I first heard the music of the Ryukyu Islands in the early 1990's, while I was performing with a jazz group in Fukuoka, Japan. My hotel room had a cable radio system with 400 channels, and one day as I was browsing the "traditional Japanese music" channels I came across the "Okinawa" program. I was immediately struck by how different this music sounded from anything else I'd ever heard, yet there was something eerily familiar about it. It felt very old, like I'd known these melodies all along, as though some part of me was already deeply connected to them - like I recognized this music from a recent past life. From that day onward I sought out and listened to as much Okinawan music as I could find - the Nenes, Rinsho Kadekaru, Rinken Band, Shoukichi Kina, and countless archival recordings of music from all over the Ryukyus.

As is my habit, whenever I hear a style of music or an artist that I'm drawn to, I want to find a way to collaborate, to express this new influence in my own original way as well as I am able. It has been one of my dreams for over ten years to make an album of Ryukyuan music. Fortunately, thanks to reading John Potter's book "The Power of Okinawa", I was introduced to the incredible artistry of Yasukatsu Oshima. I bought four of his records at once, and knew within hearing one song that this was the musician I had been looking for. Oshima is roughly my age (we're both still in our 30's) but his voice sounds much older and deeper. I have heard the same comment made about my piano playing many times. So maybe we're both old souls. In any case, we connected right away: I arranged a meeting with Oshima in Osaka, where he lives, while I was on tour there in the fall of 2005. We rented a little dance studio with an upright piano, played through about ten songs, and within an hour we were talking about making a CD together. The day ended perfectly with a huge meal of Okinawan food and abundant "awamori" (island spirits) at his favorite restaurant. (Okinawan cuisine is kind of like Japanese "soul food"!)

The songs on this CD come from Yasukatsu's home island Ishigaki and the surrounding Yaeyama islands, as well as Okinawa. It was important to Oshima to have a good balance between Yaeyama and Okinawa songs, as I learned the songs of the respective island groups are very different from each other in terms of feeling and lyric content. The musical scales are different as well. I also learned in the studio that Oshima sings with a traditional, nearly lost, technique meant to project his voice without the use of microphones. We had to move him out of his small vocal booth into the main big studio room, because his voice was literally shaking the walls of that tiny booth!

While the main focus of this CD is on our duo collaborations, I am also happy to have the chance to present Oshima in my element as well: in the middle of a jazz band! I feel quite honored that even though he barely knew me at the time of this recording (before coming to my show in Osaka, he had never been to a jazz concert), he trusted my intentions completely and allowed me to experiment with his music in a jazz context. After we recorded "Agarikata Bushi" he just smiled and laughed - it might have sounded crazy to him but we all had fun!

To purchase this CD, go here:
http://www.farsidemusic.com/acatalog/YASUKATSU_OSHIMA.html