engineered analogue sound. Its appeal should extend beyond dedicated audiophiles. This is fundamentally a record about melody, touch, timing and the intimate conversation between three musicians who know how to leave space around every note.
No independent listening reviews of the finished AudioNautes UHQCD have appeared yet, so any verdict must wait until the disc is released. Nevertheless, the trio’s history, Kannari’s recording legacy and the project’s uncompromising analogue production make this one of the most intriguing Japanese jazz releases on the horizon.
Which song would you most like to hear Yamamoto’s trio reinterpret—and do you believe analogue recording can bring us closer to the atmosphere of the original performance?
💿 Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio — Plays Songs
AudioNautes Recordings • AN-2704-UHQ
Limited Numbered UHQCD • Made in Japan
TSUYOSHI YAMAMOTO TRIO - PLAYS SONGS
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