Best of the MIYUMI Project

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Bassist Tatsu Aoki moved to the United States from Tokyo in the late 1970s, and throughout the '80s, immersed himself in Chicago's jazz and improv scene, collaborating with some of the city's best players, including Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) members like Fred Anderson. Eventually, he founded the Chicago Asian-American Jazz Festival and in 2000, launched the MIYUMI Project to further explore and develop his own music. Now, 20 years and several albums later, Aoki is marking the group's 20th anniversary by providing an overview of their work with this excellent compilation. With a highly flexible lineup that can include everyone from local jazz stalwarts like Ed Wilkerson, another AACM member, to Aoki's children, the MIYUMI Project has unsurprisingly cut a wide musical swathe over its two decades of existence. This compilation manages to capture its scope quite well, showcasing both the airy and free essence of Chicago's jazz improvisation scene as well as Aoki's cultural roots. The Japanese (and in some cases, pan-Asian) influences are most pronounced in the percussion and rhythmic choices throughout. Though Aoki is a bassist, he often centers the Japanese taiko drum, most notably on a cut like the overwhelming "An Eye Opener for Angels," which features four taiko players building a solid rhythmic foundation alongside his bass, allowing for extended reed improvisations by Mwata Bowden and Wilkerson; even though those "jazz" instruments are the most melodically forward, it's definitely the drum that does the most talking here. Similarly, a cut like "Early Dance" finds a way to balance both taiko and didgeridoo. On the tracks where Aoki is more explicitly exploring jaz—the Arkestra-flavored tracks "End Credit" and "Episode One" in particular, as well as the large-group explorations of "Now"—he's working in a decidedly post-blues vernacular that's not quite "free," but is still quite loose. These strands are fused most effectively on the elegiacal "And Then They Came For Us," a piece dedicated to the Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps during World War II. Again featuring Wilkerson on clarinet, the piece is expansive in texture and tone, fusing electric guitar, bamboo flute, and violin into a unique and highly personal musical tapestry that only the MIYUMI Project could have made. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz