Blog - Koolhaus of Jazz
Koolhaus of Jazz
I was very lucky this week, I won a pair of tickets from RealTokyo to see Koolhaus of Jazz, an event headlined by Kikuchi Naruyoshi Quintet Live Dub feat. Kahimi Karie.
This time there were three other live shows though, each lasting about an hour. We were there for about 5 hours (from 18:00 until 23:00) so we ended up quite tired of standing.
Sigh Boat
This was the first show of the band fronted by Uchida Yayako (my girlfriend explained me who she is by saying she's the wife of Hanamaru Market's Yakkun's 80's boy idol band Shibugakitai ("sushi kui ne~!")'s Motoki Masahiro... whew!). They did a nice performance of original jazzy vocal songs.
Their first album, self-titled, will be out next spring on EastWorks.
Not the name of someone but of a Japanese jazz ensemble featuring two drummers, two violonists, two trombonists, bassist and percussionist. The result is a very energetic big band with a big place to improvisation. The coolest to me was the two drummers often playing in "duet" making beats that just sounded too unreal to be played live. Also the violonists were fantastic and sometimes played solos with distortion and wah-wah, making their instrument sound just like a guitar.
Their music is hard to describe, but it made me think of many other artists, for instance some trombone/marimba-led grooves reminding me of Stereolab.
Apparently, Kikuchi Naruyoshi used to play saxophone in the band.
DJ Krush + Naito Tadayuki & PMX (VJs)
Although he's very famous I had never really heard DJ Krush before. Seeing him live was pretty cool though. His music sounded to me
like hip hop-ish beats with sort of Middle-East chants and music samples, with some scratching. His sound reminded me of Banco de Gaia and Ninja Tune.
Kikuchi Naruyoshi Quintet Live Dub feat. Kahimi Karie
The show was right about the same as I saw at Dégustation à Jazz about two months ago, except that this time "The Christmas Song" was added to the encore and sung in duet by Kahimi and Kikuchi-san.
Big thanks go to my friend Jean for pointing out RealTokyo's contest, otherwise I may have missed it, and of course to the great RealTokyo for the tickets!
Posted on December 26, 2004 at 13:21 | Tweet
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