Japanese culture is famed for importing artistic forms and converting them to new patterns, but one local group of foreign musicians is trying to reverse that trend. Candela, a group of four American musicians with diverse musical backgrounds, creates jazz-based music with Japanese melodies; folk tunes using that quintessentially Japanese instrument, the shakuhachi. They create an original sound that is rooted in jazz, propelled by Asian and Latin rhythms, and inflected by an original Japanese sensibility.
The group was formed five years ago by shakuhachi player Bruce Huebner and jazz pianist Jonathan Katz, together with jazz bassist Mark Tourian and multi-instrumentalist Robert Belgrade. These four longtime members, along with a variety of guest percussionists, have performed throughout Japan ("From soba shops to concert halls," said Katz), and became the first jazz group to play the famed Kyoto Concert Hall last year. Last summer, they appeared at the Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival and New York Blue Note, as well as at other U.S. venues. With their latest album, "Rise Above," to be released July 24, Katz and Huebner took time to talk about their music before an upcoming tour.
For their first three years together, Candela was a Latin jazz group. Though their identity was neatly resolved on their debut recording, "Mogami," two years ago, categorizing them is still not easy. They fit within jazz, but add a broad array of other musical elements. "We've always been based in jazz, with improvisation and stylistic elements, and with jazz arrangements, but we have all these other non-jazz instruments and elements of Japanese, Indian and classical music as well," Huebner said.