HIDETO KANAI 金井英人
Genres: Avant-Garde Jazz, Progressive Big Band • Japan

Japanese jazz bassist, born in 1931 in Tokyo, Japan. Died April 8, 2011. from discogs Kanai, Hideto, bassist; b. Tokyo, 1931. Along with guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi, was a leader of the sixties avant-garde in Japan.  Like so many of his generation, his professional career began in American servicemen's clubs, but after meeting Duke Ellington he began a more formal study of music.  Kanai and Takayanagi founded the Jazz Academy (later New Century Music Workshop) in 1960, performing experimental jam sessions in coffeeshops that incorporated their interest in contemporary classical music and the jazz of Sun Ra, Charles Mingus, and Ornette Coleman.  He led the King's Roar orchestra in the sixties and seventies, touring the USSR and South America with jazz arrangements of Japanese childrens' songs.  He currently leads the Yokohama Jazz Orchestra. from www.jazz.com