Junko Moriya

Junko Moriya leads one of the most original and powerful big bands in Japan. She started playing jazz at Waseda University, and then professionally after graduation. Though her piano trio and small group work kept her busy, especially after returning from studying at Manhattan School of Music, the big band still fascinated her. She has just released her second big band recording, "Points of Departure," on Spice of Life Records. The vibrant playing and captivating sound on this eleven-song CD feature Moriya's originals, with four covers, and all her own arranging.

As on her first big band project, Moriya asked director and producer Don Sickler to join her and the band. His work with many of the top names in New York, including Joe Henderson among many others, is legendary. For mixing, she turned to Jim Anderson, perhaps the finest big band studio technician in the States. Fans of Tokyo jazz will hardly need any introduction to the band, though. They are the highest-level jazz musicians in town! And amazingly, their cohesive interaction shows that the whole is even greater than the sum of the already great parts.

Moriya took time to talk about her project over coffee on the terrace of a Shinjuku kissaten. Speaking in English, she explained her fascination with big bands and explained just how and why for her the big band is one of the most amazing forms in jazz.

You can back up singers, write for quintet, and play bop all night long, so why a big band?

It seems like everyone wants to know this. I still like to play solo, trio, and quartet or quintet. Really, every form is equally important for me. But, there's so many good piano trio CDs, and quartet CDs. Not many people want to do big band and there's not so many big band CDs in Japan, so I wanted to try to do something new. It does involve a lot of work. There are so many people and so much writing, but you can do so many more things compared to a piano trio. I also want to make piano trio CD because I'm a pianist, but while I'm younger I want to do difficult thing first. I have to do it now rather than waiting for the right time.

When you say the big band can do more things, do you mean textures or sound or…?

In one sense, it's the same number of choices as a trio. You can do a lot with a piano. When it's just a trio, though, all three are always going in the same direction, but if you have sixteen people, and everyone is already a "leader" class of player, then everyone thinks of a different direction. Sometimes that comes out good, but sometimes bad. But when they see my scores and can see their thinking reflected in this music, then it's not like only one direction there, many more things can happen. If the music is right and the feeling is right, and everyone loves the music, it comes out much better than I thought. That's the most enjoyable part of a big band. You can't get that kind of beauty from a small band, nor that sense of togetherness. It's a gorgeous sound.

So, the total sound of playing together is what makes it so beautiful?

In today's technology, you can record someone like Eric (Miyashiro) playing trumpets and (Osamu) Koike playing saxophones and later mix them all together. I could play the scores with only six or seven players recording several parts. But you can't get the right sound. Every musician coming together and playing at the same time creates a special sound that technology just can't get. It seems like now all popular music has an organ, drum and bass machine. Though they sound better than before, technology is always technology. With technology, you can't get the sound of humans playing, acoustic playing, at the same time at the same place. Of course, it takes more preparation, and more money, but I think it's worth it.

It is a tough thing to get sixteen people together. It must be a major headache.

It's very difficult to get all those musicians together at the same time. These people do many, many recordings. Of course, I pay them, but I don't pay them as well as other commercial or studio gigs do. So, why they come is to do something they can only get in this kind of big band setting. They are very experienced, and if they think they can get nothing more than money, they won't come. That creates a kind of pressure on me to keep it interesting.  To do that, I want to keep writing myself. I don't want to just do Count Basie or Duke Ellington, and they don't want to do those arrangements in my band anyway. I think they want to do new scores. If it's standard tune, it has to be arranged in a new way that they don't know. It has to be really different, because they know a lot of arrangements. Eric, for example, played with Count Basie and Maynard Ferguson, so he knows those great arrangements.

But you're not trying just to be different, but to create a natural and unique sound.

I don't think that because I'm a jazz musician, if others don't understand my music, then that's OK. I really want everyone to understand. Of course, I want to do music that jazz lovers really appreciate as jazz, but also to make music that non-jazz lovers can listen to and appreciate. If non-jazz listeners can hear my CD and think they want to listen to jazz more, than that is great. Some people think that big bands are different, that they are more difficult or something, which is true in a way, but big bands are also friendlier. There are more colors, more instruments, and many more players so you can really hear what they are doing. Also, on the CD, there are not such long solos, and more different people taking solos. So, what I want to do with this CD is to play not only for jazz people, but also for people for who don't usually listen to jazz.

Some jazz musicians pretend that if it's easy to listen to, then it's low quality.

Some jazz musicians think amateurs don't know anything. But I think amateurs know everything, because they don't have any prejudices. They don't know Coltrane, so they can't compare this solo to his or something. With them, it's more like Ellington said, there's good music and bad music. After the film "Swing Girls" came out, junior high school children started to have an interest in big bands. I asked the Yamaha people and they said the saxophone started to sell really well after that. The actresses there were not really good musicians exactly, because they started from scratch. I was impressed because they liked their instruments and really learned to play. Even if they weren't so strong as players, they could play together and really become friends while playing together. That was the most impressive point.

When you were studying in Manhattan School of Music, did you study composing and arranging?

