Click on this, “Midare Uchi” to watch on YouTube in a rare collaboration by drummers from three Tokyo groups plus a kawaii guest.
from the recent BEAT AHEAD at Roppongi’s SuperDeluxe in Tokyo starring Isaku Kageyama of Amanojaku, Yuu Ishizuka of Bachiatari and Makoto Sekine of Medetai.
Below, they join forces on “Bujin” the trademark Amanojaku piece by master composer Yoichi Watanabe.
Click on this to see that _ also on YT as the embedding isn’t working for some reason.
mix of taiko beats out the new in familiar sounds
Music in Tokyo
Heard the other day at Gamuso, a cool artsy dive in Tokyo where I have read poetry with music a couple of times, Samm Bennett on the diddley bow, a one-string instrument made of a marron glace box, speaking a million words with a single string, his voice and his heart.
Taiko as REAL MUSIC in Tokyo
Not your everyday around-the-corner taiko, this is serious music that challenges the boundaries of ethnic tradition and identity and universal eternal art.
Isaku Kageyama with Daisuke Watanabe and Chris Holland of Amanojaku Tokyo’s top taiko group led by master drummer and composer Yoichi Watanabe play in a collaborative concert with Yuu Ishizuka, and Makoto Sekine.
SUN Nov. 28 6 p.m.
at Roppongi SuperDeluxe
3-1-25-B1 Nishi Azabu Minato-ku Tokyo, Japan.
TEL: 03-5412-0515
3,500 yen w/advance reservation.
4,000 yen at the door.
Mother Earth Orchestra at Harajuku Crocodile Aug. 19, 2010
“Improvisation”
Kazutoki Umezu (sax)
NATA (digeridoo)
Craig Harris (bass)
Winchester Nii Tete (percussion)
Isaku Kageyama (taiko and percussion)
clips of music tonight
Video from my iPhone at links below just to give you an idea of what happened.
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9017533
better quality video upcoming soon on YouTube:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9018530
the Music will get better.
music tonight
please come to the Crocodile in Omotesando tonight (see previous blog post for details).
follow Isaku Kageyama on Twitter _ @isakukageyama
and claim your free beer tonight:
木曜日に原宿クロコダイルでライブやります。 僕に「ツイッターで見た」と話しかけてくれればクロコダイルビールご馳走します。 http://j.mp/cCTDlM
Playing at Harajuku Crocodile from 20:00 on Thursday the 19th. I’ll buy you a beer if you make it out!
Isaku will be cooking up a melting plot of a hot groove with Japanese sax legend Kazutoki Umezu, master percussionist from Ghana Winchester Nii Tete, bassist virtuoso from the US Craig Harris and a Japanese who plays an aboriginal instrument NATA.
No borders for this batch.
electronic taico by Isaku Kageyama in Tokyo
Taiko drummer Isaku Kageyama will be among those playing at Summer Sounds at Laputa in Aoyama _ a restaurant, swimming pool and music club all in one in Tokyo _ next Saturday, Aug. 14 at about 8 p.m.
The event starts at noon and continues until 11 p.m. Admission is free if you get there by 2 p.m. (if you’re into that).
The flyer giving samples of artists’ performances here.
Isaku’s take on the endeavor in his blog entry here.
So eat, swim, dance, groove, sit aorund, whatever but listen to good music.
Amanojaku at Super Deluxe in Tokyo in May 2010
the younger members of Amanojaku a taiko group in Tokyo
from left to right:
Chris Holland, Isaku Kageyama, Daisuke Watanabe, Hiromi Sekine.
The Autobiography of Yoichi Watanabe
Yoichi Watanabe, (photo by Naokazu Oinuma) leader of Tokyo taiko group Amanojaku, is relating his life history and his thoughts on taiko to Isao Tokuhashi and me.
It is a project that has just begun. And a lot of work still awaits.
But it fascinates me for what it promises to deliver in understanding of a great artist, an important era of post-war Japanese creativity and the conceptual and spiritual backbone of modern music called taiko.
Yoichi Watanabe founded Amanojaku in 1987.
But his story _ one man’s journey in taiko _ began in the late 1960s, when he was about 10 years old.
He lived through the pioneering years of Tokyo-style taiko, playing with Sukeroku Daiko, founded in 1959 as this city’s first professional kumi-daiko troupe.
An excerpt from “The Autobiography of Yoichi Watanabe _ as told to Isao Tokuhashi and Yuri Kageyama”:
To be honest, I am not sure anyone would want to read a book about my life.
Besides, 10 years from now, my thoughts are bound to have changed, and I would need to write another book.
But I’ve always wanted to write down a certain philosophy on life that I have arrived at over the years in my own small way.
There is such a thing in life as the correct path _ a “seido.”
I am no different in having pursued what I thought was this correct path for me.
I have been doing it all my life.
I was in fourth grade when I decided I wanted to be a taiko drummer.
And I have never swerved from that path.
And it was just one path.
It was not an easy path, one filled with thorny bushes along the way.
But I have developed a way of looking at life through taiko.
And so this book is not a manual about how to play taiko.
Please look at a DVD or a read a manual textbook for that.
Everyone starts out with a dream, and then many people arrive at another way of life to make a living.
You may want to be a doctor or a pilot. But if you can’t realize that dream, you may have to settle on a more realistic job.
We are supposedly in the worst crisis in a century.
People are all working hard.
Perhaps they would be encouraged to find I have never gone far astray from my path over all these years.
I don’t have anything all that special to say.
It’s very ordinary. It’s no different from everyone else’s dreams.
If you keep yourself open, then you will realize your goal in all its depth and breadth.
That kind of spirit has been lost, this spirit I have strived to pursue all my life.
It’s human to seek the easy way, but I have stuck to the way even if it meant hardships.
If people tell me to go one way, then sometimes I question that and go counter-clockwise.
I have always been a rebel, an Amanojaku.
Music at the Moon Stomp
From left to right: Isaku Kageyama, Winchester Nii Tete, Robby.
The “MoveThatPoem” poets from Spain read after the music at the Moon Stomp in Koenji Tokyo Sunday Oct. 11, 2009.
The music keeps getting stronger.
And the poetry _ read in their Spanish original by the poets, followed by English translations _ was a perfect way to end a multicultural evening.
Isaku plays with minyo musicians tomorrow night Monday, Oct. 12, 2009, at Takanoya in Shinjuku, Tokyo.