CrowdMateFor the concert weekend of Thursday 29 October through Sunday 1 November, the trip worth circling is east of Brussels: Otomo Yoshihide’s New Jazz Quintet plays Kunstencentrum nona in Mechelen on Sunday at 20:30. The billing gives the evening a useful focus. Otomo is a guitarist, turntablist and composer whose work has travelled through free improvisation, noise, pop, film and television; his official biography also places the New Jazz Quintet among his enduring projects. At nona, that breadth is concentrated into a five-player jazz group, a format built to make close listening feel active and physical. The venue frames the concert as Nova Express, and describes an approach where free jazz, groove, melodic writing and spontaneous collective movement meet in real time.[1][2]
That is why this is a stronger flagship than a simple genre recommendation. Otomo’s music carries a long history of experiments, yet the quintet keeps attention on the immediate decisions inside a band: when a brass phrase locks to the rhythm section, when the guitar interrupts the grain of a melody, when a piece opens into a shared texture. His own account of the group’s latest release, China Tour 2025, identifies Otomo on guitar alongside Ruike Shinpei on trumpet, Osamu Imagome on trombone, Hiroaki Mizutani on bass and Yasuhiro Yoshigaki on drums. It is an unusually specific musical organism arriving in Mechelen, with horns, strings and drums offering several ways into the set.[2][3]
A quintet shaped by collective pressure
The New Jazz Quintet matters because it provides a compact view of Otomo’s wider practice without turning the evening into a retrospective. His official profile traces a route from experimental rock with Ground Zero to work across improvisation, recorded sound and screen composition. A recent release by the quintet documents its 2025 China tour, including performances in six cities, so this is also a band with recent shared road time behind it. The material may carry composed shapes, but the group’s identity rests on response: trumpet and trombone can give the music a frontal, ensemble-jazz presence; guitar, bass and drums can unsettle that surface or drive it onward. The attraction lies in hearing those roles take form together in the room.[2][3]
There is useful context in the project’s extended family. The Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media describes Otomo’s New Jazz Orchestra as having grown from the quintet and characterises that larger ensemble through free-jazz improvisation, the post-onkyo sound world and elements of song. That lineage makes the Mechelen date feel less like an isolated international booking and more like a concentrated chapter in an ongoing vocabulary: jazz as material for arrangement, interruption, pulse and group listening. Kunstencentrum nona’s Nova Express presentation fits that scale well, placing a demanding, high-definition band inside a setting where its internal shifts can register clearly.[1][4]
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The practical route to Kunstencentrum nona
Otomo Yoshihide’s New Jazz Quintet appears at Kunstencentrum nona, Begijnenstraat 27 in Mechelen, on Sunday 1 November at 20:30. It lands at the end of a packed four-day Belgian concert run, making it an excellent final-night commitment for listeners drawn to jazz with friction, detail and momentum. Arrive with time to settle in: this is music whose value is often found in the space between a recurring figure and its disruption. Check Kunstencentrum nona’s official event page before travelling for tickets, door information and any last-minute schedule changes.[1]
Sources
- OTOMO YOSHIHIDE’S NEW JAZZ QUINTET - NOVA EXPRESS — Kunstencentrum nona
- Profile — Otomo Yoshihide Official Site
- News: Otomo Yoshihide’s New Jazz Quintet China Tour 2025 — Otomo Yoshihide Official Site
- Otomo Yoshihide New Jazz Orchestra — Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media