Takuya Nakamura

Born in Tokyo, Takuya Nakamura moved to the United States in 1990 to study at the New England Conservatory of Music with composer and theorist George Russell — a training that deeply shaped his approach to harmony, improvisation and composition. Based in New York from 1994, Nakamura worked within scenes where jazz, jungle, broken beat and electronic music intersect, developing a language that blends club pulse, urban textures and a sense of collective interplay. A musician, producer and DJ, he has been involved in projects such as Jojo Mayer’s Nerve and CocoRosie, and has collaborated with Quincy Jones, David Byrne and Arto Lindsay in both studio and live settings. His trajectory thus links contemporary New York jazz with the electronic forms that emerged in the 1990s and 2000s, with work focused on rhythm, arrangements and the hybridization of composition and improvisation.