Yea Big, Jon Byler Dann, and Tatsuya Nakatani, with Tatsu Aoki

Name: Yea Big, Jon Byler Dann, and Tatsuya Nakatani, with Tatsu Aoki
Start: 2026-05-03T20:00:00-05:00
Location: Elastic Arts

Schedule

Sun, 03 May, 2026 at 08:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Elastic Arts | Chicago, IL

Join us for an incredibly special night of sounds! The trio of Yea Big, Jon Byler Dann, and Nakatani (winds, double bass, and percussion respectively) first performed together a couple years back when YB booked the Nakatani Gong Orchestra (which YB and Dann both performed in) and arranged with Nakatani for the trio to open the concert. YB and Nakatani had met and played together the previous year as part of YB's improvised music series in Bloomington, IL. The night they first performed together, the trio resonated and made plans to do it again. On Nakatani's subsequent tour the trio not only performed together again but also set aside a day for a recording session. The results of that session can be heard on their newly released CD, To Lower the Fever of Feeling, out now on Yea Big's new label, Black Flag Bonsai Club. This Spring, Nakatani's nationwide tour will find the trio performing together at four Illinois dates.
Tatsu Aoki will open the show. Tatsu, performing on double bass and shamisen, continues to be based in Chicago, working internationally in a wide range of musical genres including Japanese traditional music, experimental, and creative jazz, his collaborative projects ranging from puppetry, neoclassical Japanese dance, and experimental dance films. As Executive Director of Asian Improv aRts MidWest (AIRMW), an Asian American cultural arts presenter organization, Aoki has initiated and managed several programs to advance the understanding of traditional arts and community through the arts, including the annual Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival, the Tsukasa Taiko Legacy, and the Toyoaki Shamisen arts residency projects.