Tetuzi Akiyama/Bryan Eubanks /Jason Kahn/Toshimaru Nakamura

[Alec Livaditis]

I drove over to Tuscaloosa from the Atlanta area this past Wednesday to catch the touring quartet of Tetuzi Akiyama, Bryan Eubanks, Jason Kahn, and Toshimaru Nakamura. Jason and Tetuzi seemed to be at the forefront, filling most the space. Jason played with various cymbals/bells/pile of drumsticks/etc on the drum heads, while Tetuzi offered sparse, brittle avant-blues lines, with Toshimaru and Bryan adding color with sustained tones and feedback and asserting occasional bursts. While there were loud moments, the quartet had great control of dynamics, and no one was overpowered. The moment that struck me the most was when Bryan played a louder sustained note/feedback and Nakamura seemed to approximate this tone with his no-input mixer as Bryan's sound died away.

Has anyone else caught this quartet? Thought/ notes on performances?

Wasn't able to get any pictures in performance, but some post-gig q&a shots, ha.

[mudd]

i enjoyed their boston stop, though less than i have enjoyed pretty much all of these musicians in the past. jason does fine on the drumset but doesn't really have as much to distinguish his music from a number of other improvising drummers when he's not working with the stripped down kit. i agree that toshi and bryan's interactions were the most compelling, which my favorite moments coming from toshi adding textures around bryan's clean drones. i didn't feel so much blues from tetuzi, but he had a fair bit of thoughtful timing and good humor. i think overall it was just more active and jittery than i would have liked, but as an active and jittery performance it was excellent.

m

[mrosenstein]

I caught them at the Boston show as well. While I'm not quite sure what I was expected, I'm surprised at how regressive the set sounded. It reminded me of the type of European free improve I was listening to in the 90s which was certainly far from anything I'd heard any of them play individually. The opening duo of Tim Olive and Anne-F Jacques was far more engaging for me.

[yonhosago]

I caught them at the Boston show as well. While I'm not quite sure what I was expected, I'm surprised at how regressive the set sounded. It reminded me of the type of European free improve I was listening to in the 90s which was certainly far from anything I'd heard any of them play individually. The opening duo of Tim Olive and Anne-F Jacques was far more engaging for me.

what does "regressive" means? (in this context)

[Tanner]

I saw them in Minneapolis. I thought there were moments that were really nice (and loud). But overall it meandered too much for me. Akiyama had a really beautiful interlude at one point, with that fractured/time delayed guitar of his (I wish that had had more time to breathe), and Eubanks was fun to watch. But I echo Mark's comments on the drumming... and, it did seem like kind of a throwback to 90s improv. . . nothing wrong with that, but I was hoping for more space. I'm glad I went though.

[mrosenstein]

I caught them at the Boston show as well. While I'm not quite sure what I was expected, I'm surprised at how regressive the set sounded. It reminded me of the type of European free improve I was listening to in the 90s which was certainly far from anything I'd heard any of them play individually. The opening duo of Tim Olive and Anne-F Jacques was far more engaging for me.

what does "regressive" means? (in this context)

"throwback" is probably a better description. As noted above, the trajectory and densities of their playing sounded far more a piece with 90s improv. I'm not sure if it was a conscious decision or not, but they collectively seemed to turn their backs on the music they have individually been part of over the last decade-plus.