Two musicians are playing in Viva’s on a Wednesday night. You might imagine a couple of folkies sitting in chairs, strumming acoustic guitars and harmonizing before a crowd of seated patrons sipping beer and whispering to each other between songs like they are in a library. But none of this sort of thing is happening as acoustic guitarist Yuji Tojo and drummer Mike Shannon play an original samba song, with Japanese lyrics, called “Umi,” to a handful of sultry dancers.

The song begins with Yuji—he uses his first name as his stage name—playing a little rhythm guitar and a bass line that he “loops” throughout the song, using some sort of computer. Once the song’s foundation is laid, Yuji starts playing lead guitar while Shannon bangs out an impeccable beat.

Yuji insists that there is a simple reason for having a duo that sounds like a full band. “I started doing the looping because I couldn’t find a bassist I liked,” he says.

On some songs, Yuji uses effects pedals to make his guitar sound like a horn section or a piano, while on other numbers, like a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing,” Yuji expertly plays straight guitar and wrings notes from his instrument that fall like rain drops.

Yuji says he started playing guitar in Tokyo at the tender age of 10 years old. By the time he was 14, he was playing in a Tokyo rock band called Murasaki, before joining the Japanese rock/blues band Creation. But by 1979, Yuji realized he needed to leave Tokyo. “The rock scene was too crazy for me,” he says.

In 1980, Yuji moved to Santa Cruz, and since then, he has played guitar in drummer Baba Olatunde’s band and in his own world beat group, Chi Mizu. Currently, he plays in the Al James Band and sometimes sits in with Dale Ockerman’s Moving Parts.

After playing a great song that begins with Yuji playing flamenco guitar before locking into a Middle Eastern-sounding jam, Yuji says, “you guys are good” to the small but enthusiastic crowd.

“No, you guys are good,” one boisterous audience member yells back.

“We are just playing around, you know,” Yuji says before pulling another song’s worth of incredible sounds from his guitar.

Yuji plays Viva Monterey, 414 Alvarado St. in Monterey, every Wednesday at 9pm. No cover. 646-1415.