Trad.Attack!: Kullakarva

It’s easy to forget that Trad.Attack! are a trio and not a big band. Last weekend the Estonians won over their audience at Sakurazaka Theatre in Naha with an astonishing display of virtuosity on the final concert of their Japan tour. With all acoustic instruments they filled the hall with glorious sounds and pulsating rhythms at times reminiscent of a rock band.

It wasn’t just their singing and musicianship that impressed. The trio managed the remarkable feat of totally engaging the Okinawan crowd with traditional songs sung in the unfamiliar Estonian language. That they succeeded so well says a lot about their great openness, friendly attitude and willingness to learn about and engage with Okinawan culture.

Kullakarva (Shimmer Gold) is their second and latest album. It was recorded last year and is now receiving a very welcome first release in Japan. Many of the songs and instrumentals from their concert in Okinawa are included on the album.

The trio comprise Sandra Vabarna on Estonian bagpipes, jew’s harp, zither and a variety of whistles; Jaimar Vabarna who plays 12-string acoustic guitar; and Tõnu Tubli on drums, zither and glockenspiel. All three share vocals. Crucially, some of the songs sample archival recordings of the traditional singers of the past and these include Jaimar Vabarna’s great-grandmother.

Technology that might have been thought of as the enemy of traditional song is used here to bring the old singers back to life by allowing these recordings of their voices to be listened to by new audiences around the world and in new and often thrilling musical settings. Trad.Attack! also add new music and arrangements to traditional folk songs as well as composing their own originals. It’s impossible to see the join.

The album’s opening track ‘Talgo’ (Working Bee) sets the tone with an energetic work song not unlike some of those found in Okinawan music. ‘Kabala’ verges on rock but is, in fact, based on a traditional song and melody. ‘Imepuu’ (Magic Tree) is another that uses archival vocal recordings and it drives along into what appears to be a hard rock workout until Sandra Varbarna’s bagpipes come in and lift us into another dimension. They can be gentle too and ‘Sade’ (Spark) is an original instrumental of spellbinding beauty.

Kullakarva is simply a wonderful album. It is also worth mentioning that the CD version of the album is extremely well packaged and contains information in Estonian, English and Japanese. The Trad.Attack! website is exemplary too with many videos of the band and information in no less than seven different languages. It stands as an example to those in Okinawa of how to promote music overseas.

Kullakarva (Shimmer Gold) is released in Japan by Meta Company.

www.metacompany.jp

https://tradattack.ee

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Trad.Attack! in Okinawa

Estonian band Trad.Attack! will play a concert this week in Naha, Okinawa as part of their “Shimmer Gold” Tour 2018. Comprising members Sandra Vabarna, Jaimar Vabarna, and Tõnu Tubli, the trio have released two albums and toured in 35 countries over the past four years.

Their mix of traditional Estonian songs and modern sounds is played on 12-string guitar, percussion, bagpipes and whistles. They manage to create a big sound with acoustic instruments and are inspired by archival recordings of the old folk singers. As their website says, these are: “Exciting Estonian sounds in which the old and new collide and spark”.

The concert starts at 17:00 on Saturday 13^th October at Sakurazaka Theatre (Hall A). Trad.Attack! will be supported by their guests the Okinawan band Maltese Rock.

https://tradattack.ee

Nenez: Mapai

Mapai is the latest album from Nenez. Some time ago they changed the spelling of their name from Nenes to Nenez. The group members have often changed too and so it’s a bit odd this time to see them appear on the cover of the new release as a trio rather than the more familiar quartet. The three women are Misuzu Okiyama, Nagisa Uehara and Rie Motomura.

As usual, the album is produced by their mentor Sadao China who also writes some of the songs. A large cast of musicians is brought in to help, especially with the songwriting and arrangements and they include Kazufumi Miyazawa, Shingo Maekawa (Kariyushi 58), Masaru Shimabukuro (Begin), Yasuko Yoshida and Satoshi Kadekaru while members of Nenez also contribute some original songs.

To begin with the positives, there are a couple of songs here that stand out as worthy recordings. The second track ‘Shinburi Manburi’ is an original by Shingo Maekawa and it’s a fine lively song in the shimauta mode that Nenez and all their earlier incarnations would surely be pleased with. The other high point comes midway through the album with the simple straightforward performance of Yoshinori Shinkawa’s classic ‘Ume no Kaori’.

