31st Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival

Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival  – 31 years

Friday, November 6th @ 8:30pm

Saturday, November 7th @8:30pm

Day two of the 31st CAAJF features the Kenji Lee and Stephen Paul Duo the Miminari Trio

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Kenji Lee and Stephen Paul Duo 

First coming together in the vibrant southeastern Michigan jazz/improvised music scenes, Stephen Paul and Kenji Lee have performed together several times, but this will be their debut as a duo. This new context will bring many musical possibilities, informed by their shared passion for the avant-garde, Black American Music, and the influences of their Asian-American heritage and identity.

Stephen Paul is a Taiwanese American trombonist, pianist, educator and composer from the Chicago area. As a musician, he seeks to be well informed and respectful of the traditions he draws upon as well as their historical and cultural context, while being open to innovative and trans-idiomatic expression. This includes not only improvisation in conventional jazz settings, but also traditional big band arranging, experimental/avant-garde improvisation and writing, and Chinese traditional music. As an educator, he seeks a strong emphasis on fundamentals and intuitive understanding of musical structures, while encouraging students to be creative and self-directed early on. Stephen has performed with GLC, Jon Taylor, Marcus Elliot, the Windy City Ramblers, Kenji Lee, Molly Jones, and others. His trombone ensemble arrangements have been featured at events such as the annual University of Michigan annual Collage concert and the Detroit Jazz Festival. He is featured playing piano and trombone on recordings by Cedar Bend, Gavin Ard, Christian Bush, Marcus Elliot, and Maddy Ringo. During his time in Michigan he served as co-coordinator of the Sound and Silence series, combining contemplative sound with contemplative silence. Stephen graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor’s in Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation in 2026, where he studied with Professor Dennis Wilson.

Kenji Lee is a Japanese-American saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser.  His work seeks to embody the vitality of experimentalism while staying diligently rooted in historical practices.  His personal approach fuses a trans-idiomatic vocabulary with rich instrumental technique and has garnered the attention of audiences and fellow artists alike. 

Kenji is an inaugural 2024 CultureSource ArcFund recipient.  In 2023, he was a featured performer at the Detroit International Jazz Festival, and in 2024 was a featured performer at Edgefest.

He currently leads the Fortune Teller Trio with bassist Andy Peck and percussionist Jonathan Barahal Taylor.  In 2023, Lee released Kyūdō - his debut full length album.  On Kyūdō, Lee’s trio and guest vocalist Estar Cohen gracefully connect their compositions and improvisations to Kyūdō, the Japanese martial art of archery.  The album was released to critical acclaim including one mention asserting that “Lee achieved the principles of truth, goodness and beauty with his music.” (Jazz Trail)

Kenji has collaborated with an array of luminaries in Jazz and Creative Music including Doctor Professor Leonard King, Jaribu Shahid, Wayne Horvitz, Pete Siers, Marion Hayden, Andy Milne, Andrew Bishop, Michael Malis, Kayvon Gordon, Mr. B (Mark Braun), Lex Korten, and Jeff Pedraz.  Lee has toured across the continental US, Canada, and Japan.  He has also held leadership roles at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Kerrytown Concert House, and Canterbury House. 

Kenji believes deeply in the power of arts education and is a committed educator.  He serves as Instructor of Woodwind Pedagogy and Applied Saxophone at Madonna University and Instructor of Jazz Saxophone at Interlochen Arts Camp and the Detroit Jazz Workshop, while maintaining an active private studio. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan in Jazz Studies and Music Education.

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miminari - Kioto Aoki x Haruhi Kobayashi x Mai Sugimoto

Chicago-based musicians and frequent collaborators Kioto Aoki, Haruhi Kobayashi and Mai Sugimoto return as the Miminari Trio returns for the closing performance of the 31st CAAJF. Merging their specialities of traditional folk, jazz, and electronics through the language of experimental music, the trio offer a multitude of soundscapes layered with saxophone, taiko, electronics and vocals. 

Mai Sugimoto is a Japanese born saxophonist and composer living in Chicago, IL.

As a child growing up in suburban Tokyo, Sugimoto was surrounded by her dad’s record collection. This soundtrack to her childhood, everything from classical to Motown to jazz, was seminal in her early development. She still remembers the moment that changed everything: hearing Eric Dolphy’s At the Five Spot for the first time. Fast forward to the present and one can find Sugimoto playing her own saxophone, striving for the same musical magic that moved her to be a musician in the first place. She performs frequently throughout the Chicagoland area and is a member of Hanami, a quartet that features her original work and arrangements of Japanese music.  She has also performed with the great Chicago bassist Tatsu Aoki and his projects: a collaboration of Japanese traditional instruments and improvisational music. Sugimoto credits this experience for moving her to want to rediscover her Japanese roots and the nostalgic sounds she grew up with.  Sugimoto draws additional inspiration from Lennie Tristano and his improvisational approach, 90’s and early 00’s J-pop, the Beatles, Glenn Gould, and the creative music scene of Chicago. She continues to channel these inspirations and others into writing for her new quartet which she debuted in 2016.

Sugimoto holds a BM and MM in music performance from Northern Illinois University and University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, respectively. She is currently a member of the music faculty at Moraine Valley Community College and thoroughly enjoys teaching in addition to pursuing her performing career. 

Kioto Aoki is a Chicago-based artist, educator and musician who is 5th generation of the Toyoakimoto house, an okiya (geisha house) performing arts family from Tokyo with roots dating back to the Edo period. Standing on the professional stage from the age of 7, she continues the family legacy as musician on taiko, tsuzumi and shamisen. Her playing is informed by the Japanese aesthetics of ma and emphasizes the melodic phrasing of space and choreography to reorient the notion of percussion as mere rhythm. Her stoic, durational explorations elicit soundscapes that project organic textures of live performance and sonic nuances of cyclical, droning sustain. Aoki balances the artistic and aesthetic integrity of traditional Japanese music with a contemporary sensibility, bringing taiko to contemporary artistic ecologies of music, sound and performance.

Music projects and performances include Experimental Sound Studio’s Sonic Pavilion Festival at Millennium Park's Pritzker Pavilion, the Soundtrack series at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Tatsu Aoki’s The MIYUMI Project, the Yoko Ono co-produced SKYLANDING album project, 24 Hour Drone Festival, The Reduction Ensemble, the Taiko Legacy / Reduction series, solo and collaborative album recordings. She has recorded and played with pianist Yosuke Yamashita, Nicole Mitchell, Hamid Drake, Michael Zerang, Mwata Bowden, Ed Wilkerson Jr., Tatsu Aoki, Francis Wong, Mai Sugimoto and Haruhi Kobayashi, among others. Aoki also leads Tsukasa Taiko, the Japanese drum (taiko) program at Asian Improv aRts Midwest, continuing to pass the traditional music with a new generation of students and apprentices from the community.

Haruhi Kobayashi

Haruhi Kobayashi is a live-electronic sound artist and vocal performer from Tokyo. Originally a J-pop singer-songwriter, she now explores themes of bicultural identity, tradition, and existentialism while seeking to liberate sound from preconceptions. Her work intersects experimental pop, classical composition and avant-garde songwriting through voice, bass, and electronics. 

For more info visit:

https://elasticarts.org/events/chicago-asian-american-jazz-festival-night-2-miminari-trio $20 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door