Maher Shalal Hash Baz
12.16
Tori says "12:16 is a piece where I recorded all the sounds of my daily life from waking up in the morning to going to bed at night on December 16, 2025, compressed that recording into an approximately 15-minute track, added my piano and other materials (such as Lee Morgan's riff, the line " Wandering around the mountains is painful" from the Noh chant "Yamanba," and Kazuo Funaki's 1969 song "Yūbae no Futari"), played it at the live venue, and performed along with it. The PC operation at the ve…
Osaka Bridge
Originally released in May 2006 through the German label Karaoke Kalk, »Osaka Bridge« was an album that captured the joyful amateurism of Tori Kudo's free-spirited Japanese collective Maher Shalal Hash Baz and Bill Wells’ rich, wistful and easy sense of melody. Approaching brass band and jazz music with a knack for making playing imperfectly feel perfectly right, »Osaka Bridge« became nothing short of groundbreaking when it was released to critical acclaim, becoming an instant classic among musi…
Je Est un Autre
"This recording is not a 'best of', it is a reflection of Tori Kudo's evolution as a composer, from playing with seasoned musicians, to playing with people just starting out, from playing with meticulous scores, to playing call & response melodies written down, to the songs here on Je est un Autre: instant improvisations based on keyboard compositions that Tori plays for the group. Yes, that is it. He plays a recording of himself on the keyboard, with singing or humming sometimes and he leaves i…