Unfortunately, the stark simplicity of ‘Ume no Kaori’ is not evident anywhere else on an album which contains far too many tired-sounding songs, over-familiar tunes and unimaginative arrangements. The rot sets in right from the beginning with ‘Fai Fai’ and its tediously old-fashioned treatment. China’s co-written ‘Miyarabi Utagokoro’ is just as bad and another co-written China song ‘Jinsei Hanbun Sake Hanbun’ has a hackneyed tune and a dinosaur guitar band arrangement.

It gets worse. ‘Kanpai’ is not the rousing celebration of drinking we might have expected but instead begins in a vaguely Hawaiian style before a surprisingly dull and dreary descent into boredom. ‘Anata no Koe’ is no better with another plodding arrangement by Satoshi Kadekaru. The worst perhaps is saved for last with Sadao China’s ‘Harmony’ which is an utterly predictable and sentimental song about Okinawa that we seem to have heard a million times before.

The perfectly acceptable bonus track ‘Harikyamaku’ tagged on at the end is not quite enough to make us forget what an ultimately unexciting album we’ve just listened to. There can be no complaints about the three Nenez women who sing beautifully throughout and are obviously very talented. But there are too many re-treads here and the women are never really allowed to shine as they might: a case maybe of too many cooks spoiling the broth. Mapai ends up more like a parody of the old Nenes. It’s no better or worse than its predecessor Dikka but it still chips away at the great legacy of the original band.

Mapai is released by King Records.

https://nenes.ti-da.net/

Okinawa Americana

A new one for the Features Archive. Earlier this year Merry and David Ralston paid me a visit to talk about their Okinawa Americana project. The article that came out of it is published in the Autumn edition of UK magazine fRoots.

Okinawa Americana

Indiana blues meets Okinawan sanshin. Oddly enough it works, reckons John Potter.

Okinawa based Merry and David Ralston are an unlikely pair. Merry, from Itoman in the south of the subtropical Japanese island, plays the ubiquitous three stringed sanshin. David Ralston, originally from Indiana, is a bluesman and a remarkable slide guitar player with many solo albums to his name. Together they formed the duo Okinawa Americana and last year released a self-titled debut album. Already very familiar to audiences on Okinawa they have toured mainland Japan and the USA where much of their album was recorded.

As a duo they play traditional Okinawan songs seasoned with blues, some country rock and a smattering of originals. They frequently share vocal duties within the same song – Merry singing in Uchinaguchi (the Okinawan language) and Japanese, and David in English – and perform both as an acoustic duo and sometimes with a band.

The traditional world of Okinawan minyo (folk song) is notoriously rigid and hierarchical but it’s obvious from the outset that Merry is different with her Afro hairstyle and pink sanshin. She explained her introduction to Okinawan music on a recent visit to my home along with David. “I first listened to sanshin when I was nine years old and my grandmother used to play. Later I began to play myself and learned from three different teachers. When I lived in Tokyo for a while I also learned Yaeyama Island songs which are very different from those of Okinawa, and I began performing solo while I was there.”

“I like Okinawan traditional music but I also like to play in a more casual way. With the old style I’m supposed to sing correctly in a certain way but I don’t care about that, I just want to sing the way that I like. I love singing with blues and Okinawan music joined together. Every song is different and it’s a mix but you can still feel it’s very Okinawan and you have more freedom. Of course, I really like the old singers too and I was influenced by some of them and especially by Hiromi Shiroma who often sang and recorded with the great Shouei Kina.”

David Ralston has lived on Okinawa for over 25 years– more than half his life. A meeting with the late American musician Delaney Bramlett set him on the path to the blues and it was Bramlett who encouraged him. “When I met him there was an unbelievable explosion of music because he was an amazing producer. He taught me about Mississippi blues and urged me not to sing or to play like anyone else but instead just to be myself. Merry is the same way because she wants to do something different and that’s why I think it works.”

“I met Merry through Kanako Horiuchi who was singing in my band at the time. We were doing music with a bit of Okinawan influence but not very much. Merry came to see me one day and she just started playing sanshin and singing Aha Bushi and I started playing Preachin’ Blues the old Son House song and they just came together naturally.”.

I saw Okinawa Americana last year when they played a storming set at a ‘live house’ in Okinawa in front of a very enthusiastic crowd but I wondered what the reaction was like when they played overseas.

“I wasn’t really sure how it was going to work in Nashville where there are some of the best musicians in the world” says David. “As soon as we started to play everybody said ‘what’s that?’ and the musicians came over and said things like: ‘I’ve never seen a banjo like that’. But it went very well.”

