‘What Happened There?’ has much unpredictable, provocative and instinctual playing from the first encounter between Keiji Haino and Natsuki Tamura, two of Japan’s foremost musical firebrands.

Starting with his 2014 big label debut ‘Rising Son,’ Takuya Kuroda preserved the integrity of jazz as he stretches far beyond its tradition to make it embraceable for newer generations.

Satoko Fujii, Taiko Saito and Yuko Oshima are three wellsprings of creativity who as Trio San joined forces to find new ways to make uncommonly compelling music.

Satoko Fujii and Otomo Yoshihide made music on the spot on ‘Perpetual Motion,’ relying strictly on instincts and virtuosity. Luckily, Fujii and Otomo have loads of both.

Satoko Fujii’s genius can be difficult to encapsulate on a single record. We may finally have a good starting point with ‘Hyaku: One Hundred Dreams.’

Now on its ninth album ‘Sleeping Cat,’ Natsuki Tamura’s Gato Libre has never really been about jazz; it’s folk music with an open mind.

When left entirely to his own devices (literally), Natsuki Tamura’s imagination runs wild. With ‘Summer Tree,’ he gave himself more places for his imagination to run, thanks to multi-tracking.

With a prepared piano, Satoko Fujii once again makes “music that no one has ever heard before.”

Approaching his 70th birthday, trumpet maestro Natsuki Tamura made the very personal ‘Koki Solo’ with a youthful frivolity that belies his age and signals that he remains in his peak period.

Satoko Fujii’s Tokyo Trio as heard on ‘Moon On the Lake’ is not a conventional jazz trio but a Fujii ensemble in every sense, with the grace, sophistication, surprise and ingenuity found in her other groups.