Asian/American Improvisation in Chicago: Tatsu Aoki and the 'New' Japanese American Taiko

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Bassist Tatsu Aoki produces Chicago's Asian American Jazz Festival. His work often draws on taiko, a form of folkloric Japanese drumming, as well as experimental jazz. Wong views Aoki's activity as a process of constructing a dynamic, transnational Asian American identity. She argues that Aoki takes his status as a "Shin Issei" (a recent Japanese immigrant) as a starting point, but aims to "become" American on his own terms-an aspiration of the contemporary Asian American community at large.

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Asian American jazz, Basser Live II, biographies, Chicago jazz, compositions, Hide Yoshihashi, identity, improvisation, Japanese, Japanese American jazz, Japanese drumming, JASC Tsukasa Taiko, jazz bassists, kumi-daiko, race, shin issei, Taiko, Tatsu Aoki