Friday, June 15, 2007
Japanese bluegrass: Try it, you might like it
The style of music can be heard Tuesday in Roanoke when Takeharu Kunimoto and his band perform.
Takeharu Kunimoto and Last Frontier
Japanese Music, Storytelling and Bluegrass
- When: Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.
- Where: Jefferson Center
- Tickets: $12
- Call: 345-2550
- For the band’s schedule, visit www.myspace.com/japanesebanjo
IO Jukebox
from the CD "Appalachian Shamisen"
Mixing traditional Japanese music and American bluegrass sounds as appetizing as a plate of sushi and grits.
Once you get a taste of it, though, you'll want seconds.
Takeharu Kunimoto plays the shamisen, a traditional Japanese stringed instrument, only he plays it kind of like a banjo. He and his band of American bluegrassers, Last Frontier, will bring their Far-East-meets-Appalachia sound to Jefferson Center on Tuesday.
Kunimoto's style on the three-stringed shamisen sounds a little like a cross between an old-time tenor banjo and a mandolin. The group surrounds him with bluegrass-style banjo, mandolin, guitar and bass. When Kunimoto takes a solo, such as on his original instrumental, "Appalachian Shamisen," the instrument fits like a high-tenor harmony.
"Japanese folk music and American folk music both share that lonesome, mournful sound," said J.P. Mathes, banjo player and chief spokesman for Last Frontier. (Kunimoto speaks some English but isn't totally comfortable with telephone interviews, Mathes said.)
"Kunimoto's first instrument was actually the mandolin, so he was a bluegrass player first."
Kunimoto heard bluegrass on a Japanese radio station as a teenager in 1973, and he saw the genre's progenitor, Bill Monroe, during a tour of Japan the next year. Bluegrass has a small but passionate following in Japan, where several festivals bring as many as 100 Japanese bluegrass bands together.
"The rhythm and sound were very unique, but I could not exactly understand the words," said Hajime Onuma, a Japanese bluegrass musician who lives in Roanoke and plays bass for a local bluegrass band called New Grass Revue. He also helped promote Last Frontier's upcoming concert. In Japan, he played bass for a band called Stove.
"The first time I heard the music was on a radio station in Japan. The sound struck me. Another thing is that it is strictly acoustic. No amplifier is needed just for jamming."
Onuma has known Kunimoto for 20 years. Kunimoto came to the United States in 2003 as part of a cultural exchange program to study in East Tennessee State University's bluegrass program. He met Mathes there, and they formed Last Frontier the next year. The group has toured the United States and Japan and played at the famed CBGB in New York and at the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas. The group recorded an album, "Appalachian Shamisen," a collection of original and traditional bluegrass songs.
The group was also featured on the PBS show "Song of the Mountains." According to Mathes, after a woman in Washington, D.C., saw their performance on that show, she looked up the band's schedule and made a road trip to Marion to see them play live.
Kunimoto spends most of his time in Japan, where he is an actor, artist, narrator for Japanese children's films, storyteller and musician. The United States tour will be short, followed by a two-week tour of Japan in early July.
"It's the 'Virginia to Tokyo' tour," Mathes said.
