| Jazz |
Not having been familiar with this composer before, I took the time to listen carefully to her new album, whose style exists in that elusive space between jazz, classical music, and world music, though my own sensibilities lean more naturally toward a figure like Ryuichi Sakamoto, who passed away two years ago.
At first encounter, the compositions on Eternal Moments may appear to blur into one another, their tonal palettes and textures echoing similar moods from track to track. What sustains the listener’s attention here, however, is not necessarily melodic invention but rather the extraordinary quality of the performers. The flutist Jamie Baum, in particular, makes a decisive contribution, lending both color and clarity to the ensemble. In that sense, the album unfolds as a natural continuation of Yoko Yates’s previous release, Mystic Life.
“My first album was centered on childhood memories. I was writing from experiences tied to nature and the world around me,” Yates explains. “This one is similar in some respects, but inspired by more recent experiences and events. I’m trying to convey greater emotional complexity and to develop the phases of each event, exploring each piece in greater depth.”
That statement is instructive. The arrangements, more than the raw material of the compositions themselves, feel like the true architecture of this project. The piano playing is executed with exquisite poise, yet there is a sense of déjà vu that pervades many of the tracks. In a landscape crowded with new releases, it’s easy to recognize her inspirations. And yet, after reflection, I began to see Yates less as a traditional composer and more as a kind of visual artist, someone who paints, sculpts, or shapes sound into texture. What matters here is not always the narrative core but the final form. From that vantage point, Eternal Moments succeeds brilliantly. Trained in both visual arts and classical music in her youth, Yates approaches jazz with the eye of a painter, the ear of a chamber musician, and the style of a fiercely individualistic voice. “I love to express my feelings and emotions, and I don’t care much about form or genre,” she says. When the result is as considered and as beautiful as this music, one can hardly object.
Every composer carries within them a kind of inner vehicle, a personal engine by which they deliver fragments of themselves to the listener. To appreciate the contours of that vehicle, it is helpful to know the artist’s path. Yoko Yates was born in Sapporo, Japan, into a family of music lovers who exposed her early to a wide variety of styles. She began piano lessons at the age of four. Though the training was classical, the cultural moment was the 1960s, and Yates soon gravitated toward rock before eventually discovering jazz through pianists Oscar Peterson and Toshiko Akiyoshi.
After starting her higher education at Hokkaido University of Education in her hometown, Yates moved to the United States, entering the Berklee College of Music in Boston on both a cultural merit scholarship from the city of Sapporo and Berklee’s own professional music award. She completed her bachelor’s degree in music at Berklee, then pursued graduate studies at Lesley University near Cambridge, Massachusetts, earning a master’s degree in education. From there, she went on to Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York, where she completed a doctorate in music education.
In many ways, Eternal Moments feels like a transitional work, an interlude that sits between two more clearly defined creative phases. This is not a weakness so much as a stage of artistic evolution. As such, the album deserves to be understood as a crucial step in Yates’s trajectory, a bridge between the deeply personal world of Mystic Life and whatever comes next. It has the feel of preparatory notes, an intellectual sketchbook rendered in sound. And taken on those terms, it is a deeply rewarding experience.
Yoko Yates and her quintet will mark the release of Eternal Moments with a concert at the Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow Street in New York, on Saturday, September 20, 2025.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, August 25th 2025
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