Masabumi Kikuchi

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Masabumi Kikuchi was born in 1939 in Tokyo. After the bombing of the city in 1945 his family moved to the countryside of Aizuwakamatsu in Fukushima Prefecture, where his parents came from. He studied music at the Tokyo Art College High School and bought second-hand records, probably left behind by American soldiers. Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk were his first models. After his studies he played in Lionel Hampton's Japanese touring band and formed a quintet with Terumasa Hino. Soon afterwards he left for the United States with a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music.

Music and breakthrough

He played with many different musicians, including Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Gary Peacock and Paul Motian, and worked with Gil Evans and Tōru Takemitsu. His albums include Poo-Sun (1970), Susto (1981), Tethered Moon Play Kurt Weill (1995), Chansons d'Édith Piaf (1999) and Experiencing Tosca (2004). In this way he played both his own work and arrangements of chansons and classical themes.

Influence

Kikuchi was known for a style of playing all his own. He played the piano as an instrument full of space and silence, in which every note matters. He died in 2015 in New York, where he lived. He belongs to the Japanese jazz musicians who sought their own path between Tokyo and New York.

Listening

• 
  Dancing Mist · Masabumi Kikuchi, 1970

Discography

Studio albums

• 1970Poo-Sun
• 1981Susto
• 1995Tethered Moon Play Kurt Weill
• 1997First Meeting
• 1999Chansons d’Édith Piaf
• 2004Experiencing Tosca
• ?Masabumi Kikuchi with Gil Evans