Japanese Folk Jazz: Emi Makabe — live event
Emi Makabe is a Japanese composer, vocalist, shamisen player, and educator based in New York City. Emi's songs encompass jazz, pop, rock, classical, and improvised music that reflect her background in Japanese music. The shamisen, a traditional Japanese fretless, three-stringed lute, plays a large role in her work. Emi will be joined by a masterful band inlcuding Vitor Gonçalves (piano/accordion), Thomas Morgan (double bass) and Kenny Wollesen (drums). This show celebrates her new album Echo (out 5/16 on Sunnyside). Across cultures the world over, the word echo, well, echoes. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the mountain nymph Echo’s voice was cursed so that she could only repeat the words of others. In Arabic, صَدَى (ṣadā) — meaning “echo,” “ring,” “resonance” — deeply connotes longing, memory. Given her Japanese heritage Emi Makabe was drawn to her native language’s unique iteration: ekō. “It shares the English pronunciation, but it means praying for people who have passed away,” Makabe explains. Which resonated deeply with her, as her father passed away in 2021. On the album she is joined by Bill Frisell, MC Meshell Ndegeocello, and Jason Moran. JazzTimes notes her “light, clear soprano… agile and accurate” and her writing, which has “only deepened… without losing its tuneful brio.” Elsewhere, New York Music Daily hailed her “rapturous, adventurous Japanese folk-influenced jazz,” and PostGenre called her “understated and refined…”
Starts: 2025-06-08T17:00:00Z
Ends: 2025-06-08T19:00:00Z
Where: 16 John Street, Saugerties, New York 12477, United States
Price: $29.8