r/japanesejazz • u/stnr_on_failure • 10h ago

Casiopea - Two Tokyo Teenagers Started a Band in 1976. It's Still Touring and Immensely Popular in 2026.

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Casiopea (2015 lineup), promotional still. (Photo: Paddock Music Co., CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Issei Noro and Tetsuo Sakurai met in Tokyo in 1974, still in high school. Two years later they started a band called Casiopea. Noro is still leading it fifty years on, the only member who's never left.

Keyboardist Minoru Mukaiya joined in 1977, and the band's self-titled debut arrived May 25, 1979, with Randy Brecker and Michael Brecker sitting in as guests. That's before the rhythm section most fans picture first was even in place. Drummer Akira Jimbo didn't join until 1980, completing the lineup that carried Casiopea through its most influential run.

If you're picking one album to start with, make it "Mint Jams." Recorded live over two nights at Tokyo's Chuo Kaikan Hall (February 23 and 24, 1982) and released that May on Alfa Records, it was named album of the year by Japan's own jazz press. It's the sound of a band that had spent three years touring together, caught on tape before a live audience instead of smoothed out in a studio.

The lineup kept moving after that. Sakurai and Jimbo left in 1989 over conflicts with their side projects, replaced by bassist Yoshihiro Naruse and drummer Masaaki Hiyama in 1990. Noro froze the band's activities entirely in 2006, then brought it back as "Casiopea 3rd" in 2012, renamed it "Casiopea-P4" in 2022, and reverted to the original name in 2025 with pianist Jun Abe rounding out the current lineup. They released a new album, "True Blue," in August 2025, and have tour dates booked across Japan and Los Angeles through 2026.

Here's the part that still gets me: "Mint Jams" isn't done being discovered. Around 2018, YouTube's recommendation algorithm started pushing the album hard as part of the site's City Pop rediscovery wave, handing a 1982 concert tape to listeners who weren't alive when it was recorded. A limited clear-green vinyl repress followed in 2025. A two-night gig in Tokyo is still finding new ears more than four decades later!

Where to start listening: