Crooner: Toshi Kubota is the only Japanese soul singer to have crossed over to the American market. His new album, "Nothing But Your Love," finds him working with a first-rate crew of American R&B performers.

Toshi Kubota
Nothing But Your Love (Epic 69662)

Japan has long been a great place for R&B fandom.

While the R&B audience there is nowhere near as large as in the United States, Japanese fans are often deeply devoted to the music, approaching it with a fervor infrequently found in this country. Unfortunately, when Japanese vocalists tried in the past to translate their appreciation for R&B into a home-grown scene, they tended to sound more like soul fans than soul singers.

That has changed dramatically in the last few years with the emergence of a genuine J-R&B scene. Perhaps the best-known of these new artists is Hikaru Utada, a teen-aged singer¸songwriter who was raised in New York, and is as at home with contemporary R&B idioms as she is with her Japanese heritage. Her music manages to be both soulful and undeniably Japanese, and was an immediate sensation when first released; "First Love," her debut, became the best-selling album in Japanese history.

Utada isn't the only artist to have put a Japanese spin on what is generally considered an American sound. Between hip-hop acts like Dragon Ash and DJ Krush and such single-named divas as Misia, Bird and Tina, the J-R&B scene has become remarkably vital. So far, though, only one Japanese soul singer has dared to ply his trade on this side of the Pacific: Toshi Kubota.

Kubota was one of the first Japanese pop stars to openly embrace R&B, and in fact has been living in the United States since the early '90s. Sadly, his first attempt at breaking into the American market - 1995's "Sunshine Moonlight" - was competent-but-colorless, and didn't even include his big Japanese hit, "La La La Love Song."

What a difference a few years make. "Nothing But Your Love," Kubota's current album, not only has Kubota working with a first-rate cast of American artists (including the Roots, Pras, Joi Cardwell and Angie Stone), but finds him forging a musical identity of his own.

As a singer, Kubota is a crooner, and applies his light tenor and sweet falsetto with the practiced ease of Philip Bailey. Yet there's nothing obviously imitative in his singing. Whether working the silky, sophisticated pulse to "Masquerade" or riding the pneumatic groove that fuels "Body Bounce," Kubota conveys a singular sense of phrasing, lying comfortably behind the beat and using his vibrato in a distinctly Japanese fashion.

"Nothing But Your Love" has its share of rhythm-driven tracks, and makes sure to include a smattering of rap interludes. But its overall feel is closer to quiet storm than party-hearty fare, something that works to Kubota's advantage. As good as he is with tough, dramatic fare like "It's Over," Kubota is most likeable when applying his silky voice to complicated, emotionally expressive melodies, as with "Someday" and "Gently."

Whether Kubota will make as big a splash in this country as he has in Japan remains to be seen. Even so, "Nothing But Your Love" suggests that it's only a matter of time before Japanese acts can boast about being "big in America."

Ruff Ryders
Ryde or Die Vol. II (Ruff Ryders¸Interscope 0694906252)

Ruff Ryders isn't a group in the traditional pop-music sense; it's more like a loose alliance, a floating group of hip-hop artists loosely associated with rapper DMX. That's why it's a little misleading to describe "Ryde or Die Vol. II" as a Ruff Ryders album. What ultimately defines the music's flavor is its groove and attitude - both of which are decidedly raw. Maybe that's why it doesn't quite work to fill the album with guest stars along the lines of Snoop Dogg, Method Man and Scarface. While those stars may rap with authority, the only visitor who can meet the Ryders on their own terms is Busta Rhymes, whose explosive, idiosyncratic flow seems tailor-made for producer Swizz Beatz's synth-driven sound.

Nina Gordon
Tonight and the Rest of My Life (Warner Bros. 47746)

What made Veruca Salt, Nina Gordon's old band, so exciting was the way it matched the melodic ambition of power-pop with alt-rock's lack of artifice. Now that she's on her own, Gordon has held onto the tuneful side of that equation, but done a 360 on her approach to arrangements and production. To say that "Tonight and the Rest of My Life" is slick would be understating it considerably; at times, it's as if Gordon were trying to become the alt-rock Faith Hill. When she sticks with soaring, guitar-powered fare along the lines of "Now I Can Die" (which sounds like the hit Susanna Hoffs never had), she's adorable; too bad so much of the album is cluttered with cloying, overwrought ballads like "Hold On to Me."

Joey Calderazzo
Joey Calderazzo (Columbia 69886)

There was a time when, if a jazz pianist was described as being an "outside" player, it meant his sound was abstract, aggressive and unapproachable. As Joey Calderazzo's music demonstrates, that's no longer the case. Although he is definitely outside the jazz mainstream in terms of his harmonic vocabulary and sense of line, the music on "Joey Calderazzo" is anything but abstruse. Whether in the contemplative hush of "Catania" or the hard-driving angularity of "Detonation," the thematic thrust of Calderazzo's playing is quite clear, making him seem more the peer of Paul Bley or McCoy Tyner than the ferociously avant-garde Cecil Taylor and Muhal Richard Abrams. Indeed, there are moments in "Haiku" that evoke the free-flowing poetry of Keith Jarrett's adventuresome, late-'70s work - a flavor jazz has too long lacked.