OTHERLANDS COLLABORATION #20
Date: Mar. 12, 2020 • Location: Tokyo, Japan
Back in 2013, I did a remote recording session for Japanese shamisen player Yutaka Oyama from my home in Nashville, TN. We had met a few years before through banjoist Alison Brown at the bluegrass venue, the Station Inn. That night, Yutaka gifted me one of his CDs, and it was my first introduction to the shamisen. He is rooted in the Minyo tradition from Toyama, Japan but is forging new contemporary ground with his instrument. My meeting of shakuhachi player Akihito Obama wouldn't happen until the day of our session.
*To learn more about the music and projects of Yutaka and Akihito, please visit:
The shamisen is reminiscent of the banjo (to me), in part from the tone, and that it has a skin head—but on both sides of the body. The standard skin material is dog, and I was told only the maker knows where it comes from and the type. The shamisen has three strings, a flat fretless fingerboard, and the lowest string has an adjustable protrusion near the nut that gives the string a very slight buzz. The bachi (plectrum) is giant (though not as big as the one used on the biwa), heavy, and dangerously pointed. In crude terms, it looks like a putty knife made of tortoise shell and bone. There are three different types of shamisen—hosozao (small), chuzao (medium), and futozao (large)—used for different styles and techniques. Yutaka plays the largest one in a styled called tsugaru-shamisen.
About one month into my travels in India, I started to look towards our next stop, Japan. Yutaka would be on a tour in Thailand for a while, but as luck would have it, he was returning the third week into our trip. He had a gig and a new record in the works—both of which he invited me to play on. We fixed some Tokyo dates in the calendar, and now that I had something confirmed in Japan, we started to plan around this. We would spend the first two weeks in Kyoto, and then head towards Kamakura, just south of Tokyo where Yutaka was, and where I had an old friend.
Well, a lot can happen in a month and this is when the Covid-19 coronavirus really took off. Japan was hot in the news, along with China and Singapore. The virus-stricken Diamond Princess cruise ship was quarantined in Yokohama (between Kamakura and Tokyo). Our families in the US were worried about us traveling closer to the epicenter. This was all happening about a week before departing to Japan, and we started to question if we should even take the trip. But we had our inbound flight, and we had our lodging for the first two weeks. We would go and monitor the situation, deciding that we would cut our trip short if needed.
About a week into our Japan stay, the scenario began changing. Museums were closing and events were shutting down. Yutaka's gig got canceled. As much as we hated the idea of leaving Japan earlier than planned, it seemed the smart thing to do to—not for fear of catching the virus—but for fear of getting stuck somewhere and not being able to continue our travels. I was reluctant to go before getting to collaborate with Yutaka, so we decided to leave after our date, less than two weeks away. It would give my family a chance to plan our next steps, and besides, if we did get stuck in Japan, that wouldn't be so bad.
For our session, Yutaka sent me one track that I would overdub on for his upcoming record. When we discussed what to do for Otherlands, he mentioned trying a medley of traditional Japanese tunes — specifically one from his Minyo roots called "Ecchu-Owara-bushi" and a popular Japanese melody over 100 years old called "Sakura, Sakura" which means “Cherry Blossom, Cherry Blossom.”
I found the recording he forwarded of “Ecchu” to be quite lonesome sounding, with a slightly bluesy diatonic singing, that touched notes of American Appalachian mountain music. Even with that slight familiarity, the melody was not readily memorable and still foreign sounding to me. I jotted down the four different parts (all of different lengths) and played them over and over again with the recording, trying to catch the vocal phrasing and make it feel more natural.
When I searched recordings of "Sakura, Sakura," I was surprised to find that I recognized it right away, so much so that I may have played it somewhere before. I can hear the recording in my head to this moment, but I'm still not sure from where or when.
Two days before the session, Yutaka asked me if I was interested to have another traditional musician join us, perhaps on shakuhachi, a traditional Japanese bamboo flute. Yes, absolutely!
It took about 2hrs via one monorail, three trains, and foot to reach the studio. We started with overdubbing the tune for Yutaka's record. For the second time on this trip (see my blog with Dipannita), I had learned from a rehearsal recording, and thought the beat was in a different place. After literally straightening all that out, the overdub went down pretty smoothly. It's a great track and I'm excited to share a link when it's available.
Photo by Makiho
After a soba noodle and tempura lunch, I got the studio room ready for filming. To my surprise, when the shakuhachi player arrived, I immediately recognized him. Around the same time I first got in touch with Yutaka, I received a note from a Japanese violinist on Facebook, recommending that I collaborate with a musician named Akihito Obama. I never ended up contacting him since our time in the country got cut short—but it seems I didn't have to, and we were supposed to meet anyway. Synchronicity.
We set in to work on the tune tunes. The four parts of "Ecchu" make the song quite long, so we decided to play through only one time. Akihito and I would both share some melody unisons for instrumental sections in the traditional recording and trade off melody roles for the sung verses. This would be followed by an improvisational section between the three of us using the mijako-bushi scale that "Sakura, Sakura" is written from. The scale degrees are 1, b2, 4, 5, b6, 8...with a possible b7 thrown in at rare moments. Somehow, we'd find our way into a rubato version of "Sakura," followed by Yutaka establishing a groove, and finish together two more times at tempo.
Our plan made, it was time to record. As the first take began, I could feel an intensity of concentration and listening within myself, and I'm guessing it was the same for Yutaka and Akihito. None of us knew what to expect since we hadn't played through the full arrangement yet, and we were already recording it. During the improvisational section, the dynamic range of the shakuhachi startled me, and inspired me, as Akihito cut the silences with intense breathy stabs. As we finished the take, I felt a wave of concentration release. We had made it to the end of a powerful adventure. High fives, smiles, and excited statements were exchanged. This was a fun trio and a completely new experience for all of us. The connection was clear to everyone, and we decided to play it once more. The second take, which is what you hear in the video, was as intense as the first, with perhaps a bit more space.
A day later, my family and I did make it out of Japan as hoped. It's unfortunate we had to cut our time short, but that only means that we need to return. I finished on a high note with Yutaka and Akihito and am so glad we stayed long enough to see this collaboration through. I bet there will be more with this trio.
Photo by Makiho
CREDITS
Song: Ecchu-Owara-bushi / Sakura, Sakura (Traditional)
Music Arranged by: Casey Driessen, Yutaka Oyama & Akihito Obama
Shamisen: Yutaka Oyama
Shakuhachi: Akihito Obama
Fiddle, Audio & Video: Casey Driessen