Takuya Kuroda

Takuya Kuroda is a highly respected trumpeter and arranger born in Kobe, Japan and based in New York City. Over the course of his seven albums to date, Kuroda has evolved a unique hybrid sound blending soulful jazz, funk, post-bop, fusion and hip hop. Kuroda moved to New York to study jazz and contemporary music at The New School. While there he met vocalist José James, with whom he worked on the Blackmagic, No Beginning No End, and While You Were Sleeping albums for the legendary label Blue Note, which also released his own Rising Son in 2014. Since then Kuroda has collaborated with the likes of Akoya Afrobeat and DJ Premier’s BADDER band and released seven albums of his own.

His eighth studio record, Everyday (out Feb. 28, 2025) builds on and dives ever deeper into the hip hop and neo-soul elements of his previous work. It is a deliciously rhythmic enterprise and a triumph of genre-blending modern jazz. Kuroda’s playing is sure-footed and pure –– whether on the horn, synth, or Rhodes–– and he virtuosically dances among infectious rhythms of his own creation.