You should drop by the Haruka Kikuchi family of sites

As I dig through the jazz new releases listings on Bandcamp, it’ll sometimes occur that I flag a page for further investigation at some later date.  Something about it gives an indication that there’s more to the story than just the album for sale.  When you go through as many of these pages as I do, you attain a second sense for this kind of thing.  One such example comes courtesy of Haruka Kikuchi.

Kikuchi was raised near Japan, in the Chiba Prefecture.  After an early start on piano & violin, Kikuchi eventually switched over to slide trombone after falling in love with the New Orleans sound of traditional jazz.  And what began with performing at Little Mardi Gras in Matsue (Japan’s sister city to New Orleans) has led to the trombonist moving to New Orleans to continue her immersion into the life and the music.

Kikuchi’s Bandcamp page has a running series of EP recordings titled Japan: New Orleans Collection.

She’s got two websites.  One site details her music, bio, shows, etc.  It also has a photo summary of blog posts she’s written to document her journey.  You can read about that journey on her blog.  It’s written in Japanese, but you have Google Translate at your disposal, and, besides, all the wonderful photos tell a tale all by themselves.  Her Instagram account appears to have additional photos, too.

Anyways, I just thought you might like to know about this.  Have fun!