Miya - "Miya's Book, Music for Seven Days"

(Studio Wee 2007)

Miya – Flute, Alto Flute
Yosuke Yamashita – Piano
Tsuneo Imabori – Guitar
Hiroaki Mizutani – Bass
Akira Sotoyama – Drums     

Miya is the kind of musician that balances all the parts of the music just right. Her originals are well composed without sounding over-calculated. She has a lightness of tone common to flute players, but a heaviness of energy that is unusual. Each song in her new song cycle of seven tunes for seven days is lyrical and beautiful, even while exploring wild, open directions. She explores in her own way, while keeping one ear towards the listeners. That balance is an unusually hard one, but on this CD, exceptionally well done.

The first tune, called in English, "What I Heard in the Water" has the flute at the center, as do all the tunes, with roving drums and throbbing bass. A meditative Zen-like feeling flows through each of the musical lines, a feeling picked up also in the second tune "Night." The loose, minimalism of both tunes are thoughtful and emotional in a way that creates lots of interesting textures.

Not until the fifth song, "Dosan," does the band slip into a bit of swing, though with a still calm and serene center. The guitar works nicely together with the tones of the flute, answering the flute's melody with corresponding harmony. The rounded tones of the guitar hold down the sharpness of the flute, with the bass pulling along underneath. This layering of tones and textures creates variety with fluidity and complexity.

"Matsuri," day six, picks up the pace with a hopeful, full, spiraling opening that is orchestral in feel, but cool in execution. The tune, like the title suggests, becomes wilder and wilder. With Yamashita's piano pushing the tune freer (here and on other tunes, too), the musicians really come together here, without ever sacrificing nuance to the turbulence that the title might suggest. "Children's Chant" closes out the CD as the only "straight" tune. The nifty set of chord changes rollicks along and enjoys its own beauty, just like children do.

Miya's flute playing is always one that catches your attention in any ensemble. "Tone is everything," one feels when hearing her play. But with this CD, her larger musical conception comes out, and she adds composition, conception, execution and feeling to the mix of what "everything" means when creating a complete, and splendid, work.