An Interesting Show at the Stone

Rob and I had our first house guest in our empty apartment in Astoria. Tatsuya Nakatani, a free-improv percussionist from Pennsylvania, needed a place to stay the night before his concert at the Stone on Sunday. He performed with Kaoru Watanabe (western and eastern flutes)
/>and Adam Rudolph (hand percussion.) Rob and I have heard Tatsuya several times before in both solo and trio settings. I remember several years ago we were in Santa Fe and saw a listing of his performance that night. What a coincidence, right? Actually, this guy performs more frequently than anyone I know….driving everywhere with his gear and always giving it his all. What a road-warrior.

Tatsuya’s set included drums, a variety of symbols( some that had big ripped holes in them), ash trays, tibetan bowls and a variety of sticks. My usual skeptical feelings about free-improv were dismissed pretty quickly in the evening.The color palette was pretty unbelievable. While listening to them, I thought about my own experience recently performing a free-improv piece with the percussionist Lukas Ligeti. I was pretty freaked out by the whole experience–maybe that gave me a deeper appreciation of the performance last night. It was great to see these guys so comfortable in the field.