Duo Music Exchange in Shibuya, Tokyo where “Meet the Shakatak”, above, was filmed in in 2005 – has a capacity of 1350. They’ve just played the Abai Kazakh State Opera and Ballet Theatre in Almaty in Kazakhstan. Shakatak don’t normally play venues quite as small as the Pheasantry in Kings Road. Roger Odell writes about Shakatak’s 2011 and looks forward to New Year’s Eve:

After a 30-plus year career, Shakatak are still going strong and if anything are busier than ever.

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Looking back over 2011, we started the year with some UK dates including our annual visits to the Pizza Express jazz rooms at both Maidstone and Soho, and were off to Japan for concerts in Tokyo and Osaka at their prestigious Billboard Live venues. We had full houses for our show at The Stables in Wavendon and at the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich, recorded live by BBC Radio Suffolk.

In December the band has headlined at the Penang Island Jazz Festival and we’re back from a concert on the 19th at the Opera Theatre in Almaty, Kazakhstan, which surpassed our expectations.

It’s great to be ending 2011 back in the UK on New Year’s Eve in the more intimate surroundings of The Pheasantry.

shakatak.com

Pheasantry bookings at Pizzaexpresslive