THE SUPER 3’s The Sun of a New Beginning “Winter to Spring,” released March 29, 2025, is less an album and more a meditation in motion. Inspired by the resilience of plum blossoms blooming through snow, the trio—drummer Shigeo “sanpei” Hirayama, bassist Tatsuya Fujimura, and pianist Toshiyuki Kokubu—offer a genre-defying experience where each note feels like the earth itself stretching toward the sun.
“Distant Memory of an Island in the South Seas” opens the album like a tide returning to shore, the piano rippling softly while percussion sparkles like morning dew on water. It’s a fleeting two-minute moment that feels like a dream you only half-remember, but can’t forget. The title track, “The Sun of a New Beginning,” plays like the world warming up again. Each key is struck with intention, the sound cascading delicately around soft ambient swells. It’s cinematic without trying to be, letting silence speak just as much as the notes themselves.
Then comes the kinetic jolt of “Hey, Let’s Into the Crucible Of Grooving High,” a wild, high-energy fusion of electronic pulse, splashing cymbals, and explosive drums. The track unravels like a fever dream in a subway tunnel, frenetic, visceral, and thrillingly unpredictable.
But it’s “Spring Flower (Plum Flower)” that anchors the album. Composed in the early hours of a winter dawn, the piece glides with celestial grace. You feel the snow melting, the birds stirring, and Kokubu’s piano channeling something beyond control. The Sun of a New Beginning “Winter to Spring” is jazz as poetry, as prayer, as rebirth.
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Review by: Naomi Joan