Hideto Kanai Group

Kanai, Hideto, bassist; b. Tokyo, 1931. Along with guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi, was a leader of the sixties avant-garde in Japan. Like so many of his generation, his professional career began in American servicemen's clubs, but after meeting Duke Ellington he began a more formal study of music. Kanai and Takayanagi founded the Jazz Academy (later New Century Music Workshop) in 1960, performing experimental jam sessions in coffeeshops that incorporated their interest in contemporary classical music and the jazz of Sun Ra