Concert alert! Composer, producer, turntablist and guitarist Otomo Yoshihide has rarely if ever toured in recent years. So this visit with his quintet is one to treasure and to sign up for.
Otomo Yoshihide was born in the blessed jazz year of 1959 and can safely be considered the Japanese equivalent of grandmaster John Zorn. More to the point: what John Zorn means to the New York scene, Otomo Yoshihide means to the Japanese.
Like an iconoclast, Otomo takes on the pre-existing jazz repertoire – albeit always with utmost respect, virtuosity and skill. Just think: the complete (!) remake of Eric Dolphy’s masterpiece Out To Lunch (1964) that he released in 2005. Or of the wonderful arrangements of compositions by Charles Mingus’ – such as Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Silk Blue - or Ornette Coleman’s superb Lonely Woman.
Oh and, Otomo has more than 100 albums to his name. If you listen to one album from his oeuvre every day from today on – and you grant yourself an auditory pause between Christmas and New Year – you will already reach almost half way through (before the show). After all, a prepared person is worth two!
 
Line-up:
Otomo Yoshihide: electric guitar
Ruike Shinpei: trumpet
Osamu Imagome: trombone
Hiroaki Mizutani: double bass
Yoshigaki Yasuhiro: drums

Concert pictures © Victoria Perez Torres