Peter Barakan’s Live Magic! takes its final bow

Since 2014, veteran DJ and broadcaster Peter Barakan has been bringing blues, jazz and other roots musicians to Tokyo for an annual festival called Peter Barakan’s Live Magic!. After a decade, the event is coming to an end — but it’s not going out quietly. The 11th edition of Live Magic!, billed as the festival’s finale (in its current form, at least), will take place at Yebisu Garden Place on Oct. 19.

The lineup for this year’s festival, the second to feature performers from outside Japan since the COVID-19 pandemic, is made up almost entirely of Live Magic! first-timers. That includes Matthew Halsall, a trumpeter from Manchester, England, who plays spiritual jazz in the style of Alice Coltrane.

“(His music) has this kind of gentle groove to it, which I find particularly appealing,” Barakan says. “The album he put out last year was my album of the year, so when it became clear this was going to be the last Live Magic! in festival form, I thought, ‘OK, we’ve got to have Matthew.’”