Circle Round Tomonao Hara Group

• 1 Deep Sea 06:50
• 2 Eruption 05:16
• 3 Circle Round 08:12
• 4 Polar Form 08:03
• 5 Living Song 05:52
• 6 Let's Gomi Jam 00:30
• 7 Empty Room 08:58
• 8 Nebula 03:57
• 9 Blue Blues 05:58
• 10 Cosmic Microcosm 07:13
• Total Runtime 01:00:49

Info for Circle Round

”Circle Round” is a jazz album consisting of 10 original songs (9 were my original and 1 was by Ikejiri composition). The band carefully cultivated these compositions about two and a half years after the recording of the previous albums that was titled "Time In Delight". And their appearance changed and grew a lot in the collaborative play of free and creative music of each member.

The themes that reflect throughout the album are "Earth, Universe, Love". The connection and spread of our planet Earth, nature, human beings, and their activities will return to space through various processes. I think the universe is our great home and origin, and the dimensional world we are aiming for. And I think that the most important energy source for this concept of "connection" is "love."

Each person has his own universe. Therefore, life is not the only clear world in front of you, but you will grow while traveling in your own universe and gain a lot of awareness.

I think that music is a "soul" that records the moment then.

I wrote the lyrics for the first time on the last song "Cosmic Microcosm" of the album. I'm surprised that I was able to get a different joy from composing. (Tomonao Hara)

Tomonao Hara Group:
Tomonao Hara, trumpet
Hisatsugu Suzuki, tenor & soprano saxophone
Jun Miyakawa, piano, Fender Rhodes Mark I
Takuma Asada, guitar
Hiroshi Ikejiri, double bass, electric bass
Dennis Frehse, drums

Tomonao Hara
Born in 1966, Tomonao joined in a group of jazz performance while in college, and became professional after the graduation. Tomonao had an active leadership role in the 90’s jazz boom in Japan, and released his first leader album “Evidence for My Music” in 1996. He continues to release several leader albums ever since, and participates in many other collaborations.His recent activity spans beyond playing jazz, appearing in such classical programs as “Beethoven’s 9th Concert by 10,000 People” and Yutaka Sado’s “Young People’s Concert”. It gets even wider as the TV program “Passion Continent” featured him to attract the audience attention, and he performed the opening theme of Takeshi Kitano’s movie “Brother” as well as the NHK’s satellite broadcast program “The World News”. He is also involved in Yamaha’s commercial music composition/recording, and appeared in their TV program “Music without Titles”.

He is featured in various collaborations with foreign top players in the events in the US, Europe and Asia. Currently, his core group is his own unit, Tomonao Hara Group, while he himself is active in the education of young generations nationwide. He is professor in Senzoku-Gakuen Music College.

Hisatsugu Suzuki
Born in Osaka on 22 November, 1972.With the influence from his father, a sax player, Hisatsugu started piano lessons and compositions at the age of 4, and then began playing saxophone at 10. He studied jazz for himself, started performing at 16, and achieved the Grand Prix award of the instrumental section in AXIA Music Audition at 17. Graduated from Osaka College of Music, Saxophone Section where he studied classical music under professor Masahiro Maeda, and performed both classical and jazz music.

In addition to taking the leadership in his own band, his collaboration with other groups is not only with “Yuji Ohno & Lupintic Six” led by Yuji who is renowned as the composer of “Lupin III”, but also with Dairiki Hara, Hidefumi Toki and Tomonao Hara.

His performance with foreign artists include Benny Green, Lonnie Plaxico, Rodney Green, Conrad Herwig, Ron Carter, Salena Jones, Kenny Washington, Peter Washington, and Lewis Nash from whom he is much relied upon.

He is highly reputed as producer and arranger, and has achieved the Recording Award of Studio Association and Gold Disc Award in the projects for Hikari Aoki and for Woong San. His activity further expands to numerous session recordings and the support work for ZARD and Fusanosuke Kondoh.His major debut album is “Passage of Day” produced by Yuji Ohno and released by VAP on 25 February, 2009. A recent album is “Standards++” leading Hisatsugu Suzuki Quartet, released by T5 Jazz Records on 3 December, 2014.

