Fish Huang and Jun Iida Quartet

Last year, while Fish Huang was passing through Wuhan on tour with George Lam and Sally Yeh, he took a night off and went across town to Emotional Bar to hear Jun Iida play — and ended up on the bandstand himself, sitting in for two tunes. That was the introduction. They crossed paths again in Taiwan not long after, and have been talking ever since about when they might get to play together properly. Tonight, on the second of two consecutive nights at Salon No.10, that conversation finally lands on a stage.

The band, co-lead by Fish and Jun, is pared back to the most classic of formats — the trumpet quartet — with the space given over entirely to improvisation: a trumpet of warmth and body, tracing its lineage to Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis; a set of drums out of Taiwan, known for its deep groove; and two heavyweights of the Hong Kong jazz scene: Patrick Liu, a Berklee graduate, composer and arranger, and the founder of the Patrick Liu Jazz Orchestra, he brings the same layered harmonic writing you hear in his big band charts into the quartet setting. Bassist Nelson Fung moves between straight-ahead jazz and free improvisation, leaving room in the ensemble sound for openness and for the unexpected. 

About Fish Huang

Born in Kaohsiung, Fish Huang is active across the music scenes of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Asia. Distinguished by his deep groove and fluid improvisation, he won Best Drummer at the Yamaha Asian Beat Grand Final at the age of 18. He has taken part in and released a number of jazz albums, including ArtCore with The Beat Brothers — the trio he formed with Teriver Cheung and Kerong Chok — and Hopelazz in collaboration with Hope Yeh. In pop music, he is the designated drummer for Chinese superstar Andy Lau's world tours. He has been invited to perform at the Java Jazz Festival, Jazzopen Stuttgart, and Shanghai, Taichung and Hong Kong jazz festivals. A former lecturer at the Tainan National University of the Arts, he founded the jazz platform JazzNode and runs the "Fish Huang Drum Studio" YouTube channel. He currently drums for the band R.O.O.T and is touring the world with George Lam and Sally Yeh.

About Jun Iida

Born in St. Louis and raised in Pittsburgh, Jun Iida is a Japanese-American jazz trumpeter, composer and bandleader. He studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music and completed a double major in jazz and aerospace engineering at Case Western Reserve University. His career spans Los Angeles, Seattle and New York, with performances at Tokyo's Pit Inn, Smalls Jazz Club, Blue Whale and SFJazz, and appearances at festivals including SXSW, PDX Jazz Fest and Earshot Jazz Festival; he has also shared the stage with Takuya Kuroda and Anat Cohen. In 2024 he released his debut album, Evergreen, on OA2 Records, blending contemporary jazz with traditional Japanese elements and earning multiple Golden Ear Award nominations. He was recently selected for the 2025 Jack Straw Artist Support Program and awarded a South Arts Jazz Road Tours grant.