Japanese Jazz Singer Sawako - Live at Cotonoha Artspace + Café

Sawako Jazz Night

  Japanese Jazz Singer Sawako – Live at Cotonoha Artspace + Café on February 12, 2012. Click here for show information.         Read more »

6th Annual Mardis Gras Party on Okinawa

6th Annual Mardis Gras Party on Okinawa

6th Annual Mardis Gras Party on Okinawa, Japan at New Sanwa featuring Troy Black and The Deep Fried Jazz Project. Live Music, Drinks, Dinner, DJ, Dancing and A chance to win one Read more »

troyblack

Standard Time Vol. 3

A special, one-time event will be performed by Troy Black and his friends on January 29, 2012. The place? COTONOHA Artspace + Café.  The reason? As a musician who has been living Read more »

Standard Time Vol. 3

troyblack

A special, one-time event will be performed by Troy Black and his friends on January 29, 2012.

The place?

COTONOHA Artspace + Café.

 The reason?

As a musician who has been living and playing on Okinawa for a long time now, it is time for him to start cutting his teeth as a true band leader.

He has worked as a sideman and lead soloist with many musicians around the island playing everything from Rock and variety to Traditional Okinawan music, R & B, Funk, Fusion, Hip Hop, Blues, World Beat, Jazz, Afro Jazz, Big Band Jazz and even Classical.

During most of that time, he was playing what was required by the people who hired him or asked him to join them to play.

Now, Mr. Black will be playing what he wants to play and introducing at least one original tune. He says that, if he has his way, people will laugh a little, cry a little, and jiggle a little too. But most of all, he hopes that they will enjoy themselves and have fun.

Eddie Henderson Jazz in Okinawa

Okinawa Jazz Performance with Eddie Henderson

Every so often, you raise your head, open you eyes and look up into the night sky to see a shooting star. And once in a blue moon, one of those blazing celestial bodies finds its way into your world and makes touch down on earth… IMPACT!

On November 29, 2011, you will have the chance to be close to one of those stars if you are lucky enough to be right here on the beautiful little island called Okinawa, Japan. That’s because Okinawa Jazz Music is about to feel the heat as one of the Jazz World’s Legendary Trumpeters makes his entry.

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Eddie Henderson

Okinawa Jazz Performance with Eddie Henderson
Eddie Henderson’s technique, musical sensibility, originality and innovation has made him one to the world’s foremost jazz trumpeters today.

Born on October 26, 1940 in New York City, he is product of artistic parents. His mother was a dancer at the Cotton club performing as one of the Brown Twins and his father was a singer with the Charioteers.

Henderson was given his first few trumpet lessons by none other than Louis Armstrong himself at the age of nine before moving to San Francisco with his family at age 14. There, he  studied at the San Francisco Conservatory from 1954 to 1956.

It was around that time in 1956 that he received something that many, many people would die for today… a house guest named Miles Davis.

Miles was playing a gig at the Black Hawk Jazz Club in San Fran and stayed at Eddie Henderson’s home during that time. Eddie impressed him by playing “Sketches of Spain,” one of Miles’ famous pieces. Afterwards, Miles urged Eddie to tap into his own creativity to find his own originality.

Later, Eddie Henderson served in the Air Force from 1958 to 1961. After leaving the service, he was destined to compete for the National Figure Skating Championship, becoming the first African American to do so and winning the Midwestern and Pacific titles. And then, in 1961, he began his journey toward dual careers, studying music and medicine.

Henderson continued on to study Zoology at the University of California at Berkeley, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in 1964. He then moved on to Howard University Medical School in Washington D.C. to earn his M.D. in 1968 and then interned at San Francisco’s French Hospital during from 1968 to 1969. Afterwards, from 1969 to 1971, he went to the University of California hospital to complete a two year residency in psychiatry.

As a result of recordings that he made with Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi group in the early 1970′s, Eddie Henderson received worldwide recognition for his jazz trumpet playing abilities.

Sawako Jazz Night

Japanese Jazz Singer Sawako - Live at Cotonoha Artspace + Café

 

Japanese Jazz Singer Sawako – Live at Cotonoha Artspace + Café on February 12, 2012.

Click here for show information.

 

 

 

 

6th Annual Mardis Gras Party on Okinawa

6th Annual Mardis Gras Party on Okinawa

6th Annual Mardis Gras Party on Okinawa, Japan at New Sanwa featuring Troy Black and The Deep Fried Jazz Project. Live Music, Drinks, Dinner, DJ, Dancing and A chance to win one of many valuable prizes!