“We played one place and an old guy came up, he was a WW2 veteran and he walked up on the stage real slow when Merry was done. He grabbed hold of her kimono. He said ‘I was in Okinawa 1945 and it was the worst time of my life’. Merry was crying. And he said ‘I just want to say you guys made me happy. I tried to forget about that but then I see you guys’. He was 92 years old and his family came up and they said he never ever says anything about the Battle of Okinawa. That’s the kind of story you can’t make up.”

“When I have an experience like that I have found my purpose in doing this music” adds Merry.

When the two play simply as an acoustic duo they are perhaps at their most impressive. “We do more acoustic shows now because it’s easier to travel” David says.” It’s the most difficult way to play because you have to be good. You don’t need to have all these gadgets like when you’re playing electric. I play a 1930s National steel guitar and she’s playing a sanshin and there’s something of a cool factor about that. Her timing, doing what she does and I’m playing something else, She’s going up and I’m going down. Somehow it works.”

“We’re building a studio on the island in Yomitan. We’ve been working hard to get that together and we’ve got almost everything finished for our next album. We’ve just got to finish it up. It should be out at the end of this year or early next year because we’re doing some peace events… but that’s another story.”

www.okinawaamericana.com

(fRoots Magazine No.422, Autumn 2018).

Okinawa Americana in fRoots Magazine

My interview with the duo Okinawa Americana – Merry and David Ralston – is included in the new Autumn issue of the UK magazine fRoots published this week. The one page feature is part of the magazine’s Root Salad series. The article will eventually appear in the Features Archive category of this blog.

A selection of musicians featured in the Autumn 2018 fRoots. Bottom left: Okinawa Americana

In the meantime it can be read in all its glory by buying the magazine. There is also a digital edition that can be subscribed to through the newly revamped and updated fRoots website.

http://www.frootsmag.com

Geoffrey Keezer Trio: On My Way To You

American pianist and composer Geoffrey Keezer has a strong connection with Okinawa. In 2007 he joined Yaeyama singer and sanshin player Yasukatsu Oshima to record an album of Okinawan songs in a New York jazz setting that has since become a classic collaboration. Keezer had been a fan of Okinawan music for some time before that and his trio recorded the Sadao China composition ‘Koikugari Bushi’ two years before his meeting with Oshima.

Sadly for us, Keezer has not returned to Okinawan music but the door is always open for the possibility in the future. What he has done is to build on his already high reputation in the jazz world with more recordings and live shows. On My Way To You is a new album on which he plays piano and keyboards together with his working trio (Mike Pope on bass and Lee Pearson on drums) plus guest singer Gillian Margot.

The album’s ten tracks are a mix of songs and jazz arrangements, mostly of well-known pieces but also three brand new originals. What makes it different is the wide range of sources that Keezer’s inventive trio draw on. These include Thelonious Monk (‘Brilliant Corners’) and Stevie Wonder (‘These Three Words’) as well as Jimi Hendrix, Jerome Kern, and Michel Legrand.

Most satisfying of all is the closing track which manages to successfully combine and reimagine John Lennon’s ‘Across the Universe’ and ‘Give Peace a Chance’. Meanwhile Gillian Margot’s soulful contribution elsewhere adds even more variety and she provides some fine vocals on the five songs including Ewan MacColl’s much loved ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’.

On My Way To You is out now on MarKeez Records.

www.geoffreykeezer.com

Tidanomiyuki – Live in Naha

The Ishigaki singer, songwriter and guitarist Tidanomiyuki gave a live performance last night at Sound M’s in Naha. Presented as one of her monthly series of live shows known as Starry Nights, this one was billed as a Special Starry Night as she sang with a band and with an invited guest – the Hiroshima-born singer and pianist Hanako Kimura.

Tidanomiyuki’s band included Yuki Irei (electric guitar) and multi-instrumentalist Yoshio Hasegawa (accordion, flute, trumpet). Her warm personality engaged the audience from the outset at this small friendly venue. A trio of songs from her recent album – ‘Mother tree’, ‘Understood’ and ‘Loves’ – were the highlights in a joyful set that ended with her own take on the traditional Okinawan song ‘Tinsagu nu Hana’. She sang this with just acoustic guitar accompaniment and managed to rework the well-known song into her own individual style.

Hanako Kimura joined Tidanomiyuki and the other musicians on piano for a fun-filled finale that no-one really wanted to end.