Otomo Yoshihide New Jazz Quintet

Otomo Yoshihide New Jazz Quintet

(JP)

Japanese musician, composer and bandleader Otomo Yoshihide is a true renaissance man of creative music, an artist gracefully working across styles, unafraid to reject convention while deeply respecting tradition. He’s scored some of the dozens of Japanese films and TV shows over the last three decades, but he’s also produced albums marked by coruscating noise and wild improvisations. Early on he studied with Masayuki Takayanagi, one of the most radical, uncompromising guitarists in jazz history, but as his career evolved he’s never settled into any single niche.

In 2024 Otomo brought his whimsical Otomo Yoshihide Special Big Band to Jazzfest Berlin, an unforgettable performance as fun as it was challenging – both on the main stage of the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and in the Moabit neighborhood as part of the Jazzfest Community Lab Moabit. Now he’s back to lead his long-running New Jazz Quintet. The project reflects his abiding love for 60s free jazz, particularly the music of Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy, but there’s nothing nostalgic or predictable in how the band goes about its business. The group operates from a limited repertoire, mixing classics with original material, to say nothing of Jim O’Rourke’s modern gem Eureka, but the familiarity with the tunes allows the ensemble to inhabit the material in a profound way; a study in contrasts. They bring a stunning elasticity to form and arrangements, constantly discovering new angles and fresh possibilities for the material, the noisiest strains colliding with swaggering brass and strutting rhythms.