Tetuzi Akiyama / Taku Sugimoto / Toshimaru Nakamura

In October 1998 Toshimaru Nakamura organized a concert for Jason Kahn, who was visiting Japan, together with Tetuzi Akiyama and Taku Sugimoto. Four musicians played at Bar Aoyama in Shibuya, Tokyo – it was one of Akiyama's regular venues. This show ends up being first in the series of monthly concerts organized by Akiyama-Sugimoto-Nakamura. It was called The Improvisation Meeting at Bar Aoyama and each session featured the trio with one or two guest artists. This event soon became an important meeting point for Tokyo improvised/experimental music scene. Guests include Masahiko Okura (sax), Utah Kawasaki (analog synthesizer), Yui Kimijima (hand piano, one-reel tape machine), Tetsuya Higashi (trombone), Otomo Yoshihide (guitar), Sachiko M (sampler), Sean Meehan (drums), Kai Wolff (guitar) and many others. In October 1999 the compilation with live recordings from the bar was released on Reset. The concert series changed its name to The Experimental Meeting at Bar Aoyama, and eight more shows took place in Nov 1999 – June 2000. Then, in August 2000, it was moved to the Off Site gallery in Yoyogi, Tokyo, and the title again changed to Meeting at Off Site. Sugimoto retired from the series in February 2001, but Nakamura and Akiyama continued organizing the event for two more years. Separately from the Meeting series, Sugimoto, Akiyama and Nakamura played a show at Off Site with Otomo Yoshihide in 2002, which was recorded and released as Taku Sugimoto Guitar Quartet album.