Since the end of last year, I have been practicing with a Brazilian percussionist, Brenda Ohana, and we have started to think of having a concert... and shooting this video was a part of it. She is Brazilian and I am Japanese. The common thing between us is " we were not born and raised in the country where jazz originated " and " we did not start playing music because of being fascinated by jazz ". By the way, we both are rock fans.  That is to say, we are complete strangers about  "tradition" of Jazz because of our musical roots and back born .  But I don't think this is a negative thing in the culture of jazz. Because the reason we are still  fascinated by jazz and it is an art  that has the dynamism to take what these "outsiders" do and turn them into a creative power generator, I think.  What should we do as "outsiders"?  This is one of the themes that both Brenda and I have had since before we started playing together. My thou...

 After I wrote this title, I reminded it was Bill EVANS wrote this tune....  The thing motivated me for practicing contrabass... I played Japanese songs and my own compositions as solo work for Youtube videos, but there are many other melodies that I  like ... One of my motivations for practicing the double bass was to play my favorite melodies  from around the world on this instrument .... As a first step, I played this tune. I like the overall sound and atmosphere of this tune, but at the same time, the harmony or mode or "progression" of this tune is very well done...one of the model tune for me. It is not like "So What" or Coltrane's "Impressions" where there is a simple and clear changement between A and B in the AABA form. When we think of this tune in units of 4 bars, we can see that there are small changement in each 2 bars. (It's a 10-measure tune, so there are two bars extras...) There is only one note changement (a tonal point of view). ...

This month has been full of joyful. It started with Japanese "Troubadour Rocker" Tsuji, followed by abstract music concerts in Hamburg and Berlin. A French alternative folk-rock recording soon after my return. And finally Brazilian music. Brazilian music now. I met Toninho, the leader of this Brazilian music project, last summer when we played together in a private session. He said the form of my home-made electro-acoustic upright bass that I was using at that time make him remind their traditional instrument "RABECA" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabeca In this picture, It is played like a violin, but in reality, some people position it like a cello or a double bass). Using my instrument as a bigger and lower range version of the RABECA....I heard this is the Idea for calling me for this project. Toninho is a musician who has been working in Paris for a long time. He was the accompanist for a singer "Moustaki" who was the first music director(?) of a ...