December 25, 2025
Tsubasa Fujikawa Berg/Provided Image
Terell Stafford, right, took the Temple University Jazz Band to Japan last spring. The ensemble's seven-song set at a Tokyo nightclub is being released as a live album on Feb. 6.
The Temple University Jazz Band is preparing for a banner year in 2026, with several international concerts and a performance at an invitation-only collegiate competition on the docket. But the release of its first internationally-recorded album, "Live From Japan," may be the band's most notable accomplishment.
Terell Stafford, director of jazz studies and chair of instruments at Temple University, said the band's trip to Japan in March was several years in the making, but the recording of the album was unexpected and captured the ensemble at its best.
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"Live From Japan," the band's seventh album, was recorded during a performance in Tokyo's Akasaka B-flat nightclub. It will be released Feb. 6 on all streaming platforms. The album's seven tracks include an original composition that Temple alum Yoichi Uzeki wrote for the program and homages to jazz legends like Duke Ellington and Herbie Hancock.
The concert's setlist was put together with the club's small audience in mind, but after a colleague of Stafford offered to record it, the band took the opportunity by the reins.
"We love playing music from Ellington, Count Basie, Thad Jones and from more modern composers," Stafford said. "When we went on this particular tour, since we didn't know we were recording, we just picked a set of music that we loved to play. That just happened to be the music for this record. ... That was the highlight of the trip for me."
Uzeki, 49, who graduated from Temple's Boyer College of Music in 2005, works in Tokyo as a professional pianist, composer and photographer.
Stafford commissioned Uzeki to compose "Fantasia," the penultimate track on the album. Uzeki, who called Stafford his life's "biggest influence," wrote it by combining jazz styles with melodies and soundscapes that give nods to classical music.
"The way Terell and the Jazz Band interpreted the piece was beyond my imagination and I was stunned by the performance," Stafford said. "After all these years, the Temple Jazz Band performed in Tokyo for the first time ... and they premiered my piece in front of Japanese audiences including me. How beautiful is that?"
Before Stafford, 59, began his nearly three-decade career with Temple University, he toured the world as a trumpeter, performing with famed musicians like Bobby Watson, McCoy Tuner and Jimmy Heath. His work has been credited on more than 130 albums, and he has been nominated for several Grammy Awards. In 2009, he and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra won the Grammy for best large jazz ensemble.
Having toured for so much, Stafford's goal as an educator has been to broaden the horizons of the nearly 350 students he teaches. His plan to take the Jazz Band, comprised of 21 musicians, to Japan was initially fell apart in 2020 after the COVID-19 pandemic limited travel. But after raising enough money, the band squeezed in two concerts, workshops and sightseeing opportunities into a four-day trip during spring break earlier this year.
"When we got there, they had never experienced jet lag like they did when they got there," Stafford said. "... For the first couple of days they were zombies. When we had an open rehearsal I could just see how drained they were, but by the time they got to the last night their energy level was so high. I thought they played really well."
The album, released by BCM+D Records, is enhanced by the enthusiasm of the audience in the Tokyo club. People can be heard cheering and clapping after every solo and after impressive runs and riffs.
"For (the students) to experience Japan and play for an audience that just goes crazy after every note they play, it was just a surreal experience," Stafford said. "Japanese audiences don't take anything for granted, because they don't get to hear the music as much. It was great for the students to feel all that love."
Temple's Jazz Band is not slowing down anytime soon. In January, it will make its fourth appearance at the invitation-only JALC's National Collegiate Jazz Championship in New York. The band has placed first or second at the prestigious competition three years in a row.
In March, the band will return to Japan to record another live performance, and in July, the ensemble will embark on a 10-day tour through Italy, Spain and France, performing festivals and private shows. Rehearsals are well underway, the band leader said. They sometimes extend into the early hours of the morning.
"The dedication that it takes to prepare for something like this is huge," Stafford said. "It makes the folks in the band tighter and there's such a sense of community. The students are super excited, it's amazing. They have been really attentive and it's been great to get to know so many of the new students on a personal level. ... They're all just good people."
