Currents: May 2013 - Next Album, Jazz Art Sengawa, and Mita Freeman's Standards Project

This year's Jazz Art Sengawa will be held on July 19-21

New album to be cooked soon

Hikashu is now preparing material for next album. Recently the band had a meeting and discussed the recording session which will be held at Eastside Sound in New York City this month.

Unlike last time, the band has decided to prepare materials to be recorded beforehand, because the schedule is so hectic. For the Uragoe session in 2011, they wrote compositions on the spot, but this time that's difficult. They have four gigs to be played in Canada before reaching New York, and simply have no time to prepare materials enough for an album.

According to Makigami, the compositions the members brought are just "intense." How promising.


Artist Roster for Jazz Art Sengawa 2013

The first announcement of this year's line-up is just came as follows.

July 19
Kotobuki Hikaru and Kanazawa Kazushi
Hihokan
Oki Itaru

July 20
Tokidoki Jidou
Kudora Seitaro, Arai Ryoji
SUPERTERZ + Koho Mori
Haino Keiji
Hikashu with Lauren Newton

July 21
Suzuki Akio
Soon Kim, Hayakawa Takeharu, Fujikake Masahiro
Sakata Akira, Yamamoto Tatsuhisa
Jim O'Rourke, Takaoka Daisuke, Sakaguchi Mitsuo
Third Person (Umezu Kazutoki, Samm Bennett)
Sato Masahiko, Hatano Atsuko, Sudo Toshiaki
Ishibashi Eiko, Tonchi, U-zhaan

Quite expecting. Especially, Hikashu with Lauren Newton - this is the first time for them playing together since 1996.

Of course, this is not complete. We'll let you know the final line-up and time schedule when available.

Ticket on-sale date is currently scheduled to May 18 (saturday).


Mita Freeman's Standard Project Continues

On April 29, Mita Freeman held the second gig of his standards project at Koen-Dori Classics in Shibuya. Being the same as last time, the singer's ccompaniment was Shimizu Kazuto on piano, who is also the musical director of the project.

The set list was also mostly the same, although some curious selections were occasionally thrown in, like Kraftwerk's "Showroom Dummies," and surprisingly, a yet-to-be-recorded new song for Hikashu's next album.

Their next appearance is a jazz club called Analog in Hamamatsu city on June 26. Then maybe they will get a slot at Jazz Art Sengawa.