Musicians: Bass: Hiroyuki Shido; Drums: Kenny Endo; Soprano, Alto, Tenor Saxs: David Davoud Johnson; Alto Sax, Flute, Fue, Taiko: Russel Baba; Guitar: Makoto Horiuchi; Percussion: Doug Santos; Taiko: Jeannie Mercer
Kamikaze was an Asian American band that wanted to fuse Black music with Asian music. They were one of the first to experiment with using Asian instruments in their music. The others being Gerald Oshita and Hiroshima who were also experimenting with using Asian instruments and applying the Asian sensibility i.e. scales, breathing, and rhythms to their music.
As memory serves, I believe this was a performance in Bear’s Lair. This was another iteration of Kamikaze. Kenny Endo and Hiroyuki Shido had joined the band. Kenny came up from LA to study Taiko with Sensei Seichi Tanaka of San Francisco Taiko. On this recording he is playing trap drums. Kenny also played trap drums at the time, and was studying from the great Eddie Moore. You’ll be able to hear Eddie in some other tapes I will post of an Asian American hangout in Japantown San francisco called the “Jigoku” when Kenny and I played there. The other musicians were in the first congregation of KamiKaze: Davoud David Johnson, Russel Baba, Doug Santos and myself. Fook Sang, Spirit Dance, Thoughts, were written by Makoto. Listen to the music is a Russel Baba composition. Kyoto’s Fancy was written by Raymond Cheng a wonderful violin player that we knew and played with. The last tune is a composition I wrote, but cannot remember the title. Lol!
Lastly, I was only able to find two pictures of this congregation of Kamikaze. If anyone has some to add please send them to me.
For tha Audio Geeks and Audiophiles
This tape was converted to 24bit 44.1 audio files, but the software used for the internet is only compatible with the 16bit mp3 format so the sound is a little compressed. This session was transferred from a cassette tape recorded on a Tascam TC-D5M which was the state of the art at the time. The cassette recorder came with a stereo microphone and if placed right it was a amazing machine. Placement on this recording was ok, but I felt that given all these limitations the spirit of the performance and the aura of the times comes through the recording. I felt that the performance needed to be heard by those who would be interested. I hope you enjoy it.
Pictures were taken by Jeannie Wong