Akira Ando

Akira Ando (born 1955 in Sapporo) is a Japanese double bassist, cellist and composer. After beginning his career in Tokyo, he lived in New York from 1984 to 1998, working within the city’s creative-jazz and improvised-music scenes and performing with musicians including Cecil Taylor, Billy Bang and William Parker.

Based in Berlin since 1998, Ando has continued to work across free jazz, improvisation and cross-cultural projects. His playing combines a strong acoustic bass sound with an open, ensemble-oriented approach shaped by decades of work in Japanese, American and European improvised music.