Lastly, my second longest partnership is with Tokyo based pianist and composer, Yutaka Shiina. Yutaka and I have toured together every year except two since 1995, in a variety of settings, with great sidemen like Greg Hutchinson, Rodney Whitaker, Bob Hurst, Reginald Veal, Herlin Riley, Ali Jackson, John Swana, and Riley Mullins. We’ve recorded twice under Yutaka’s name, most recently with his core quintet featuring Mike Rodriguez, Yasushi Nakamura and Rudy Royston. The long term plan is to have the core quintet anchor a big band featuring 8 American Musicians and 8 Japanese musicians, with my arrangements of Yutaka’s and my original compositions. We performed with the big band for the first time in the summer of 2019, and I am currently writing the arrangements so we can present the whole program and record it as soon as possible.
Yutaka Shiina Wiki
https://www.yutakashiina.com/discography/