I didn't study that, but just started myself. I don't think you can be taught about composing. Of course, you can learn arrangement or theory, but even if you understand music theory, you can sometimes write nothing. And of course, if you know no theory, you can still write something fantastic. When I met Carla Bley, she said she didn't go to school of any kind. She dropped out of school at 15. She said she didn't know anything about theory, which of course is maybe not completely true, but she never had any official, formal education about it. Still, she can write exceptionally beautiful things. She said that sometimes ignorance is a great thing, because you don't say, "Oh, I can't write that, or I have to write this." Of course, ignorance is not good, but I think you can't really teach composition. Jazz is listening and learning, not like writing or studying with a textbook. It's a different thing. You can teach some things, but usually, you have to learn by finding your own way. Of course, you have to learn the technique from a teacher, like with classical music, but composition and other parts of the music just can't be taught.

When you compose your songs, how do you work? What do you do when you write?

This time, I really wanted to write something thinking of the musicians. Much of the music is written when I'm thinking what the soloists are going to play. Thinking of their style and their tone gives me a hint or a direction. Some of the tunes I wrote right after the last CD, so some are three and a half years old, but others are very recent.  When it comes to hearing the real notes played, it is always different from what I was thinking. Usually it is better than what I was thinking, but sometimes not as good. That's always my fault when it comes out not as good, because these are professional musicians who always play correctly. They don't really miss notes, so when it's not good, then it's the fault of my writing. In that case, I have to rewrite some things, but really that's the great part of working with these musicians. The CD has a limitation of time, so I have to adjust for that. At a live performance, you can have the theme, then solo, solo, solo, then back to the theme. You can't do that on a CD, though. You'd have to cut another song. Also, because you listen to a CD many times, it must be more varied in other ways, so I include a bridge, or add a section here or there, or vary the theme to make it more interesting.

How much do you explain to the musicians and discuss with them?

They know how to do more than just read the notes. They read the notes correctly, of course, but also sense the mood. If they can' understand that, then again, it's my fault. We have had this band for four or five years with the same people, so recently, they really understand what the songs are about. We are also all the same age more or less, and we're all really maturing as musicians. We only play at most twice a month, but I can really get a sense of everyone's progress. Since the first CD, everyone has really moved forward in these four or five years on their own, and also with the band. We all know the music better and everyone is getting together more and more in different groups. It's great to play with musicians who just keep improving over time.

The recording quality is exceptional on this CD.

To me, the sound is VERY important and it's all because of Jim Anderson. Some Japanese engineers have a tendency to make everything flat, and not many engineers these days even listen to acoustic or big bands. So, I really wanted to go to someone who knows big bands. Jim Anderson really knows what the sound of a big band is supposed to be, and because he is a horn player, he really has a musician's ear. Real jazz lovers might like it even with a flat sound maybe, but if people don't know about recording techniques, they hear the total sound. I want to do the best for listeners. Also, the musicians really appreciate it. On some recordings, the musicians will say, "Hey, that's not my sound, it sounds like I'm playing in a bathroom." Especially drummers always say that. I really don't want them to feel it's not their sound. If it doesn't come out, it's kind of insulting. And listeners may just think, well, that saxophone player can't play, just because it's mixed with that bad, in-the-bathroom sound.

Will you do another big band CD after this one?

I haven't decided. I might go to a smaller band where I can play more. I might go with the sextet, which is half big band and half piano trio, and the members are mainly from this big band. It's not too big and not too small. I'd like to do one more big band CD, though, at least. In Japan, there are not so many professional big bands as there used to be. However, unlike the States, there are many amateur big bands in Japan. Even in the smallest rural place, they have a big band. It's amazing. Sometimes, those bands want something from a new composer and I guess from a Japanese composer, too. After the last CD, many people asked me for the scores, so I started to make them available. Now, some of the schools and "shakaijin" big band play my music. It's a different flavor and feeling, and they can understand my scores differently, as being from the same age and also, of course, being from Japan.

Did you hear any of these amateur big bands?

I do a lot of clinics all over Japan. I regularly teach big band students, too. I like doing that because when I went to New York to study, I was very frustrated. My education was not musical, but I was also never trained to push my ideas. Japanese education is mainly just doing what the teacher says. That's not always bad, but when students play in a big band and have to solo, they can't rely on anyone and have to be themselves. When you solo, you can't imitate anything; you just express yourself. That chance, and really that system, isn't part of typical Japanese education. The other good part of the big band is that you can't be selfish and have to cooperate. After the solo, you have to be in the ensemble again, and have to listen to and blend with the others. After they started big band, many parents said their children's personality changed. Their attitude became more confident and positive (sekkyokuteki), not just for music, but for everything. They studied independently and started to do things with their own mind. They started to play for themselves, and by themselves, not just because the teacher or their senpai said so. Jazz is not like reading music, and not just listening, but demands listening and thinking on your own. The good part is they will keep playing because they know that playing jazz is a treasure for their entire life.

(Originally published in Jazznin June 2005)