Tokyo Cuban Boys: The Fukushima Connection
Tokyo Cuban Boys was a legendary band, formed by Tadaaki Misago in 1949. They were hugely popular and influential in introducing Latin music to the mainstream of Japanese music fans. They remained at the pinnacle of the Latin/pop music scene for over 30 years until 1980.
Latin America is close to the heart of many Japanese people who have relatives that migrated to Peru, Brazil, and other countries across the Pacific Ocean in the early 20th century. Historically, Japan and Brazil has links going back to at least 1908, according to TokyoTopia.
One of my first memories in Tokyo, in the hot summer of 1988, was the Samba Festival in Asakusa, Tokyo. It has been cancelled this summer, because of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
In 2005 Misago's son, Kazuaki Misago, decided continue the Tokyo Cuban Boys band as 'Kazuaki Misago & His Tokyo Cuban Boys'.
This top tune is the Souma Bon Uta, a jazzed up version of a local melody from Souma, Fukushima. Eri Chiemi on vocals, and fantastic brass & percussions. Also certain themes from Glenn Miller, with a marvellous trombone solo too!
Below, you get Without You (Opening) from 1988.
Music brings people together: Musician and translator Alan Gleason has just returned from a gig in what might seem the unlikeliest of places: an evacuation center sheltering hundreds of people displaced from their homes by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.
CNNGo.com: The sound of music in Fukushima
Fukushima is known for its traditional tunes, such as Fisherman's Song. The lyrics is in the local dialect. Enjoy.
CNNGo: What gave you the idea to do this?
Alan Gleason: A month after the March 11 earthquake we played a gig at a café in my neighborhood in Suginami, on the west side of Tokyo.
Afterwards, a lady came up and introduced herself as Midori Watanabe, a liaison between Suginami and the city of Minami-Soma, Fukushima, which is inside the nuclear no-go zone and just north of the crippled Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant.
Suginami and Minami-Soma have a sister-city relationship, it turns out. A large number of Minami-Soma's citizens are staying in the spa resort town of Iizaka, just outside Fukushima city, 60 kilometers northwest of the nuke plant.
CNNGo: Resorts? Presumably not for R and R (though we're sure they could use it)?
Gleason: The resort hotels have been paid by the government to house the evacuees. They have been there since mid-April (previously they were in makeshift shelters elsewhere) with no idea of when they will be able to leave or where they can go.
Some lost their homes in the tsunami but many have homes that are intact, but essentially abandoned, in the no-go zone.
(...)
The warmest response came from the young kids in the audience, who were delighted to encounter a bunch of weird looking guys carrying even weirder instruments. They swarmed us and asked all kinds of questions about the violin, guitars and bass, wanting to touch them and try playing them.
During the concert some of the kids ran around the room playing tag, but others listened with rapt attention. It was clear they were going stir-crazy in their evacuation quarters, even in the nicely appointed resort hotels where many of them were staying.
Many of the evacuees talked to us quite willingly about their plight and their concerns. Parents, in particular, are worried about the kids. With their situation so unsettled, they don't know whether to enroll the kids in local schools, or to wait till they can resettle somewhere more permanently.
And in the meantime, they are upset that radiation levels are still high enough, even in Fukushima City, that kids are not supposed to go outside to play in the parks and school playgrounds.
CNNGo: How would you sum up the experience?
Gleason: I came away with the understanding that the evacuees desperately need cheering up, not to be told to "cheer up." More than anything else, though, they need housing, and relief from the fear of radiation.
We made a point of avoiding even well-intentioned words of encouragement, because the evacuees had heard it all and were sick and tired of being told by government bureaucrats and media personalities to "hang in there" ("Ganbaro!" in Japanese).
Read more: The sound of music in Fukushima | CNNGo.com http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/life/sound-music-fukushima-584356#ixzz1QmYvUZ9T
Summer festivals are a big part of my memories of summer in Japan. As hot as it gets, at night, there will be music, dance, drums, flutes, more dance and lots of fun. There is nothing like it, except perhaps in Latin America!?
