Home » Jazz Musicians » Fukushi Tainaka
Fukushi Tainaka
Champian Fulton: House Party
by Pierre Giroux
There are evenings when jazz truly finds its footing: social, spontaneous, and unguarded. House Party was recorded live in March 2025 at a producer's home for Turtle Bay Records, capturing one such moment. Pianist-vocalist Champian Fulton, joined by bassist Hide Tanaka and drummer Fukushi Tainaka, along with guest saxophonists Klas Lindquist and Cory Weeds, dispense with polish-for-polish's-sake and instead offer something more meaningful: the sound of musicians trusting each other without prior rehearsal. The opening trio performance of ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Swinging In The Holidays
by Jim Trageser
With a warm, wood-paneled vintage glow, a new Christmas collection inhabits the space formerly reserved for top-flight crooners like Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett: blending pop and jazz into comfort food for your ears. While few of the “next-gen" (as the album's publicity tag puts it) performers here will be known to those unfamiliar with the contemporary New York City scene, their chops are undeniable and the arrangements flattering to the performers' strengths.
Continue ReadingChampian Fulton: Meet Me at Birdland
by Edward Blanco
The young and talented pianist Champian Fulton presents another enchanting album recorded live at New York's Birdland dinner jazz club simply titled Meet Me at Birdland, celebrating twenty years of performing in the Big Apple; playing the piano and lending her sultry vocals to a host of uncommon standards. Since arriving in New York in 2003, playing at Birdland has become a regular feature for the pianist, a musical home away from home. Fulton employs a world-class trio that has ...
Continue ReadingChampian Fulton: Birdsong
by Dan McClenaghan
Champian Fulton was introduced to alto saxophonist Charlie Parker during her stay in the womb. The New York-based pianist/vocalist's father, Stephen Fulton held a high opinion ("The most beautiful music that ever was") of Charlie Parker With Strings (Verve, 1950), so he made a cassette tape of the recording and played it during his wife Susan's pregnancy: The sound waves of Charlie Parker and Orchestra traversing maternal flesh to burst into the domain of amniotic fluid to find their way ...
Continue ReadingPhotos
Music
S'Posin
From: Flying High: Still SoaringBy Fukushi Tainaka
Button Up Your Overcoat
From: Swinging In The HolidaysBy Fukushi Tainaka
Too Marvelous for Words
From: Meet Me at BirdlandBy Fukushi Tainaka
