Lyric Front Cover

Lyric

MEGTARO

Track List

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The piano-drum duo unit "Megtaro" from Japan, which has garnered much attention, with songs from their current albums "Arise", "Newselves", and "World Painter" picked up on playlists and played over 4.5 million times, will release their fourth album "Lyric" as "MEGTARO Vocalize" in March 2023.

"MEGTARO Vocalize" consists of the original members, pianist Megumi Otani and drummer Kentaro Nakayama, and three splendid vocalists, Akiko Suda, KOTETSU, and Daisuke Ito.
Otani, a pianist and arranger, has rearranged seven songs carefully selected from his three albums released through 2022.

This is an ambitious work that takes advantage that it is originally an instrumental piece and uses jazz approaches that use the voice in an instrumental way. The ensemble of piano, drums and voices, as well as their respective soloing and scatting, is excellent.

The seventh track, "Continuing," is the only song on the album with lyrics. The lyrics were written by Azumi Takahashi, a talented singer who is an old acquaintance of Megumi Otani on piano who sung the role of Grizabella in the movie "CATS" after winning the first prize at the Apollo Theater. She has vividly expanded the world of the song.

As with the third piece, the recording, mixing, and mastering work was commissioned to Akihito Yoshikawa of Studio Dede.
He is now the only engineer we could ask to work on Megtaro's music, and he has created a superb piece of work that is a must for audiophiles.

Since we've done the recording in 2021 to the release in March 2023, two children were born in the band. The album makes you happy for listening to...? Maybe... lol!

Past Rank In

Lyric

iTunes Store • Jazz TOP ALBUMS • Japan • TOP 7 • 12 Feb 2024

Everlasting

Apple Music • Jazz Top Songs • Sri Lanka • TOP 180 • 15 Apr 2023

Artist Profile

  • MEGTARO

    MEGTARO is an instrumental band from Tokyo, Japan since 2015. The members are Megumi Otani (piano) and Kentaro Nakayama (drums). Basic format is piano and drums DUO style. Mostly MEGTARO performs member's original songs which are colorful, emotional, and peaceful with using jazz vocabulary. MEGTARO has a wide variety of projects such as piano and drums DUO, piano trio, quartet, quintet, with sax, vocal, cello and tap dance. Moreover, the DUO has two albums "Arise"(2018), "Newselves"(2020), "World Painter"(2022). Also MEGTARO has new project which is "MEGTARO Vocalize", including piano, drums and 3 voices, and it released new album "Lyric" in 2023. Each song describes nature, special visual scene, member's experience and thought. Their original compositions are added so many playlists on Spotify and streaming sites. Currently they are played more than 4.5 million times (March, 2023) Megumi Otani / Pianist, Keyboardist, Composer, Arranger Megumi Otani is a professional pianist, composer and arranger. She started to play piano and Electone in YAMAHA when she was 3 years old, and started to compose when she was 6 years old. She became a winner of "Japan Junior Electone Competition 2004" when she was the age of 15. Since then, she started her career as a professional musician. In 2008, she entered Tokyo College of Music. During this time, she studied compositions for small group jazz, big band jazz, movie and advertisement. After she graduated, her major style became jazz. In addition, her style makes her a versatile sideman such as a jazz pianist, a pop, R&B, gospel keyboardist, a recording musician, a composer and an arranger of TV program and advertisement songs, and many others. Kentaro Nakayama : Jazz Drummer, Composer, Educator Kentaro Nakayama is a professional jazz drummer, based in Tokyo, Japan. In 2006, Kentaro accepted his scholarship and moved to Boston, M.A. to study jazz and contemporary music at Berklee College of Music. During this time at Berklee, he met many great musicians and began studying with highly acclaimed giants such as Ian Froman, John Ramsey, Mark Walker, Ralph Peterson, Terri Lyne Carrington, Hal Crook and more. In 2010, Kentaro moved to New York City to start his career as a professional drummer after graduating from Berklee College of Music. He had many opportunities for performing with great artists. During this time, Clarence Penn, top-drawer international drummer and composer, began supporting his efforts on New York's music scene and became his mentor. In 2014, he moved back to Japan. Currently his style is based on jazz but is flexible so that it becomes him a versatile sideman.

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    MEGTAROの他のリリース

MiKeN Records