Since 2014, veteran DJ and broadcaster Peter Barakan has been bringing blues, jazz and different roots musicians to Tokyo for an annual competition known as Peter Barakan’s Stay Magic!. After a decade, the occasion is coming to an finish — but it surely’s not going out quietly. The eleventh version of Stay Magic!, billed because the competition’s finale (in its present type, no less than), will happen at Yebisu Backyard Place on Oct. 19.
The lineup for this yr’s competition, the second to function performers from outdoors Japan for the reason that COVID-19 pandemic, is made up nearly fully of Stay Magic! first-timers. That features Matthew Halsall, a trumpeter from Manchester, England, who performs religious jazz within the model of Alice Coltrane.
“(His music) has this type of light groove to it, which I discover significantly interesting,” Barakan says. “The album he put out final yr was my album of the yr, so when it grew to become clear this was going to be the final Stay Magic! in competition type, I believed, ‘OK, we’ve bought to have Matthew.’”
