Upcoming Performances
January 9, 2010
Miyumi Project at Velvet Lounge at 9pm
67 E Cermak Rd, Chicago IL
February 13, 2010
Miyumi Project at Velvet Lounge at 9pm
67 E Cermak Rd, Chicago IL
Velvet Lounge
www.velvetlounge.net
Fred Anderson's home for chicago jazz
67 East Cermak Road,Chicago, IL 60616-2122
(312) 791-9050
Tatsu Aoki gets small
Chicago Tribune
by Andy Downing, Special to the Tribune
September 18, 2009
Even though the Miyumi Project is best known for its festival shows -- massive productions in which the group can swell to as many as two dozen members, including a small army of taiko drummers -- the best time to hear the crew explore new musical frontiers is when it performs as a more scaled-down ensemble. Such is the case when bassist Tatsu Aoki brings his long-running, East-meets-West jazz improvisation project to the Velvet Lounge this weekend.
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The Project
I've had the pleasure and the honor of watching and listening to this diverse group of musicians evolve over the past seven years; having commissioned Tatsu Aoki's Rooted: Origins of Now in 2001 and re:Rooted in 2006 through the Jazz Institute of Chicago. His conceptual framework is about exploring the nexus of cultures; Asian and American, Chinese, Japanese and African, past and present. His compositions provide a construct of ideas for each individual musician to interpret, and each successive grouping of Miyumi musicians have contributed new understandings of the fundamental nature of the work.
Lauren Deutsch, 2008
Executive Director, Jazz Institute of Chicago
More than 30 years ago, bassist-bandleader Tatsu Aoki took an artistic gamble: He began combining facets of ancient Japanese music with freewheeling jazz improvisation.
Though rudimentary, those first cross-genre efforts of his, in his native Japan, eventually blossomed into the Miyumi Project, now widely recognized as a groundbreaking merger of music from East and West.
Because Aoki moved to Chicago in the late 1970s and quickly set about developing his Asian-American experiment, the Miyumi Project has become a symbol of Chicago-style jazz innovation. Its rough-and-tumble sound, embracing everything from funk backbeats to blues vocals to avant-garde improv, has attracted audiences across the city and around the globe.
Howard Reich, 2008
Chicago Tribune
