The 71-year-old Japanese guitar hero Masayoshi Takanaka has had a long career that's stretched across prog, jazz fusion, and the hybrid genre known as city pop. He's collaborated with Santana and Roxy Music, and Grimes sampled his track "Penguin Dancer" on her Art Angels song "Butterfly." This past week, Takanaka performed at the Wiltern in Los Angeles, and this was a rare thing indeed. As far as anyone can tell, Takanaka's Wiltern shows were his first American appearances in decades.
Masayoshi Takanaka played in Los Angeles on Sunday and Monday nights, and nobody in his subreddit can agree on when Takanaka had last performed in the US before those shows -- it looks like he played LA in 1982 -- but people seem to agree that it's been at least 40 years. So it's cool to see this guy finding a rapturous audience response for his smooth, fluid instrumentals. Someone at Monday's show was nice enough to upload some YouTube videos, and you can catch some of them below, including Takanaka's cover of past collaborator Santana's "Europa."
