Takuya Kuroda
Slick, punchy trumpet lines meeting heavy hip-hop pockets and soulful synth textures. Modern jazz with a Brooklyn edge and a late-night urban pulse.
Slick, punchy trumpet lines meeting heavy hip-hop pockets and soulful synth textures. Modern jazz with a Brooklyn edge and a late-night urban pulse.
Takuya Kuroda makes jazz that feels like it was born in the middle of a bustling intersection. It is music that carries the technical rigor of post-bop but wears the clothes of modern soul and hip-hop. His trumpet playing is remarkably clean and assertive, often cutting through dense, groove-heavy arrangements with a bright, brassy confidence that feels both classic and entirely current.
What sets him apart is his rhythmic sensibility. While many jazz trumpeters lean into the ethereal or the purely melodic, Kuroda is obsessed with the pocket. He works closely with drummers who understand the swing of J Dilla as much as the swing of Art Blakey, resulting in tracks that feel as much like 'beats' as they do 'compositions.' The addition of Rhodes piano and shimmering synthesizers gives his work a lush, cinematic quality.
Start with the album Rising Son if you want to hear the definitive bridge between Blue Note tradition and modern groove. For something a bit more experimental and electronically tinged, Fly Moon Die Soon showcases his evolution into a producer-minded bandleader who isn't afraid to let the studio become its own instrument.
Takuya Kuroda (Japanese: 黒田 卓也, Hepburn: Kuroda Takuya; born 21 February 1980, in Ashiya, Hyōgo) is a Japanese jazz trumpeter and arranger. Kuroda came to music by joining his school's big band. Later he frequently visited jam sessions in Kobe. In 2003 he moved to the United States and was a course participant at Berklee College of Music before settling in Brooklyn, New York City. He later attended the College of Performing Arts of The New School, where he studied jazz and contemporary music, earning his degree in 2006. His study colleague José James became a close friend and musical partner, in 2014 producing his studio album Rising Son.
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