Video: Otomo Yoshihide New Jazz Ensemble 2005

Pantin, France 15 March 2005

Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Ensemble (ONJE) was a Japanese electroacoustic improv/free jazz/experimental group directed by a composer, sound producer, turntablist and guitarist Otomo Yoshihide as an expansion to his New Jazz Quintet and preceding an even larger Orchestra. Yoshihide initially brought together the 9-piece Ensemble in the autumn of 2001 to record a follow-up to ONJQ's debut album Flutter, which came out a few months earlier on John Zorn's New York-based label Tzadik. The Dreams CD was published in March 2002 and included four songs by guest vocalists Jun Togawa and Phew, promoted by Zorn as the "first release outside of Japan featuring two of Japan's quirkiest underground pop stars."

In the summer of 2004, the New Jazz Ensemble gave its first live concerts in Japan, performing as a septet with Sachiko M, Alfred Harth on saxophones, who also became the Quintet's fifth member after Kikuchi left in February '04, and Kumiko Takara (vibraphone). ONJE participated in several European festivals, including Era New Horizons in Cieszyn, Poland and Festival MIMI in Marseille, France. In 2005, the Ensemble embarked on a largescale tour with nine musicians plus Kahimi Karie as a guest vocalist, performing 15+ shows in March and May in Japan, France, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia and the UK. A few tracks from ONJE's performance at Banlieues Bleues festival in northern suburbs of Paris, including Eric Dolphy's "Hat & Beard," Jim O'Rourke's "Eureka" and Charlie Haden's "Song For Che," subsequently appeared on Otomo's 2011 Music(s) DVD compilation.

Otomo Yoshihide: guitar, turn table

Kenta Tsugami: alto saxophone

Alfred Harth: tenor saxophone

Sachiko M: electronics

Kumiko Takara: vibraphone

Hiroaki Mizutani: bass

Yasuhiro Yoshigaki: drums