About Jun Miyake

"Like reading Thomas Pynchon with your ears... Beside this, John Cage's emancipation of noise sounds like a polite little art-school exercise in smugness." -- Slakk Magazine Jun Miyake (Japanese: 三宅純) is an influential musician / trumpeter in and around Tokyo music scene. He released thirteen albums, appeared as a guest soloist and served as a producer for numerous artists, collaborated with contemporary dances and theater pieces with Pina Bausch, Robert Wilson, Philippe Decoufle and others. Co-produced album with people like Hal Willner, Vinicius Cantuaria and Arto Lindsay. Soon after Jun Miyake came back to Tokyo from his study in Boston and New York, he started to work as a jazz trumpeter. His style of playing was immediately respected and he was offered chances to make solo albums with people like Ron Carter, Al Foster, Michael Brecker, David Sanborn, etc. as well as Japanese top musicians.The success of the albums wasn't just for his playing. He started to get offers of composing for commercials, his work quickly became so popular that at one point he found himself writing music for more than 300 commercials a year for the biggest clients in town. He also work for movies and features film credit among which Oliver Stone's "Any Given Sunday". His ability to blend the most seemingly disparate element of music garnered him several awards. "About three years ago, I received a tape of Jun Miyake's Music through a mutual friend. The tape knocked me out. In less than an hour, I heard almost every type of music on the earth pass by, in a consistent way, by an artist who was obviously in control of the proceedings. Jun has an incredible understanding and command of all musical languages, unlike anyone I have ever encountered, and in my musical travels, that is quite a feat. There is also a lunacy present, which never got in the way of the overall vision. I wanted to work with this guy! The album takes the listener on a very unique journey always guided by Jun's unique yet familiar arrangements and his playing which shows up at the perfect moment. This is a magical audio movie that strongly holds together as one piece, while taking one through a surreal history of music. In my own work, I have taken the strong catalogues of Thelonius Monk, Nino Rota, Kurt Weil, Walt Disney and others, using artists including Tom Waits, Sun Ra, and Gil Evans, Keith Richards and Leonard Cohen, interpreting the music in my life long pursuit in finding where these personalities meet. In Miyake, we find all of this in one person really. His music is sophisticated but not hi-brow a sense of humor." -- Hal Willner about the album "Entropathy", 1993. http://www.junmiyake.com