Sarina Suno Quartet @ Thailand Cafe

　今日も良いギグでした。今日はお客さんからソロごとに拍手をいただきまして、パフォーマーとしても大変気持ちよく演奏することができました。気持ち良すぎて、すっかり写真を撮るのを忘れてしまいました。でも、こんな写真だけはしっかり撮ってたりして………。これは最近ハマっているタイ豆腐グリーンカレーです。もはや中毒になってます。

Another great show today. People were clapping after every solo, and we, performers, felt so good as well. I felt too good and forgot to take some photos of us playing. The only one I took was the Thai tofu green curry which I'm so addicted to lately.

The flower in front of my house

　ウチの玄関先に桜に続いて花が咲きました。名前は分からないのですが、奇麗な花です。

The pink flowers are in bloom in front of my place after the cherry blossom had come out last week. I don't know the name but they sure are pretty.

Sarina Suno Quartet showcase @ Hudson Hotel

　久々の大雨のニューヨークです。今日はサリナちゃんとハラのカルテットでショーケースでした。ショーケースというのはミュージシャンの見本市みたいなもので、バンドが代わる代わる演奏して、お客さんが気に入ったバンドと交渉をするというシステムです。ブッキング・エージェント７社合同のショーケースだったらしいのですが、ホテルの最上階のペントハウスで行われました。広大なセントラルパークの南西の角から１ブロックのハドソン・ホテルはロビーからして豪華でした。
It's been a long time since we had this much rain in New York. Today's gig was a showcase of Sarina and Hara's quartet. "Showcase" is like musician's trade fair; several bands play for a short period of time and whoever interested in comes to the band and talk about some business. I think it was a joint showcase of seven booking agents and it was held at the penthouse on the top of Hudson Hotel. The hotel is located only a block away from the South-west corner of the Central Park.

（ロビーの風景。高層ビルの２階でもちろん室内なのですが、森の中の教会の前に立っているような雰囲気です。） (Lobby --- It's on the 2nd floor of the 24-story building. Of course it is indoor but it was like I was standing right in front of a church in a forest.)

　24階のペントハウスへ上がると、すでに機材はセットされてミキシング・エンジニアが待っていました。こういうちゃんとしたプロダクションと仕事をすると、こちらは楽でいいです。雨水を吸ってべちゃべちゃになったケースからベースを取り出し、さっそくサウンドチェックです。
In the penthouse on the top floor, the sound engineers were already there and all the gears were beautifully set up. Always good to work with professional agents. Only thing I had to do was taking my bass out from the soaking wet bass case and plug in to the bass amp.

　ほどなくしてお客さんもチラホラと現れ、本番を始めたのですが、その直後に今日お世話になるELAN ARTISTSのエージェントがなだれ込んできました。音が大きすぎるから静かにしろと言うのです。こういうショーケースでは我々の100%の本領を見せなくてはいけないのですが、ボリュームは極限まで押さえられました。我々は１５分のショーケースが２本と聞いていたのですが、１時間のBGMを２セットやりました。果たしてこれでショーケースとしての役目は果たせたのか、心配でなりません。
The guests arrived bit by bit and we started playing funk tunes as we were asked to play. A moment later, the agent rushed in to the room and told us to put the volume down. Way down. Huh? We were here to do the showcase, that means we have to put our 100% on our music and have to make the guests interested in hiring us. Oh well, so we had to change the direction. We were going to play two short sets of 15-minute showcase, instead, we played two long sets of an-hour background music. I don't know if we could showcase anything.

ペントハウスからの風景。一日中雨が降り、ニューヨークは霧に覆われていました。 The view from the penthouse. It was raining whole day and New York was cover with a fog.