 

Click here for Show Information

Japanese Big Bands Concert

Big Band Friendship Concert

Jazz de Night

Friendship Concert

4 local Japanese Big Bands & 2 Student Jazz Bands will perform at Music Town Otoichiba in Okinawa City.

 

Okinawa Jazz Big Band Friendship Concert

The performances will include students from local Elementary, Middle and High Schools in Okinawa City.

Along with the students, four adult local Japanese Big Bands will also perform jazz music including:

  • The High-Tone
  • Koza Onions
  • La’ Muse Jazz Orchestra
  • Bar Million Jazz Orchestra Big Ups
Date:
Saturday, October 22, 2011

 

Location:
Okinawa City at Music Town [Otoichiba]

 

Doors Open: 17:30      Show starts: 18:00

 

  • Advanced Tickets: ¥2,000
  • At the Door: ¥2,500
  • OJA Members: ¥1,500
  • Oto Ichiba Members Club: ¥1,800
  • Students: ¥500

Purchase tickets at:

  • Fukuhara Music Store
  • Bunkyou Music Store
  • Teruya Music Store
  • Okinawa Jazz Association
  • e-plus (at Family Mart)
  • Music Town (Otoichiba)
For information, call 098-932-1949 (Music Town Otoichiba)
Sponsored by:
Okinawa City
Music Town Otoichiba
Okinawa Jazz Association

 

Japanese Jazz, Fusion and World Music

The BaysKays’ First Okinawa Live

Japanese Jazz, Fusion and World Music

Japanese Jazz, Rock Fusion and World Music has a long history in Japan, but lately, there has been an increase in the number of musicians based in mainland Japan and beyond who have migrated, passed through, and jammed out in Okinawa.

 

Among them, Yugo Satoh is an excellent guitarist recently hailing from Yokohama, Japan. And guess what, his specialty is Japanese Jazz, Rock Fusion.

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Yugo Satoh
Photo by Eri Satoh

As a child, this Japanese Jazz Guitarist felt a special attraction to the guitar and he was also interested in Rock and Fusion.

When he was 18, he studied Jazz under the Yoshihiko Hosono, but he was not only interested in Jazz alone and tried to learn many other genres of music and to develop his own style.

If you ask him, he will tell you, in Nihongo of course, that “Outside Guitar Playing is the Best!” and he is very good at it. However, he can also easily join other musicians and accept backing band and studio work when he is asked.

He was such a good guitarist as a kid that when he was studying under Yoshihiko Hosono, he was already making appearances in some of Tokyo’s jazz clubs as an active musician!

Satoh made a major debut in 1991 with the group

Subfive Jazz Fusion in Japan

Subfive Jazz Fusion Band

Subfive

Jazz Fusion in Japan

Swedish Jazz Fusion in Okinawa, Japan.

On Wednesday, October 19, 2011, members of the critically acclaimed Swedish Jazz Fusion Band, “Subfive,” will return once again to heat things up for hungry, enthusiastic audiences in Okinawa, Japan.

The Scandinavian group formed in the spring of 1999 and have since released 3 albums including their critically acclaimed 2003 debut album entitled, “City of Dreams,” their 2008 Japan realease, “Safari,” as well as a 2009 collaboration with an Okinawa based singer/songwriter ~ title unknown.

The cast of members includes:

Andreas Andersson – sax

Johan Oijen – guitar

Mats Bystrom – keyboards

Anders Pirinen – bass

Johan Lofcrantz – drums

On this tour, their are whispers that one or two members will not be attending (“mark them absent!”) and the band will be joined by the local Dutchman, the excellent drummer/percussionist Sebastian Kaptein who is a now long time veteran on the scene in Okinawa.

However, enjoying a live performance from this group on Okinawa will still be a rare treat. They have a clean, professional and innovative sound which is not usually available here and Mr. Kaptein is certainly up to the task.

The Subfive sound is an energetic and contemporary mixture of Jazz fused with R&B, Pop, Rock and Funk influences combined to create a Hard-Mixed,  Smooth Jazzy, auditory mèlange which should intrigue and satiate standard jazz heads and smooth jazz enthusiasts alike.

Members of this ensemble have performed around the world from Stockholm to