indigo jam unit @ duo

Four months on from the previous Tokyo appearance last night saw another 'indigo jam room' event at Duo Music Exchange in Shibuya.

Again Takeshi Yoshimura was the warm-up DJ, and after the venue slowly filled up, it was time for the opening act, Native (bottom picture), to take the stage. They played a solid 45-minute set with songs from both new and old. The band play good cafe-style jazz and are a very tight live unit. This was the third time I've seen them and probably the best of the three in my opinion. 'Drum'n GO GO', 'Step it' and the set closer 'Diva' seemed to go down particularly well.

No sooner had they played their last note than the incredible percussionist Tsuji Kosuke started drumming up a storm at the back of the auditorium on bongos and djembes. For this event there was purely percussion rather than violin/effects accompaniment in January. Personally, I found that this set was much better, and the fact that he was playing down with the audience rather than up on stage made the atmosphere really electric. For the latter part of his set he was accompanied by Shimi of indigo jam unit on drums, and they worked the crowd into a frenzy.

Finally it was time for indigo jam unit. They opened with the superb 'Sakura' and kept the pace going, with a one of my favourites 'Scene-Cartaincall' coming a couple of tracks later. They performed a couple of new songs, and delivered strong performances of 'Giant Swing' and '7th Feeling' mid-set. Bassist 'BJ' was on form with his witty patter between songs and the climax of the set came with a three track segment comprising of 'Spiral Waltz', 'Alert' and '2x2'. After a short break they were back for an encore of 'Ka I Ka' and 'Palette'.

On the whole I enjoyed last night's event even more than the January one and will certainly be looking forward to them returning in September.