The Song of a Sugar Cane Field (Japanese drama 2003)

　ちょっと古いドラマなんですが『さとうきび畑の唄』を観ました。良いドラマでした。こんなに悲しいドラマ（映画）を観たのは韓国映画の『ブラザーフッド』を観た時以来です。（余談ですが、この映画は『太極旗を翻して』というもっと深くて、主観的な厳しさが格違いのタイトルが付いているのですが、邦題ではこう据え代えられてしまったようです）。お父さん役のさんまさんの明るさが、悲しいテーマをより悲しくしていましたが、ラストの方の「私はこんな事をするために生まれてきたんじゃないんですよ」という台詞に全てが集約されていたように思います。

I just watched a great Japanese TV drama called The Song of a Sugar Cane Field (Sato-kibi Batake no Uta). That was very well made drama and one of the saddest movie I've ever watched. The story is about a simple happy family who had to go through the battle of Okinawa in World War II. Japanese army recruited civilians and was getting ready for Americans to come. All boys who were older than 14 got drafted and girls were for logistical support (mainly nursing). Some historians say the civilians "volunteered" to go to the frontline but we cannot forget whole citizen in Japan were brainwashed in those days especially kids. This part is also portrayed in this drama.

The main actor is actually a famous comedian in Japan and his humor and cheerfulness is counter-acting to deepen the sadness. It is like Guido in Life is Beautiful.

I really wish this drama is translated in English but it has not been translated since 2003, so I don't think it ever will be. What a waste.

Sarina's birthday concert on YouTube

　サリナちゃんのバースデー・コンサートに来てくれた人が、私たちの演奏のショート・クリップをユーチューブに載せてくれたみたいです。うわー、めっちゃ嬉しいです。ベースの音量が小さかったのは分かっていたのですが、こんなに聴こえてなかったとは………。アンプを持って来なかったことが悔やまれます。
　このビデオを載せて下さったyoichinyc08さん、本当にありがとうございました。

Somebody at Sarina's birthday gig kindly put the video on the YouTube. I'm so delighted. I knew that the bass was really soft but I'm shocked to know that it was almost inaudible. Oh well, I'll bring my amp next time.

I want to thank yoichinyc08 for putting this video clip on YouTube. THANK YOU!!

Mecha-ike, the funniest Japanese TV show

　今日のめちゃイケの『突然熱湯コマーシャル』最高でした。ナイナイさん、もう中堅どころなのに、まだ体張ってますねぃ。ロケバスの後ろの扉が突然開いて、熱湯風呂に落とされるところが、めっちゃツボにはまりました。

Japanese TV shows are awesome. I don't think the TV producers in Japan are not as restricted as in America. This is sort of re-done of an old game show. Whoever wants to announce or notify anything on a national TV comes to the show and put him/herself in the extremely hot bath tab and they can announce for the same length of time as they can bear the hot water. Almost everybody gives up in 10 seconds. I know this is brutal and just wrong but I used to love that show. This re-done version was even better (meaning more brutal). In this show, a comedian is dumped or fall into a pitfall of hot bath tab without notice. Oh god, I was dying laughing. This is the photo when he was dumped into the hot water from the back of a bus.

Yuichi's first hair cut

　ルームメイトの息子さんの優一君が今日初めて髪を切りました。男の子らしくなりました。

My roommate's baby boy, Yu-ichi, had his first hair-cut today. He now looks like a man!

Sarina's birthday concert @ Thailand Cafe

Happy Birthday Sarina!!
　今日はサリナちゃんの誕生日コンサートでした。いつもよりもだいぶ遅い11時から始まり、ほぼ１時間の演奏をしました。お祝い事なので、ノリノリのファンクの曲を全開で弾き倒しました。ああ、こういうギグならアンプを持ってくるべきだった。指が落ちるかと思うほど思いっきり弾きました。

　それにしても、最近ベースの仕事ばかりやな〜。ん？これでいいのか。

Sarina's birthday today and that was a special concert for her. We started playing at 11pm which is much later than the usual starting time. We played groovy funk tunes with full throttle for one whole hour. Oh shoot, I should have brought my amp with me! I thought my fingers were going to fall off.

