UR Play for East Japan

When Underground Resistance mainstay Mad Mike Banks got a chance to perform at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2007 with his ensemble Galaxy 2 Galaxy, the Detroit techno pioneer drafted in a pair of recent university grads – sax player De'Sean Jones and keyboardist Jon Dixon – for the occasion. A few years later, the pair have found themselves filling key roles in Banks's latest project, Timeline, which aims to take the crossover experiments of Galaxy 2 Galaxy even deeper into jazz territory. With an EP of new material in the bag (last month's Graystone Ballroom), the group are heading to Tokyo to give audiences a taste of the live experience. DJs Duct, Sodeyama and others support in the main room, while there's the intriguing prospect of hearing Toshiyuki Goto spin 90 years' worth of world music in the chill-out area.