Tatsu Aoki

Tatsu Aoki is a Tokyo-born bassist, shamisen and taiko player, filmmaker and teacher who has lived in Chicago since the late 1970s. He grew up in a Tokyo family of artisans connected to the geisha tradition and works across jazz, experimental music and Japanese traditional forms. He is best known as the longtime bassist of saxophonist Fred Anderson and as the leader of the Miyumi Project, which joins taiko and Japanese instruments to jazz. Tatsu Aoki came to Chicago to study experimental film at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he later taught.