# New CD – 2025: Yoko Yates – Eternal Moments: Review, Video, new CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2025/12/08/new-cd-2025-yoko-yates-eternal-moments-review-video-new-cd-cover/
- Published: 2025-12-08T10:47:18+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Yoko Yates’ album Eternal Moments is a highly praised, lyrical, and evocative 
modern jazz record featuring her original compositions, blending classical sensitivity
with jazz improvisation, and showcasing her quintet (with Jamie Baum on flute, Sam
Sadigursky on reeds, Aryeh Kobrinsky on bass, Jeff Hirshfield on drums) in painting
emotional landscapes inspired by nature and life experiences.**

Above photo by courtesy Kimberly M. Wang.

The highlight its visual, painterly quality, deep emotional resonance (happiness/
sadness, peace), and suitability for fans of contemplative jazz, making it a strong
follow-up to her debut Mystic Life.

Key Aspects of the album: Lyrical Storytelling: Yates uses music to tell stories
and explore complex feelings difficult to put into words, creating a “visual, emotional,
and transcendent” experience, according to Amazon.

Nature-Inspired Compositions: Tracks like “Outer Space – Myriad Stars!” and “The
Flower Before It’s Last Day” draw from nature, reflecting quiet power and resilience.

Stellar Ensemble: The album features top-tier musicians who add rich textures and
colors, with strong contributions from Jamie Baum (flute) and Sam Sadigursky (alto/
bass clarinet).

Atmosphere: It’s described as having an intimate, almost ECM-style feel, with meditative
wonder and elegant melancholy.

What mans are saying: “Deeply lyrical jazz storytelling”. “Painterly colors to the
mix”.

“Instrumental music at its most visual, emotional, and transcendent”. A perfect 
listen for fans of “contemplative modern jazz”.

In essence, Eternal Moments is considered a significant and beautiful work that 
solidifies Yoko Yates’ talent as a composer and bandleader, offering a deeply personal
yet universally resonant musical journey.

Not having been familiar with this composer before, I took the time to listen carefully
to her new album, whose style exists in that elusive space between jazz, classical
music, and world music, though my own sensibilities lean more naturally toward a
figure like Ryuichi Sakamoto, who passed away two years ago.

At first encounter, the compositions on Eternal Moments may appear to blur into 
one another, their tonal palettes and textures echoing similar moods from track 
to track. What sustains the listener’s attention here, however, is not necessarily
melodic invention but rather the extraordinary quality of the performers. The flutist
Jamie Baum, in particular, makes a decisive contribution, lending both color and
clarity to the ensemble. In that sense, the album unfolds as a natural continuation
of Yoko Yates’s previous release, Mystic Life.

“My first album was centered on childhood memories. I was writing from experiences
tied to nature and the world around me,” Yates explains. “This one is similar in
some respects, but inspired by more recent experiences and events. I’m trying to
convey greater emotional complexity and to develop the phases of each event, exploring
each piece in greater depth.”

That statement is instructive. The arrangements, more than the raw material of the
compositions themselves, feel like the true architecture of this project. The piano
playing is executed with exquisite poise, yet there is a sense of déjà vu that pervades
many of the tracks. In a landscape crowded with new releases, it’s easy to recognize
her inspirations. And yet, after reflection, I began to see Yates less as a traditional
composer and more as a kind of visual artist, someone who paints, sculpts, or shapes
sound into texture. What matters here is not always the narrative core but the final
form. From that vantage point, Eternal Moments succeeds brilliantly. Trained in 
both visual arts and classical music in her youth, Yates approaches jazz with the
eye of a painter, the ear of a chamber musician, and the style of a fiercely individualistic
voice. “I love to express my feelings and emotions, and I don’t care much about 
form or genre,” she says. When the result is as considered and as beautiful as this
music, one can hardly object.

Every composer carries within them a kind of inner vehicle, a personal engine by
which they deliver fragments of themselves to the listener. To appreciate the contours
of that vehicle, it is helpful to know the artist’s path. Yoko Yates was born in
Sapporo, Japan, into a family of music lovers who exposed her early to a wide variety
of styles. She began piano lessons at the age of four. Though the training was classical,
the cultural moment was the 1960s, and Yates soon gravitated toward rock before 
eventually discovering jazz through pianists Oscar Peterson and Toshiko Akiyoshi.

After starting her higher education at Hokkaido University of Education in her hometown,
Yates moved to the United States, entering the Berklee College of Music in Boston
on both a cultural merit scholarship from the city of Sapporo and Berklee’s own 
professional music award. She completed her bachelor’s degree in music at Berklee,
then pursued graduate studies at Lesley University near Cambridge, Massachusetts,
earning a master’s degree in education. From there, she went on to Columbia University’s
Teachers College in New York, where she completed a doctorate in music education.

In many ways, Eternal Moments feels like a transitional work, an interlude that 
sits between two more clearly defined creative phases. This is not a weakness so
much as a stage of artistic evolution. As such, the album deserves to be understood
as a crucial step in Yates’s trajectory, a bridge between the deeply personal world
of Mystic Life and whatever comes next. It has the feel of preparatory notes, an
intellectual sketchbook rendered in sound. And taken on those terms, it is a deeply
rewarding experience.

We had a fantastic full-house album release concert with an enthusiastic crowd. 
I received so much support and appreciation for my music, and I felt profound gratitude
toward the guests, band members, and everyone who helped produce this album. All
the compositions included in this album are about moments in my life that evoked
strong feelings or vivid images. They are so memorable that I haven’t forgotten 
them for a long time. That’s why I named the album “Eternal Moments”,- an interview
with us said Yoko Yates.

We recommend that you buy this CD of inspiring images of nature and simply enjoy
it. By the way, you can do that right here.

[**Buy from here – New CD**](https://found.ee/Yoko-Yates-Eternal-Moments)

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