Sarina Suno Quartet in Washington Square

Hara called me and asked if I wanted to go to Washington Square and play for a couple of hours just for a heck of it. Well, why not. That was really beautiful Friday afternoon. I was in high spirit. I told hara "I'm down."

I was the first one who arrived in there. The first thing I saw was the big construction yard. There was some renovation going on and half of the park was closed. Wow, I didn't know about this. I played right at the place on the photo below last year to cerebrate Garibaldi's 200th birthday with Richmond County Orchestra. Oh well. (By the way, here is the article of this performance on an Italian magazine, Oggi 7. I hope you can read Italian.)


There were lots of people out there and also there were many busking musicians as well. As I wrote, half of the park was closed so there were limited spaces in the park and all the good spots were taken by other buskers. Luckily we could find a decent spot and played good music for a couple of hours.

All kinds of flowers were blooming; cherry blossom, tulip, etc. We were surrounded by full of nature under warm Spring sun. Good season, good day and good music. Oh, life is good.

Sarina Suno Violin

Hara Garacci Guitar

Ippei Ichimaru Bass

Nick Falk Drums

If you want to see more photos, please click on the link below.
Busking in Washington Square Park

My LP bongo with new bison skin head

I've been using LP generation ll bongos which came with synthetic heads. I knew that the synthetic head is no match with the real animal skin heads, but since I'm not a real bongocero (meaning "bongo player") and have been using bongos just as an extension of congas, I was refusing to spend extra 70 bucks to replace the heads. Now I use bongos much more than before and it takes prominent part on some tunes, so I finally decided to put bison skin heads.

What a difference. My bongos now sounds like the ones played on authentic Latin music DVDs. I should have replaced them long time ago.

Avant-garde session in Bronx

Enrique Haneine Drums	Lex Samu Cornets

　素晴らしいアバンギャルドのセッションでした。即興でメロディーを紡ぐのみならず、リズム、ハーモニー、拍子、キーもその場その場で作っていきます。本当に芸術的で楽しいひと時でした。

Another great session with Enrique and Lexy at the graffiti artists' atelier in Bronx. We improvised not only on melody but rhythm, harmony, time signature, tonality and what not. That was fun and highly artistic session.

Yoshinoya in Times Sq.

「久しぶり。お前、どこに行っとったんじゃ」
私は三味線レッスンの帰りに寄った吉野家で、牛丼にそう問いかけました。久々に大盛りコンボ丼を食べました。日本の人には馴染みがないかもしれませんが、牛丼と鶏丼と野菜丼のコンボです。私がまだ日本にいた時に一平スペシャルなるものを勝手に作ってまして、大盛り・つゆだくでさらに牛皿を載せて、卵を２つというのが、私の定番でした。ああ、中坊だった頃がなつかしい。

"It's been a long time. Where have you been."
I gently asked the beef bowl. I went to Yoshinoya on 42nd St. and had a beef bowl which is very popular food in Japan, which I LOVED when I was a teenager. It's a lot less expensive than Sushi or Tempura or Sukiyaki or any of those famous Japanese food. I know this is not in American culture but we eat it with raw egg and it is delicious! You guys should try it.

Yoshinoya
253 West 42nd St. (between 7th & 8th Ave), Times Square
www.yoshinoyausa.com

WaFoo outside of WaFoo: Richmond County Orchestra concert

　我々WaFooのように様々なスタイルを盛り込むバンドは、他のジャンルの音楽のプロジェクトに参加して、そのスタイルを学ぶことが必要不可欠です。それをし続けることにより、我々独自のスタイルをさらに深いものにし、また、独特のものにすると信じています。

For the band like WaFoo, which involves lots of different styles of music, it is imperative to keep playing and learning diverse genre of music. Each member of WaFoo is participating in different projects outside of WaFoo and I believe that this discipline is going to make WaFoo's music deeper and more original.

