Jon Hatamiya Big Band
Artist: Jon Hatamiya Big Band
Venue: Scribble (L.A.)
Date: 2/1/26
Jon Hatamiya Big Band packed Scribble front to back on February 1st, the room so full the trombone section had to spill onto the floor. Seventeen musicians on a stage that small should feel chaotic — instead it felt enormous, the sound filling every corner of the room with a fullness-but-tightness that was almost hard to believe you were experiencing live.
Across two sets, Jon was as engaging as he was vulnerable, drawing the crowd in with humor and warmth between compositions. The emotional center of the night was the full performance of "But Where Are You Really From?", the first movement of a forty-minute suite commissioned by the LA Jazz Society and premiered at the 2021 Angel City Jazz Festival. From the stage, Jon spoke openly about what COVID meant for musicians whose whole lives are built around presence and connection — the isolation, the silence, and what it meant to finally bring this music back to a room full of people. His parents and grandparents were in the crowd. So were his USC Thornton students. The room held all of it and then some.