Jun Miyakawa
Born in Aichi prefecture in 1987. Started playing Electone and then got indulged in jazz, fusion and rock music. He was determined to be a musician after graduating from high-school, and entered Koyo Conservatory of Music, Nagoya campus where he studied jazz piano under Shuhei Mizuno and Kiyoshi Takeshita and performed in the live sessions of Yasuhiro Kohama Band. His appearance increased in Nagoya area participating in the recording of Nobody Knows+ and S.B.B.

His debut album “Some Day My Prince Will Come” was release in 2009 from JVC at the age of 21, and he later moved his activity base to Tokyo releasing the second album “I Think So” in 2012. Jun’s third album “The Way” (T5 Jazz Records, 2015) gathered the most highly regarded artists such as Tatsuya Kuroda and Shun Ishiwaka to aggressively create the new style with the variety of elements on the basis of jazz, and achieved the reputation of a phenomenal production to express the arrival of a totally new era of jazz in Japan. It was featured in various media. From this album, Hiroko Ohtsuka (DJ) picked up “JB’s Poem” for her compilation work in “Piece The Next Japan Night”.

Jun’s ability of arrangement is also well reputed, and he provided his own music as well as arrangements for albums by such musicians as Noon, Maya Hatch, Grace Maya, Masahiko Osaka, Yoichi Kobayashi, Satoshi Yoshida, and for Coca Cola’s Campaign “Sokenbi” in the summer of 2015.

He can manipulate a number of different keyboards in parallel, known as the fresh and powerful pianist-organist-keyboardist who enjoys a flexible sense of music with precise technique showing up any time, anywhere as an indispensable member in the bands of TOKU, Hidefumi Toki, Hikari Ichihara, Seiji Tada, or in the recording sessions by Yuji Ohno & Lupintic Six, BERB that is led by Kosuke Jaw Kadota, the new generation pop band Mononcle, Chikuzen Satoh, Asako Toki, and Zeebra.

Takuma Asada
Started playing guitar at the age of 12, and was interested in jazz in his high-school days. In 2005, Takuma entered Senzoku Gakuen College of Music and studied composition, improvisation, and music theory under Professor Kazuhiko Michishita in its Jazz Course. After graduation, Takuma participated in the project of SGworks, the college’s own music label to release original albums of the organized bands.

Current activity focuses on jazz, gospel and pops in his own band and in the group of Tomonao Hara. Beyond playing guitar, Takuma performs as voice percussionist in live events, and continues to work on DTM to offer compositions and arrangements.

Hiroshi Ikejiri
Born in Chiba prefecture in 1979. Hiroshi used to play in middle and high schools’ brass bands where he acquainted with variety of instruments. In entering the University of Chiba, he joined the students’ Modern Jazz Club.

His focus was jazz bass player as he was attracted by the acoustic bass sound, and studied under Professor Kohji Yamashita. He was active in sessions and street performances, steadily brushed up his skills, and stepped up his performances in live spots. In 2010, he gathered some leading young artists in Japan and formed his band, Bungalow: The sound with which you hear the landscape through jazz, improvisation and folklore tastes was received sensational, releasing 4 albums to date. He started composing in Bungalow and offered music to the group of Tomonao Hara.

His performance principle is “to be simple and sturdy”. The extended range of notes in the ensemble is the core of stimulation in his music while its foundation is rigid acoustically. He achieved the Grand Prix in Yokohama Jazz Promenade Competition 2007 that is a proof of his music style being widely accepted.

Recently, he introduced ukulele bass in his repertoire to appeal its unique tones in the performance. He now joins in such bands as Kei Kobayashi (vocal), Atsushi Iketa (sax) Quartet, Tomonao Hara (Tp), and Yousuke Konuma with Trio Bungalow.

Dennis Frehse
Born in Hanover in 1979. Graduating from Berklee College of Music as the head of students, Frehse had collaborations with Branford Marsalis and Jesse Davis back in Germany, and had extensive tours throughout Europe while he was active in education in parallel. Since 2009 his activity has been based in Tokyo.

Major co-performers include Sadao Watanabe, Makoto Ozone, Seiichi Nakamura, Tomonao Hara, Eijiro Nakagawa, and Lisa Ono. His leader albums are released from 78LABELS run by Bin Konno.

Booklet for Circle Round