Toshimaru Nakamura & Tetuzi Akiyama

Tetuzi Akiyama and Toshimaru Nakamura have been performing together since 1997. They often have been hosting guests to form a trio or quartet, and this became one of the defining characteristics of their duo. In 1998 Nakamura and Akiyama together with Taku Sugimoto started a series of monthly concerts at Bar Aoyama in Tokyo. It was called The Improvisation Meeting at Bar Aoyama and each session featured the trio with one or two guest artists. This event soon became an important meeting point for Tokyo improvised/experimental music scene. The series moved to different locations and eventually settled as Meeting at Off Site at the Off Site gallery. Few compilations were released, documenting the concerts there. Sugimoto retired from the series in 2001, but Akiyama and Nakamura continued it, performing with a guest artist at each session. In January of 2003, they changed its format: each concert consisted entirely of a guest musician's solo performance. The Meeting at Off Site series continued for one year, before Akiyama and Nakamura ended it in December 2003. In 2008 the duo played a concert tour in Sweden with Erik Carlsson and Henrik Olsson as a quartet. Pieces of those live recordings were released on Semi-Impressionism album at Spekk. Nakamura and Akiyama also formed an Omni trio with Kato Hideki, releasing an album in 2009.