　スタッテン島を拠点にするクラシック音楽のリッチモンド・カウンティー・オーケストラ(RCO)はそのプロジェクトの一つで、一雄さん（コントラバス）とゆうきちゃん（フルートとピッコロ）と私、一平（チェロとコントラバス）の３人が参加させていただいてます。今日はそのRCOのコンサートがセント・ジョン大学でありました。今回は残念ながら一雄さんはスケジュールの都合で参加できなかったのですが、ゆーきちゃんと私が参加させて頂き、モーツァルトとワーグナーとチャイコフスキーを演奏しました。私も長い間参加できなかったのですが、今日は半年ぶりの出演となりました。今回のコンサートは高校生バンドのAFTER EFFECTとの共演でした。

Staten-Island-based classical orchestra, Richmond County Orchestra, is the project which three of WaFoo members are participating in: Kazuo (Contrabass), Yuuki (Flute & Piccolo), and me Ippei (Cello & Contrabass). Today, the concert of RCO was held at St. John's University. Although Kazuo could not participate this time because of his tight schedule, Yuuki and I performed some Mozart, Wagner and Tchaikovsky with RCO. I myself had not been able to perform with RCO for six months. This concert was a joint concert with the high school jazz band After Effect.

　コンサートの後は３人でニュージャージーのチーズケーキ・ファクトリーに食事に行きました。チーズケーキ以外の物を初めて食べましたが、美味しかったです。

Three of us went to the Cheesecake Factory in New Jersey. I had something other than cheese cake in there for the first time, but it was delicious.

WaFoo Concert @ St. Peter's Church

　今日は『和風』の春季コンサートがありました。尺八のマルコ・レイナード氏をゲストに迎えてのコンサートです。子供のための講演会でゲストと一緒に演奏したことはありましたが、コンサートにゲストを招いて演奏するのは初めてです。マルコ先生は素晴らしい尺八の演奏で一気にオーディエンスを魅了しました。

WaFoo had a concert at St. Peter's Church in Staten Island, NY. The shaku-hachi master Monsieur Marco Lienhard played with us and that was a blast. He totally stole the show.

ギグの後片付けの写真。すみません、これしか撮る暇がありませんでした。
Aftermath of the gig. Sorry I didn't have a time to take more photos.

　この後、マルコ先生とブルックリンに寿司の食い放題に行き、みんなで死ぬほど食べました。大食いチャンピオンはマルコ先生でした。

Later that night, we all went to all-you-can-eat sushi in Brooklyn and stuffed ourselves. The eating champion of the night was Marco sensei.

Richmond County Orchestra's rehearsal @ St. Peter's Church (Day 2)

So I just came back from the last rehearsal for the concert on Sunday. I don't think the pieces we are doing are not the toughest pieces for classical players, but for me, they are. I'm crossing my fingers from now.

Richmond County Orchestra's rehearsal @ St. Peter's Church (Day 1)

　去年までお世話になっていたリッチモンド・カウンティー・オーケストラです。ここ半年ぐらいはお声がかからなかったのですが、今回チェロで参加させていただくことになりました。それにしても、いつもながら難しい曲をやります。そして毎回思うのですが、クラシックの人たちは、こういう楽譜をスラスラと読んでしまえるのは、なぜなのでしょう。明らかに私が飛び抜けてヘタなので、３日後の本番まで練習しまくって頑張りたいと思います。

This is the Richmond County Orchestra's rehearsal. I'll be participating in this orchestra on the next concert after half an year absence . Well, the charts are so hard to read as usual but all other members were reading the charts like nothing. I'm always amazed by the sight-reading skill of classical players. It's no secret that I am way behind anyone in the orchestra. I'll practice hard and try to be ready for the concert which is happening in three days.

