Tatsuya Nakatani may be the only touring avant-garde improviser who regularly includes Kansas City on his itineraries. The percussionist will be joined by the locally based musicians Shawn Hansen, Jeff Harshbarger and Mike Stover at Grand Avenue Temple on Friday, August 9.
Now’s the Time: Tatsuya Nakatani
Tatsuya Nakatani returns to the Ship on Thursday, November 30. The percussionist will be joined by Shawn Hansen, Jeff Harshbarger and Mike Stover following a solo set. Plastic Sax reviewed Nakatani’s 2019 performances at The Ship and the 1900 Building. The final four minutes of the embedded video are extremely amusing.
Album Review: Shawn E. Hansen, Mike Pride and Clayton Thomas- Dreamband
Plastic Sax has likely given faithful readers the impression that members of the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society have a stranglehold on Kansas City’s new music and free improvisation scene. The superlative Dreamband, a new multi-continental album featuring the Kansas City keyboardist and composer Shawn E. Hansen, proves that the collective isn’t the only noisy game in town. The recording process of Dreamband subverts standard improvised music practices. Pandemic necessity and geographic practicality compelled Hansen, the Australian bassist Clayton Thomas and the New York based drummer Mike Pride to record separately in three layers. Thomas describes Dreamband’s six tracks as “a process of both listening as if the playing was live, and recording, knowing full well you're creating an artifact.” Equal parts premeditated and spontaneous, the trio’s gloriously expansive new music upends- and often upgrades- conventional improvisation.