Evergreen

For a debut album, Jun Iida reaches the summit! Indeed, Evergreen is all about balance—nothing excessive, whether in compositions or arrangements; everything is perfectly calibrated, beautiful, intelligent, and one simply allows oneself to be carried away, thinking that with this musician, we are certainly only at the beginning of delightful surprises. There is a bit of the soul of a Ryuichi Sakamoto, capable of bringing together tradition and modernity in his compositions, which is also the case here. The trumpeter and bugle player has lived in Seattle, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Los Angeles, and has recently moved to New York. Iida has incorporated the different musical styles of each region, making his approach to composition and arrangement attractive and unexpected through his subtle fusion of contemporary jazz, blues, pop, hip-hop, soul, and classical music.

And that's exactly what we find in this album, provided one knows how to discern it, because, as I was saying, this album is all about finesse. Iida has also assimilated the music of his Japanese origins. His mother, a semi-professional koto player (Japanese harp), had a profound influence on his love for music. Iida was born in St. Louis, where he spent the first ten years of his life. He explains, "My mother always played music at home. She loved all types of music, especially classical music, and I spent my formative years listening to Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Mendelssohn. My parents immigrated here from Japan, and my mother wanted to make sure we didn't lose our culture and language, so she also taught us Japanese folk songs and children's songs. But I also listened to jazz, blues, soul, rock 'n' roll, and hip-hop, which were all predominant in St. Louis when I was very young."

In the background, singer Aubrey Johnson emerges here and there, with the same finesse as the instruments are handled in the arrangements. We are moved by the overall quality of this album because one can sense how much the composer has poured his soul into this project. This is undoubtedly what makes it so special. Iida had a unique idea for the voices on EVERGREEN, as he wanted them to fulfill the role of a second horn. He met Johnson in Seattle during a concert and was very impressed by her vocal abilities. She vocalizes on all compositions and convincingly sings Japanese lyrics on two songs.

Iida is also concerned about social events. He wrote "My Anguish in Solidarity" in response to incidents of police violence against African-Americans. The composition is written almost like a sonata with sections using odd measures, featuring Nelson on piano and Fender Rhodes. All the arguments and values of this album are ours, so we will closely follow this musician, to whom we (the editorial teams of Bayou Blue Radio and Paris-Move) attribute the label of "Essential."