Sarina Suno Quartet @ Thailand Cafe

　今週もやってきました。今日はほぼ満席状態で、お客様にも楽しんで頂けたようで、本当に楽しいギグでした。少しの間このハコを離れますが、今よりも精進して帰ってきたいと思います。

The gig at Thailand Cafe this week was just awesome. We had almost full house and people enjoyed our music. I'll take a bit of a time off from this venue but when I come back, I'll be ready to rock 'n roll again.

SARINA SUNO QUARTET are

Sarina Suno Violin

Hara Garacci Guitar

Nick Falk Drums

...and me (with Sarina) Upright Bass

Kazuo's new gear

今日はWaFooのリハでした。ニコニコするベースの一雄さんの後ろには光り輝く見た事も無いギアが積まれております。
それでは、ギア・オタクのため上から紹介させていただくと、一番上の載ってるヘッドがSWR 350X君、その下の二つのヘッドは一雄さんが前から持っていたHartkeの350Wと250Wのやつで、ビンが15インチＸ１のSWR Son of Bertha君、そして一番下が10インチＸ２のSWR Goliath Junior (4 orm)君です。ピカピカですが中古らしいです。思い切った設備投資をしましたねぃ。まったく、うらやましい。私のギャリアン・クルーガー君の寿命も尽きようとしているので、早く次のアンプを探さないと。

WaFoo did a rehearsal tonight. Kazuo the bassist told us he got a shining SWR bass stack. It's 350W (4 orm) with 1x15 and 2x10. He said it's a second-hand but but it doesn't look like it at all. He is really ready for the next concert.

My Gallien-Krueger is about to expire his life so I have to find the next amp. A friend of mine recommended Genz Benz. Does anybody know anything about it?

Shinagawa & Osaki

　今、ニューヨークで『アメトーーク』を観てます。宮迫さんが品川庄司の品川さんを呼ぶのに、『大崎、喋りすぎや』とボケました。

　わーい、生まれ育った大崎の名前がニューヨークで聴けた。うわ、なんか、ちょっとウレシい。

Robby in camouflage

ロビーがクッションと同化してます。かわいすぎ。

Robby is perfectly blending in to the furry cushion. He is adorable.

Sarina Suno Trio @ Buona Sera

サリナちゃんとハラと月に２、３回ぐらいBuona Seraというイタリア料理レストランでギグをやってるんですが、いつものように二人とも超テクニカルなプレイで客をわかせます。お客さんも楽しんでくれたみたいです。ただ今回は場所が狭くてちょっと辛いギグでした。

The gig with Sarina & Hara at Buona Sera the Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village. Both of them are super fast players and really entertaining to people.

Enrique Haneine Trio @ United States Equestrian Team Stables

Being a working professional musician, I have played in a lot of unusual places like warehouse, barn, wine cellar, cigar bar, zoo, automobile museum, on the top of a convertible Mercedes, on the edge of the 15-feet high temporary stage at a theatre, etc. Today I played at a stable.

This is the stable-tuned-into a function place, so there is no smell or any of the unpleasant stuff related to livestock. It was quite interesting facilities. The cubicles for horses are still there and one of them are used for a coffee station. Interestingly though the stable is obviously not originally made for partying but I didn’t feel that strange and I liked the unordinary composition of the stable.

The web site of The United States Equestrian Team:
www.uset.com

Rehearsal with Mr. Marco Lienhard

We are thrilled to perform with the great Shaku-hachi (Japanese bamboo flute) player, Mr. Marco Lienhard, on our concert on April 19th. Marco sensei has been leading the New-York based Japanese drum group, TAIKOZA , for years. While he was living in Japan for thirteen years, he studied and performed Japanese traditional folk music intensively and also has been all over the world countless times.

This is very first time to have a guest player on WaFoo, and for most of us, it is the first time in our musician lives to play with the Japanese traditional musician in his caliber. We just did a rehearsal with Marco sensei and played four of our tunes. Marco sensei blew entirely different life into our music. I don’t want to give away the surprise so I won’t go details but the tunes were so different with his virtuoso shaku-hachi playing. Well, I hope I’ll be brave enough to play shamisen, which is another Japanese traditional instrument, right next to him.