From the summer festival, 2009, in Souma, Fukushima:
Latin America is close to the heart of many Japanese people who have relatives that migrated to Peru, Brazil, and other countries across the Pacific Ocean in the early 20th century. Historically, Japan and Brazil has links going back to at least 1908, according to TokyoTopia.
One of my first memories in Tokyo, in the hot summer of 1988, was the Samba Festival in Asakusa, Tokyo. It has been cancelled this summer, because of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
In 2005 Misago's son, Kazuaki Misago, decided continue the Tokyo Cuban Boys band as 'Kazuaki Misago & His Tokyo Cuban Boys'.
This top tune is the Souma Bon Uta, a jazzed up version of a local melody from Souma, Fukushima. Eri Chiemi on vocals, and fantastic brass & percussions. Also certain themes from Glenn Miller, with a marvellous trombone solo too!
Below, you get Without You (Opening) from 1988.
Music brings people together: Musician and translator Alan Gleason has just returned from a gig in what might seem the unlikeliest of places: an evacuation center sheltering hundreds of people displaced from their homes by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.
CNNGo.com: The sound of music in Fukushima
Fukushima is known for its traditional tunes, such as Fisherman's Song. The lyrics is in the local dialect. Enjoy.
CNNGo: What gave you the idea to do this?
Alan Gleason: A month after the March 11 earthquake we played a gig at a café in my neighborhood in Suginami, on the west side of Tokyo.
Afterwards, a lady came up and introduced herself as Midori Watanabe, a liaison between Suginami and the city of Minami-Soma, Fukushima, which is inside the nuclear no-go zone and just north of the crippled Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant.
Suginami and Minami-Soma have a sister-city relationship, it turns out. A large number of Minami-Soma's citizens are staying in the spa resort town of Iizaka, just outside Fukushima city, 60 kilometers northwest of the nuke plant.
CNNGo: Resorts? Presumably not for R and R (though we're sure they could use it)?
Gleason: The resort hotels have been paid by the government to house the evacuees. They have been there since mid-April (previously they were in makeshift shelters elsewhere) with no idea of when they will be able to leave or where they can go.
Some lost their homes in the tsunami but many have homes that are intact, but essentially abandoned, in the no-go zone.
(...)
The warmest response came from the young kids in the audience, who were delighted to encounter a bunch of weird looking guys carrying even weirder instruments. They swarmed us and asked all kinds of questions about the violin, guitars and bass, wanting to touch them and try playing them.
During the concert some of the kids ran around the room playing tag, but others listened with rapt attention. It was clear they were going stir-crazy in their evacuation quarters, even in the nicely appointed resort hotels where many of them were staying.
Many of the evacuees talked to us quite willingly about their plight and their concerns. Parents, in particular, are worried about the kids. With their situation so unsettled, they don't know whether to enroll the kids in local schools, or to wait till they can resettle somewhere more permanently.
And in the meantime, they are upset that radiation levels are still high enough, even in Fukushima City, that kids are not supposed to go outside to play in the parks and school playgrounds.
CNNGo: How would you sum up the experience?
Gleason: I came away with the understanding that the evacuees desperately need cheering up, not to be told to "cheer up." More than anything else, though, they need housing, and relief from the fear of radiation.
We made a point of avoiding even well-intentioned words of encouragement, because the evacuees had heard it all and were sick and tired of being told by government bureaucrats and media personalities to "hang in there" ("Ganbaro!" in Japanese).
Read more: The sound of music in Fukushima | CNNGo.com http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/life/sound-music-fukushima-584356#ixzz1QmYvUZ9T
Summer festivals are a big part of my memories of summer in Japan. As hot as it gets, at night, there will be music, dance, drums, flutes, more dance and lots of fun. There is nothing like it, except perhaps in Latin America!?
From the summer festival, 2009, in Souma, Fukushima:
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