BIOGRAPHY
Kentaro Nakayama is a professional jazz drummer, based in Tokyo, Japan.
In 2006, he accepted his scholarship and moved to Boston, M.A. to study jazz and contemporary music at Berklee College of Music. During this time at Berklee, he met many great musicians and began studying with highly acclaimed giants such as Ian Froman, John Ramsey, Mark Walker, Ralph Peterson Jr., Terri Lyne Carrington, Hal Crook and more.
In 2010, he moved to New York City to start his career as a professional drummer after graduating from Berklee College of Music. He had many opportunities for performing with great artists. During this time, Clarence Penn, top-drawer international drummer and composer, began supporting his efforts on New York’s music scene and became his mentor.
In 2014, he moved back to Japan and started his career as a leader of “MEGTARO”. The members are Megumi Otani (piano) and Kentaro Nakayama (drums). The basic format is piano and drums duo style. It performs their original songs which are colorful, emotional, and peaceful with using jazz vocabulary and their own way to create new ensemble style. MEGTARO releases 3 albums which are "Arise", "Newselves", "World Painter". Also MEGTARO has new project which is "MEGTARO Vocalize", including piano, drums and 3 voices, and it released new album "Lyric" in 2023.
His style is based on jazz but is flexible so that it becomes him a versatile sideman. Currently he is performing as a member of "Multty" which is a guitar quartet and "niskhaf" which is israeli piano trio.
On the other hand, he began to start his career as an educator for all kinds of drumming, especially jazz drumming, with 8 years' experience in U.S.A.
