Tag Archives: Akiko Horii

new single: Igneous Alloy by AfuriKo feat. Corey Wallace & Alex B. Smith

Back in 2019 (May through November) and then again more recently in July and August of 2020, AfuriKo had the pleasure to invite both Corey A. Wallace (on trombone) and Alex Busby Smith (electric bass) as guest artists as part of our monthly residency at Tomi Jazz (a Japanese bar & grill in Midtown Manhattan that features nightly live jazz). The shows in both trio formats were a blast, and Igneous Alloy, a composition of mine first recorded on Spirit of the Snail (2015), was one of the tunes we played almost every time. So we decided to record a quartet version of it (this time with both Alex and Corey featured on the same track!) to document these good times and make a little something available to those of you who weren’t able to make it out to Tomi’s. The arrangement was refined to suit this particular instrumentation, including trombone melodies, synth counterlines, and a new bass line/riff to support Akiko’s percussion solo. Our friend Laure Lang from the Hauts-de-France region added her grain of salt with a magical mix and crafty video editing. Enjoy!

💽 Support us by getting your digital track on Bandcamp 🙂

Corey A. Wallace – trombone
Alex Busby Smith – electric bass
Akiko Horii – percussion
Jim Funnell – keyboards
Laure Lang – mixing, mastering, and video editing

Recorded in New York, NY in August and September 2020.
Mixed and mastered in Betz, FR in September 2020.

Winter Rhythms – AfuriKo feat. Chloe Seunghyen Kim @ Soapbox Gallery / Dec. 1, 3PM

Jim Funnell’s Word Out @ Club Bonafide / Oct. 10, 8PM

Benji & Rita and AfuriKo @ The DiMenna Center for Classical Music / Oct. 5, 8PM

AfuriKo feat. Corey Wallace @ Tomi Jazz / Sept. 26, 10PM

Jim Funnell’s Word Out @ Rockwood Music Hall Stage 3 / July 3, 7PM

breaking up the Dorian mode into two pentatonic scales


Sheet music for Igneous Alloy (from the album Spirit of the Snail), the tune used as an example in this video, is now available on SMP Press:


Visit http://funnelljazz.eu/lessons/ for detailed information about lessons or click on the image below to book your lesson today:
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comping practice on AfuriKo’s “Sorsornet” harmonization

Sorsornet is a rhythm from the Boke region in Guinea. The chord progression came from harmonizing Mamady Keïta‘s version (on his album Nankama) of one of the traditional songs that go with the rhythm (AfuriKo‘s arrangement will be featured on the duo’s upcoming album).

The chords I used for comping in this video are mostly 5-note 2-hand jazz voicings. I’ve notated some of them for your consideration below:

Sorsornet comping practice

And here’s a short explanation of how each one of the 12 notated voicings relates to its corresponding chord symbol:

  1. C#mi7: inversion of generic “So What”/quartal voicing for minor chords;
  2. F#13: generic voicing for dominant chords (right hand plays a 3-note quartal voicing from the 5th down while left hand plays guide tones);
  3. D#mi7: generic “So What” voicing for minor chords with 5th as top note;
  4. E6: inversion of generic quartal voicing for major chords down from the root “E”; can also be considered a generic quartal voicing down from the 5th “B” with the root instead of the 7th in the bottom;
  5. F#9sus: inversion of “So What”/quartal voicing for sus chords;
  6. F#/G#: ditto;
  7. G/A: ditto;
  8. F#2/A#: upper structure triad (UST II) from C# melodic minor; the parent chord scale to this F#2/A# chord is A# locrian #2 (VIth mode of C# melodic minor);
  9. Ama7/B: inversion of “So What”/quartal voicing for sus chords;
  10. Ama7(#11): “So What” voicing with #11th as top note;
  11. F#mi9: generic “So What” voicing for minor chords with 5th as top note;
  12. C#: upper structure triad (UST II) from F# melodic minor; the parent chord scale to this C# triad is C# mixolydian b6 (Vth mode of F# melodic minor).

NB: the very cool djembe part (with additional foot shakers/rattles) in the video was performed by courtesy of wonderfully grooving percussionist Akiko Horii!


Visit http://funnelljazz.eu/lessons/ for detailed information about lessons or click on the image below to book your lesson today:
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