On Friday, Nov. 2, BIGYUKI will appear on the latest installment of The Checkout's concert series at 151 Nublu in the East Village. Tickets are available at Ticketfly.
BIGYUKI — aka keyboardist Masayuki Hirano — will join forces with the French American hip-hop/jazz ensemble Thiefs, a band that blends modern jazz with hip-hop and politically pointed spoken-word. Each artist will perform a set, followed by a special jam at the end of the night, which will be filmed for wbgo.org. The concert will be captured for a future installment of The Checkout podcast.
At last summer’s Montreal Jazz Festival, BIGYUKI spoke about some of the music he will feature in this exciting co-bill, repertoire on his album Reaching For Chiron.
We delve into that futuristic recording as well as Hirano’s fascinating background: how he found a path to the jazz tradition through the late pianist Kenny Kirkland, and how learning Chopin on his teacher’s lap as a kid informed his evident physicality on the keyboards. The artist is now frequently collaborating with Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest.
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Assistant Producers: Anthony Nieves and Sarah Geledi