Please come and check out our Spring concert on April 19th at St. Peter’s Church in Staten Island. I assure you the concert will be a lot of fun and surprises.

Sarina Suno Quartet @ Thailand Cafe

サリナちゃんとハラといつものタイ料理レストランでギグです。このギグの前にちょっとリハをして、皆で一緒に来たのですが、彼ら二人は座るなりすぐにビジネスの話をし始めました。偉い。私は絶対に真似できませんねぃ。

The gig at the Thai restaurant. We did a run-thru rehearsal session before the gig and we all came to the restaurant together. Sarina and Hara started working on some business as soon as we sat down. They both truely are hard worker. I'm too lazy to do the same thing though.

Sarina and her new hat

...and me with the usual Aloha

Tofu Curry

最近コってる豆腐カレーでございます。絹ごし豆腐、白菜、マッシュルームで作って、とってもヘルシーです。（茄子も入れるとなお良いのですが、アメリカによくある大味の超巨大茄子しか売ってませんでした。ココナッツミルクは買い忘れました）。一晩寝かせて味もよく染み込んでおります。これだけ大量に作っておけば５日はいけます。独身者の強みですな。

This is Tofu Curry I made with my special recipe. The main ingredients are silken tofu, Chinese cabbage and mushrooms. It is super healthy but since I made so much, it looks like I'm going to live on this tofu curry for next five days or so. Er, Friends, why don't you guys come to my place and have some dinner with me?

Avant-garde session in Bronx

Enrique gave me a buzz around 8pm.
"Hey we are gonna do a session in one hour. Would you like to come? You, me, Lexy and Jimbo."
Almost every musician has the strongest genre for him or her to play. We professionals play a lot of different styles of music; classical, jazz, Latin, rock, pop etc., but there is always one style which is natural to the musician. It's like multi-lingual people. No matter how fluent they can speak many languages, they always have a mother tongue. In my case, it's avant-garde jazz.
I'm ashamed of myself to say this but I had not even tried to play what I love the most. The last time I played avant-garde was the last session we had about a couple of months ago. I was picking up my acoustic bass even before I finished the conversation with Enrique on the phone.

45 minutes later, we all were in the room which I have never been. Enrique's friend owns a building in Bronx and he let Enrique use the empty room for him to practice or to have some jam sessions. The biggest room we normally use have a tenant now so we used the caretaker's room for the warehouse-section of the building.

"Guys, you should see the warehouse," Enrique said and we followed him to the inside of the warehouse. There were whole bunch of art works of graffiti. The owner of this building invite graffiti artists to the warehouse and let them work on their graffiti, not on the walls but on the canvas. They are quite interesting and fun to look at. "Art is not authority." Each one of this spray-painted art work is saying that. Maybe next Banksy or Basquiat will be born from here in Bronx.

(Sorry that I cannot show you any of the great and hip art works. I've never been to the atelier of graffiti artists but check out the mountain of spray cans!)

What a perfect place to play avant-garde jazz or the music called free jazz (Just the name is different. They are same things.) We played high energy improvisations from the very beginning. Free jazz is not a bunch of random notes. If we were playing whatever randomly, it's going to be unpleasant sequence of noise; it's like committing a crime of conscience. Free jazz is far from that. We are communicating by sounds, communicating with each other, with the atmosphere and making one big picture. The whole process has to be selfless and we have to surrender to the music. We become totally free and create our own style of music. I know it sounds insane. In my opinion, a musician who doesn't do or denies doing crazy stuff should quit music immediately. I don't know how many more years I can keep this fire and insanity. I cannot be an ordinary people and have a 9-to-5 job because of this insanity. At the same time, this insanity gives me a confidence that I can keep being an artist.

My dear fellow musicians
Enrique
Lexy	Jimbo