Toshinori Kondo

Toshinori Kondō (Japanese近藤 等 则, Kondō Toshinori; born 15 December 1948 in Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, Japan ) is a trumpet player in the jazz avant-garde and fusion music.

His first influences were jazz Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. In the 1970s he came to Japan from New York, where he worked with the members of the downtown scene, as with Bill Laswell and John Zorn. In 1978 he played with Derek Bailey. His first solo album was 1979. During the same year he joined with Eugene Chadbourne on the Total Music Meeting. In 1981, he was the first member of a project by Peter Brötzmann. In 1982, he appeared with Paul Lovens and with the Globe Unity Orchestra. In the 1980s, he returned to Japan and founded the IMA group, with which he was quite successful. Since 1992, he belonged to the Die Like a Dog Quartet Brötzmann and later also to the Chicago Tentet. He played with Tristan Honsinger and finally settled in Amsterdam, where he now lives. In 2002 he organized in Hiroshima a great peace festival for the Dalai Lama.

Kondō is best known for his fusion of free jazz, noise and electronic music. Here he worked with musicians like DJ Krush and Tom Cora. He was used to produce images of United Future Organization, but also the Jazzkantine. In addition, he has also written music for Japanese crime films.