Tokyo-based whack jazz guitarist, turntablist, composer, arranger and knob twiddler Otomo Yoshihide has been called the John Zorn of Japan for his love of combining experimental sounds with avant-garde jazz. And to my ears, there's not much there to dispute the comparison, for better or for worse. His fascination with sine waves can be mind expanding or head splitting depending on your disposition toward high pitched electronic sounds, but with Otomo, you can almost always expect to be surprised.

For someone who built his reputation on noise rock and minimalist experimentalism, Yoshihide surprised again by assembling a New Jazz Quintet in 2001 that combined progressive jazz standards with Otomo's bent for combining anything with unconventional noises. Four years later, the Quintet was replaced by a larger New Jazz
Orchestra and by the time 2005 was over, Otomo had released two NJO records.

The second of these was a project that took some sack to undertake: a song by song recreation of Eric Dolphy's sacred Out To Lunch. You might recall Out To Lunch being discussed and revered in this space as one of the greatest "Swan Songs" albums in jazz.

The "Orchestra" name tells you that Yoshihide tackled Dolphy's material with a much larger configuration of musicians than the quintet employed by Dolphy himself. But as Andrey Henkin of All About Jazz accurately points out, the NJO "is not a big band, but a loose amalgamation of distinct voices." Henkin goes on to explain that this is an important characteristic, as the highly arranged nature of a big band couldn't do Dolphy's unencumbered compositions any justice. Added to the original instrumentation of bass clarinet, vibes, trumpet bass and drums are piano, sho (a rare Japanese reed instrument), baritone sax, electronic devices and Otomo's electric guitar. The lineup is a mix of Japanese and European veteran jazz musicians.