Danish jazz has always been well-received in Japan, and it was a tough blow for many musicians with recurring tours to the Japanese market when the pandemic closed the world down. Now, the country with its curious and dedicated audience has reopened. This reopening is marked by plenty of Danish jazz performances at Japanese venues in May and June, made possible in part through JazzDanmark’s Asia project and the ‘Tokyo Nordic Jazz 2023’ initiative.

Electronic experiments, free improvisations, and soulful vocal jazz

JazzDanmark’s Asia project is one of the initiatives that allows Danish musicians to tour Japan with a variety of different projects. Some of these projects will also be featured during the summer festivals in Denmark. Read more about them below.

Mark Solborg Tungemål feat. Yasuhiro Yoshigaki

Mark Solborg met the legendary Japanese drummer Yasuhiro Yoshigaki at 5e in Copenhagen back in 2017, where they performed a freely improvised concert late at night with Simon Toldam and Axel Dörner as part of ILK’s stage at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival. Now, this encounter will be recreated when Solborg and his trio Tungemål first tour with Yoshigaki and later record together in the studio. Solborg’s visit to Japan this May will be mirrored by an artist-in-residence program with Yasuhiro Yoshigaki in Denmark in the summer of 2024.

Johanna Sulkunen & Michiyo Yagi

Johanna Sulkunen has toured in Japan since 2018, a tour that laid the foundation for her latest release, Terra, and her participation in the Asia project. The tour was followed up in September 2022, when she met koto player and composer Michiyo Yagi—leading to a new collaboration that will debut in Tokyo this May, followed by a tour in Denmark with performances at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival and Aarhus Jazz Festival.

Sinne Eeg

Sinne Eeg has over ten years of experience in Japan and tours regularly in the country with great success. Her local fan base will now be thrilled as she finally has the chance to return to the country. This time, she will perform, among other events, a double concert at the legendary venue Billboard Live in Yokohama, with Jakob Kristoffersen and local musicians, bassist Kengo Nakamura and drummer Kazuhiro Odagiri.

Kemaca Kinetic feat. Kyoko Satoh

Kenneth Dahl Knudsen has toured in Japan several times as a soloist, most recently in 2019 with a big band project as part of his participation in the Asia project. It was during this time that he met Japanese saxophonist Kyoko Satoh. Now he returns to Japan with his power trio Kemaca Kinetic for a tour where Satoh will perform as a guest soloist. This summer, Kyoko Satoh will visit Denmark along with Kemaca Kinetic for Danish jazz festivals.