Chicago Jazz Festival 2013

Hamid Drake with Michael Zerang, Eigen Aoki, and Tsukasa Taiko drummers directed by Tatsu Aoki

Drummer Hamid Drake doesn’t just make the most abstract music swing; he’s also a devoted student of rhythms from around the world. He and Michael Zerang draw on those traditions in their sunrise winter-solstice concerts, which have been easing Chicago’s passage from one year to the next since 1990, but for this performance they’ll narrow the focus to one: traditional Japanese drum music, performed with Eigen Aoki and his Tsukasa Taiko Gintenkai unit. Taiko is all about the balance between massive force and serene emptiness, elements that Zerang and Drake understand quite well. — Description borrowed from Bill Meyer of Chicago Reader

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