Jazz Art Sengawa

Jazz Art Sengawa is an annual, 3 days festival of Jazz and improvised music, started in 2008. Sengawa is a name of town in Chofu, east surburb of Tokyo. The creative director of the event is Makigami Koichi, along with veteran jazz bassist Fujiwara Kiyoto, and avant-garde cellist Sakamoto Hiromichi.

Its artist roster is quite impressive. Haino Keiji, Jim O'Rourke, Fukamachi Jun, Uchihashi Kazuhisa, Ruins Alone, Otomo Yoshihide, John Zorn's Cobra with the prompter Makigami Koichi, and of course, Hikashu.

At the festival, Hikashu played with veteran jazzmen, Sakata Akira in 2008, and Umezu Kazutoki in 2009.

Also, there is free music session with young improvisers à la Derek Bailey's company.

The theme of the event is "intimacy", so Makigami designed a very small venue named "Club Jazz Byobu", a movable space which could be accomodate up to 5 persons. In it, performer and audience could be literally face-to-face.

Makigami and Hachiya Maki, female voice artist, played in Club Jazz Byobu


The following is a promotional clip of the event in 2008.

Hikashu can be seen a few seconds, around 0:23. In it, Sakata Akira sang the famous anti-war song of Tanikawa Shuntaro and Takemitsu Toru, Shinda Otoko No Nokoshita Monowa (What was the dying man left).

An opening parade by Jinta-ra Mvta, a variation of the brass ensemble (with chindon rhythm) called Cicala-Mvta. This is from 2009.


The 3rd Jazz Art Sengawa would be held on July 9-11, 2010.