Led by Japanese composer and virtuoso violinist Meg Okura, this New York based jazz group explores areas of jazz, world music, and chamber music, while embracing the traditional sounds from Japan and surrounding countries. The group features some of the best improvisers of our generation, including Megumi Yonezawa (from Greg Osby's album "Public") on piano, Jennifer Vincent (from Abby Lincoln's album "Over the Years") on cello, and Meg Okura who has played on dozens of recordings ranging from Pharaoh's Daughter to David Bowie.

Graduate of the Juilliard School, Okura has a unique and distinguishable sound, blending Pan-Asian tonalities into her masterful compositions, incorporating vivacious rhythms of Afro-Cuban and Latin rhythms as well as Middle-Eastern influenced odd-meter phrasings. Her unique style of composition and improvisation has been cultivated through her richly diverse experiences as a concert violinist and an improviser, which lead her to work with various artists including Mary J. Blige, David Bowie, Michael Brecker, Sarah Brightman, Circue du Soleil, Coheed and Cambria, Philip Glass, Quincy Jones, Ziggy Marley, Lee Konitz, Lou Reed, Alexander Schneider, Steve Swallow, and Kanye West. She has won numerous national and international competitions both as a violinist and composer.

Meg has been heard as a soloist all over the world at numerous music festivals and concert halls including Carnegie Hall, Barbican Hall in London, Hollywood Bowl, Kennedy Center, Verizon Hall, and Lincoln Center. During recent years, Meg has toured extensively with the Grammy-winning Michael Brecker Quindectet, critically acclaimed Steve Swallow/Ohad Talmor Sextet, and world music groups such as Pharaoh's Daughter, and Septeto Rodriguez. She has also performed as the concertmaster for some of the top jazz artists, among them, Herbie Hancock, Shirley Horn, Diana Krall, Diane Reeves, and Terrence Blanchard. As a leader, she performs in Europe with her own jazz group Meg Okura Quartet featuring Eric Niceberg on piano, Thomas Bramarie on bass, and Elliot Zigmund on drums.

Growing up in Tokyo as a church pianist and organist, Meg composed preludes and arranged hymns on weekly bases while receiving intensive musical training at the prestigious Toho Gakuen's Children's Music School. In 1990, she was the youngest winner of the Young Musicians' Debut Audition in Tokyo. By age seventeen, Meg was invited to take the prestigious concertmaster chair in the Asian Youth Orchestra, leading one hundred of the finest young musicians from nine countries and touring all of Asia. After making her US debut at the Kennedy Centre as a soloist with the late Alexander Schneider's New York String Orchestra, she settled in New York and earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in classical violin from The Juilliard School where she was the concertmaster of the Juilliard Opera Orchestra.

Meg Okura's Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble is her most recent endeavor, featuring some of the most exciting improvisers of her generation, Megumi Yonezawa on piano, Jennifer Vincent on cello, Yukari on flute, Meg Okura herself on violin, and master percussionist Satoshi Takeishi, playing his special kit of world percussion instruments including a Japanese Taiko drum. The group performs in New York City at venues such as Makor and the Stone.

 ©From Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble's website

This past month's curation at The Stone by Basya Schechter was noteworthy for new projects by young creative artists; one such event was the double bill of violinist Meg Okura's Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble and accordionist/pianist Uri Sharlin's Cardamon Quartet. Both Okura and Sharlin's groups played selections from debut CDs that elegantly intertwine elements of classical, jazz and world folk into a new sound. As evidenced throughout the evening, they do so by presenting precisely played ethnically inspired original compositions in an exciting modern jazz context. The common factor at The Stone and on both CDs is cellist/bassist Jennifer Vincent, whose exquisite playing classically grounds each group while enabling the prodigious soloists to strut, the melodies to entice, and the unique voicings to shine.

Okura composed, arranged and produced each tune on this recording, and her bowing in person and on CD is phenomenal. She delicately combines with Vincent and guest cellist Dave Eggar to enthrall, play thrilling pizzicatos or rip off fiery runs that include wild harmonics. Completing the core quartet are Yukari's soaring flute and Megumi Yonezawa's piano that draws on a multitude of forms. The brilliant traditional Japanese percussionist Satoshi Takeishi lends his singular rhythms and textures to each cut. "Yuki (snow)" falls from the sky with the sound of pizzicato flakes against a backdrop of hand percussion, until Yukari's lone flute beautifully signals an end to the wonder.

Yukari, Okura (viola) and Yonezawa take the lightly swinging "Step by Step" in different directions, yet pause to pay homage to Trane's "Giant Steps." "Dance at the Palace" begins as an out-of-time cavort until strings and flute signal the start of a fiery encounter that reaches a breathtaking climax. The touching "Peace in My Heart" leads into a hot "Viola da Samba," before the multi-themed "Dream Dancer" strikingly portrays the sound experience of a recently deafened violinist who can now only hear in her dreams. An achingly pure paean to the clarity of "Ancient Bells" closes things out.

 ©Elliott Simon - All About Jazz

This unique collection of eight melodic explorations is a superb orchestral fusion of Latin, Eastern and Western sensibilities performed with taste and grace by six accomplished artists, each of them with a strong individuality yet forming a unique ensemble. What makes this album original is the beautiful integration of melodies, themes and instruments in an organic lively ensemble. The flow of sounds, the dialogues between instruments, the contrasts and harmonies makes you think you are hearing a symphony. Like an impressionist painter using brushstrokes of bright colors to suggest luminosity, Meg Okura paints with rhytms, tempos and sounds skillfully distributed throughout the album. The output is an exemplary sample of esquisite musical chemistry.

JazzWorldQuest.com