Ichi, ni, so-re!: Songs for Sensei

I played in Mark Izu's Songs for Sensei show at the De Young Museum last night. It was such an honor. The more he told the stories about his sensei, who is his sho teacher, the more I realized how important this show was to him, and how honored I was to be included in this. The Sho is a reed instrument composed of multiple pipes that is played traditionally in Gagaku music, or traditional Japanese music played for the Imperial Court. Mark, besides being a talented and celebrated jazz bassist, is an experienced sho player. Before I met Mark I didn't even know what a sho was.

It was touching to me to see how a person like Mark, whom I consider a master musician, express his gratefulness and gratitude to his own teacher in a full length show. It made me appreciate the fact that even when you become very accomplished, one doesn't forget their roots and those who taught you your lessons along the way.

As a taiko player I consider myself an amateur, but being involved in this show has made me feel like maybe one day I can attain the experience of someone like Mark. As Janet and I were driving home from the show, I thanked her for including me in this, because I had assumed that Mark had asked her to perform and that she had included me because I am always willing and mostly available to play taiko with her. But she told me that Mark had asked her and I to perform with him, and I told her, Oh! I didn't know that. I sat there in the silence of the car. We were crossing the Bay Bridge, over the water, between here and there, the lights of the city casting their glow in the night. San Francisco was behind us, home was growing closer. We were moving away from one show, and as we passed through time and distance, we were traveling toward new horizons. Our lives reflect upon themselves. It was kind of one of those moments that I know I will never forget, and right now I can't quite explain why that moment was so overwhelming for me. Maybe someday.

It was a great show. Jazz is a new genre for me, and I studied my cues, studied the music. I am proud that I was able to hold down the rhythm in 5. I am happy that we pulled off Threading Time, the most challenging song for me (and the song that included a part of Kai To Ryu. I don't know what we would have done if we couldn't have pulled off the Kai section of the song!). I am totally impressed at our performance of Chikara, which for me, is a song that you can only nail if you have a complete ESP-mind-meld with your fellow player (or if both of you are metronomes, which we are not). I am greatly humbled to have worked with musicians who have been in the business for probably more years than I have been alive.

And for blog's sake, here are a couple of pics. Preset for the show. So many instruments! And it's not even so much that there were so many instruments, but that all the musicians playing those instruments were so darn good on them!