Terumasa Hino

Terumasa Hino stands among the most celebrated Japanese jazz trumpeters of his era, delivering performances marked by an enormous, resonant sound and a deeply felt post-bop approach. In the 1960s he emerged as an innovative soloist whose playing invited apt parallels with Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s he issued a consistent series of fusion-oriented recordings that brought him widespread commercial recognition, yet he never abandoned his roots, weaving together acoustic and electric settings, original compositions, and jazz standards with equal conviction.

Hino entered the world in Tokyo in 1942 into a household steeped in music; his father worked as both a tap dancer and trumpeter. He began dancing at age four and took up the trumpet at nine, quickly absorbing the language of jazz by transcribing solos from Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, and additional masters. His professional life commenced in 1955 with engagements in American military clubs, after which he joined Hideo Shiraki’s quintet. Between 1965 and 1969 he remained with Shiraki while simultaneously directing his own ensemble, making his solo debut in 1967 with Alone, Alone and Alone and following it a year later with the hard-bop album Hino-Kikuchi Quintet alongside pianist Masabumi Kikuchi.

After issuing his second solo effort, the widely praised Hi-Nology, Hino departed Shiraki’s group in 1969 to concentrate on his own projects. Subsequent recordings such as Into the Heaven (1970), Vibrations (1971), and Journey Into My Mind (1974) explored modal and fusion territories laced with funk, free-jazz elements, and avant-garde textures, earning him audiences in both Japan and the United States. By the mid-1970s he had relocated to New York, becoming a regular figure at international festivals and collaborating with artists including Joachim Kühn, Gil Evans, Jackie McLean, Hal Galper, and Sam Jones.

Further acclaim arrived with the 1979 release City Connection, an R&B-tinged album that included Randy Brecker, Nana Vasconcelos, and David Liebman among its contributors. In 1981 he delivered Double Rainbow, which featured Eddie Gomez, Airto Moreira, Harvey Mason, Jr., and George Mraz. During the same decade he also recorded with Liebman, Bob Moses, Elvin Jones, Alphonse Mouzon, and others, maintaining a balance between commercially oriented work and more exploratory post-bop and fusion statements.

In the late 1980s and 1990s Hino increasingly based himself in Japan, where he had long been revered as a jazz figurehead. He added cornet to his primary instruments and, partly under the sway of the neo-bop movement, shifted toward a predominantly acoustic palette. This direction surfaced on albums such as Bluestruck (1990), Unforgettable (1993), and Round Midnight (1998) with the Manhattan Jazz Quintet. He also toured Europe alongside Eddie Harris and rejoined Kikuchi for the 1996 session Acoustic Boogie, which featured alto saxophonist Greg Osby.

Since the beginning of the new century Hino has remained active through regular touring and fresh recordings, issuing a succession of Sony albums that includes Transfusion (2002), Dragon (2006), and Crimson (2007). While continuing to pursue acoustic jazz, he has sustained an experimental outlook, most notably on the 2011 hip-hop jazz collaboration Aftershock with DJ Honda.