Junko Yagami: Japanese City Pop meets New York jazz.

JUNKO YAGAMI: Pop Meets Jazz on Route 66 is a live concert at Birdland Jazz Club bringing Japanese City Pop and New York jazz together in what its makers call a live experiment rather than a tribute or nostalgia show. It stars Junko Yagami, a Japanese vocalist known for late-1970s songs like "Bay City" that have drawn listeners worldwide, and in 2022 she became the first Japanese artist inducted into the Women Songwriters Hall of Fame. Bandmaster and drummer Ross Pederson, a founding member of Snarky Puppy, leads four musicians through newly arranged American standards tied to Route 66 alongside Yagami's most celebrated Japanese compositions. Route 66 serves as the organizing metaphor: a road that carried American music westward, absorbing everything in its path and transforming it into something new.