Yuka Mito Takes on Jazz Standards

Some readers may be aware that, every now and then, I find myself reflecting on my “past life” in computer research. My last gig in that domain began in 1995 after having spent the first half of that decade at the Institute of Systems Science in Singapore. This gave me the opportunity to return to the United States when Fuji Xerox decided to open a research laboratory in Palo Alto, located on the same campus as Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), one of the most inventive organizations during the second half of the last century.

Yuka Mito on the cover of the album being discussed (from its Bandcamp Web page)

Ironically, my ability to work with Japanese colleagues was often facilitated by shared backgrounds in music, with a particular interest in jazz. As a result, many of my business trips to Tokyo would often be embellished with visits to jazz clubs. This is the context that brought me to listen to the latest album of jazz vocalist Yuka Mito, How Deep is the Ocean, which will be released this coming Friday and is available for pre-order through a Bandcamp Web page. She sings with all-Japanese instrumental backup, provided by Hiroki Morioka on piano, bassist Iwao Masuhara, and Yoshifumi Nihonmatsu on drums.

Mito divides her time between New York and Japan, but I was not aware of her until this new release came to my attention. Sadly, there is nothing on the seven tracks that came anywhere close to the experiences in Tokyo that I can still recall. The tracks cover a wide range of standards, going all the way back to Irving Berlin and Cole Porter and extending into the recent past of Burt Bacharach and Antonio Carlos Jobim. That accounts for a generous diversity of styles, making it all the more disappointing that Mito could not deliver a convincing account of any of them. As a result, the most engaging moments on the album are those in which she backs off to allow each of her trio musicians to explore riffs of their own.

Japan is now a distant memory for me, but that memory is still vivid enough to leave me disappointed with Mito’s latest efforts.