东京中央线 (Tokyo Chuo-Line)

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Tokyo Chuo-Line is the name of our band. We are a instrumental band, consists of a guitarist Ken Ohtake, and a bassist Toru Hayakawa, and a drummer Noriaki Fukushima.
Name of the band comes from a railway in Tokyo city. There is one train running across Tokyo city and it is called central line (Chuo-Line).
Lots and lots of bars, live houses, clubs in the area and 3 of us grew up playing those jazz and rock venues when we were younger. We still do. So the word Tokyo Chuo-Line has a symbolic meaning of our musical journey.Like one of our roots.

Originally, Ken on guitar and Toru on bass, started to play duo concerts in Taiwan back in 2013. Ken and Toru met in the university and played together a lot since then, including long-time collaboration with Hakka folk singer Lin Sheng Xiang in Taiwan.
After some shows we decided that we need a drummer. Then we invite Noriaki to play.
Toru and Noriaki (everyone calls him Nori) go way back. Toru and Nori first started to play together in their mentor's band in 2000. Their mentor was a legendary jazz drummer in Japan, Ryojirou Furusawa. They played in his band called "Ne" (which means "root" or "tone of a sound") until 2011.After countless gigs and various sessions together,Toru and Nori trust each other so much.

So the first time the 3 members came together was in 2014. We did a tour and played in Legacy Taipei (6/12), Room335 Tainan (6/13) and In Our Time Kaosiung(6/14). We did a live recording
also and released a live debut album "佇台南 Live in Tainan" in May 2015.
Actually at that time we didn't call ourselves "Tokyo Chuo-Line" yet but the name of the event was "Tokyo Chuo-Line Unexpected". But the audience in Taiwan kept referring to the band as "Tokyo Chuo-Line" so we realized the name already stuck. So we decided to call ourselves that from 2017.
In May 2017, we released a studio album called "One Line".

Our repertoire is our original compositions. Ken has his unique exquisite way of playing guitar and that shows in his composing also. Toru creates tunes that has a big open space to improvise over, and allows anything to happen. Nori's groove is always big and strong but at the same time, his composing is surprisingly melodic and interesting. 3 of us have a background of jazz influence but we improvise not strictly in jazz manner. And our long term relationship makes this band ensemble more tasteful and full of sensitivity.

So far we played in Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong but in future, if we get a chance, we might go to your town to play music!