Japan-born bassist Tatsu Aoki’s The MIYUMI Project is one of the first Asian American / African American collaborative music projects, fusing Japanese taiko drumming tradition with first-class improvisers.
Creative music has historically provided a platform for uniting its participants, not only relying on but encouraging individuals with unique backgrounds and disparate traditions. It is a universal language that allows for constructive discourse with everyone on equal footing - this is the fundamental roots of the MIYUMI Project.
Since the release of the eponymously titled The MIYUMI Project, the group has forged a special Afro-Asian musical hybrid in the intervening two decades. To celebrate and commemorate this trailblazing, still active band, FPE Records have this outstanding release with cherry-picked selections from MIYUMI’s vast discography including a previously unreleased live bonus track.
During the ‘70s Aoki was an underground Tokyo experimental artist interested in the American avant-garde and influenced by a fascinating cross-section of bassists - from Charles Mingus and the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s Malachi Favors, to rock ’n’ rollers such as Kenny Gradney (Little Feat), John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) and Dee Murray (Elton John).
Moving to the US from his native Japan in 1977, he would work extensively with tenor saxophone legend Fred Anderson.
In 1997 Aoki’s collaboration in the Power Trio (At Unity Temple, Asian Improv) with two members of the lauded AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) – woodwind specialist Mwata Bowden and percussionist Afifi Phillard (Sun Ra alumnus and Aoki mentor) - marked the unofficial inception of his MIYUMI concept.
The Best Of The MIYUMI Project features nine tracks in total, with the previously unreleased Dinner Plate, Diner Dish (recorded live in 2014) providing an appropriate album coda while leaving the door ajar for what lies ahead.

TRACKS:

Early Dance
Now
And Then They Came for Us
Killer E
Takeda And Yoko Noge
An Eye Opener For Angels
End Credit
Episode One
Dinner Plate, Diner Dish