LIVE at Piedmont Piano Company
Akira Tana and Otonowa
Otonowa, led by Akira Tana, was founded in 2013 to tour and raise funds for the communities devastated by the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in 2011. The project pays homage to the victims of the natural disaster by presenting traditional and pop Japanese songs that Tana and Otonowa completely transform into modern American jazz instrumentals. Otonowa is Akira Tana (leader/drums), Masaru Koga (reeds and shakuhachi), Art Hirahara (piano), Ken Okada (bass), and special guest artist Jimi Nakagawa (taiko).
$20 General Admission
$25 at the door
We are offering a limited number of tickets to attend these performance in person. Advance purchase is recommended.
AKIRA TANA
A self-taught drummer, Akira Tana played semi-professionally while still at college. He attended Harvard University where he gained a degree in East Asian Studies/Sociology. He then studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, also taking private lessons from Vic Firth and other percussionists with the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops Orchestras and from jazz drummer Alan Dawson. During his studies he had the opportunity of working with Helen Humes, Milt Jackson, Sonny Rollins, Jaki Byard, George Russell, Sonny Stitt and other leading jazz musicians. He also played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and several of the classical music ensembles at the New England Conservatory and at the Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood.
In the early 80s he continued to accompany major artists such as Al Cohn, Art Farmer, Benny Golson, Jim Hall, Jimmy Rowles, Zoot Sims and Cedar Walton. He also performed with artists outside the jazz world, including Charles Aznavour, Lena Horne, and Van Dyke Parks. Tana recorded extensively during these years and in addition to albums with some of the foregoing also appeared with Ran Blake, Chris Connor, Carl Fontana, Jimmy Heath, Tete Montoliu, Spike Robinson, Warne Marsh and many others. In the early 90s Tana worked with James Moody, Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Wess, Ray Bryant, J.J. Johnson, and the Manhattan Transfer, among others. With the bassist, Rufus Reid he formed the band TanaReid and, with Reid and Kei Akagi, the Asian American Jazz Trio.
A technically accomplished drummer, Tana's wide range is hinted at by the musicians with whom he has worked. Comfortably at home accompanying singers and instrumental ballads, Tana is equally in his element playing hard bop. In the bands he co-led with Reid he generated an excitingly propulsive rhythmic drive. In addition to playing, Tana has also produced and co-produced several albums including those by TanaReid, the Asian American Jazz trio and Project G-7:A Tribute to Wes Montgomery featuring Kenny Burrell. Tana also has nine recordings as a leader, “Secret Agent Men” and “Moon Over the World,” and “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,”on Sons of Sound recordings. Another is “JAZZaNOVA” that features Branford Marsalis and Arturo Sandoval with vocalists, Clauida Villella, Sandy Cressman, Claudio Amaral, Jackie Ryan, amd Carla Helmbrecht.
The most recent projects are four recordings by his group, “Otonowa.” These recording features jazz interpretations of Japanese folk and pop melodies that date back decades and even centuries. This group has completed seven tours of the earthquake/tsunami stricken areas of northern Japan since March 2013. Akira plays Yamaha Drums, Vic Firth Sticks and Sabian Cymbals exclusively. Tana is currently on the faculty at San Francisco Conservatory of Music and does fill shifts on KCSM akiratana.com
MASARU KOGA
New York based multi-instrumentalist Masaru Koga, or Mas, as most would call him, developed his worldview at an early age. Soon after his birth in Chiba Japan, his family relocated to the US due to his father’s work, and spent this adolescent years moving around multiple times. By the time he graduated high school, he had lived in three different countries and nine different cities.
Mas took interest in music as a young child; especially in jazz music. At 11 years old he started learning the trumpet and joined the school band. Before long, he was listening to old recordings by Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and others. But a few years later, after another move to Munich Germany, he had a chance to borrow an alto saxophone from his sister’s friend. This, ultimately changed his life. With a magazine cutout of a fingering chart and CDs and cassettes of his favorite music, he began teaching himself. He was 15 years old.
With an international upbringing, it was fitting that he would find himself at San Jose State University to pursue music in the Improvised Music Studies, where he intensively studied and explored musical tradition from around the world. With the guidance from his mentors including Dwight Cannon, Dr. Hafez Modirzadeh, Dr. royal hartigan, Dan Sabanovich, Baomi Butts, and Joe Hodge. Mas earned his BA in IMS in 1995.
Fueled with a passion for cross-cultural experience, Mas started to incorporate the Japanese shakuhachi into his music, and began his apprenticeship with master shakuhachi artist Masayuki Koga. In addition to woodwinds, Mas fell in love with the sound of Brazilian Samba drumming and spent several years studying and playing within the rich Brazilian Samba community in the bay area. From 2006 to 2011 he served as the director for SambAsia San Francisco, an award winning Samba group originally founded by Jimmy Biala.
Mas has had the privilege of working with luminaries such as Fred Ho, Akira Tana, Anthony Brown, Mark Izu, Wayne Wallace and Kenny Endo, as well as his mentors Hafez Modirzadeh and royal hartigan. In addition to performing, Mas is an experienced educator. Aside from private instruction, he has taught at California Jazz Conservatory, and also conducted workshops domestically and internationally.
In 2010, he received “The Latin Jazz Corner Best of 2010 Awards” in the “Latin Jazz Flautist of the Year” category for his performance on vocalist Kat Parra’s album “Dos Amantes”. In 2013 he worked as a musical director for a three-week off-Broadway run of Fred Ho’s critically acclaimed theater work “Deadly She-Wolf Assassin At Armageddon!” in New York City, in which he conducted and performed as the leader of the Afro-Asian Music Ensemble.
His recent work includes annual concert tour to Japan with Otonowa led by drummer Akira Tana, in which they give concerts and music workshops for the communities recovering from the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquakes.
Mas’s sound encompasses the many cultural traditions he’s been touched by, and the worldview developed though diverse life experiences. He aims to create music that respects traditions and goes beyond styles and idioms, and ultimately help diminish all forms of social boundaries. maskoga.com
ART HIRAHARA
Art Hirahara is a jazz keyboardist and composer based in New York, NY. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Art moved to New York in 2003 to be challenged by its pool of world-class musicians. Here he has honed his craft, performing in a wide range of musical situations ranging from straight ahead standards to time cycle-based progressive jazz to free improvisation. From the traditional to the avant-garde, Art has found a sound of his own that cuts across genres and boundaries.
Art began his training in music at the age of four, studying with Sue Shannon, an unconventional classical piano teacher who taught improvisation and composition from the earliest stages of musical development. This provided the foundation for his awakening to jazz during his studies at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he earned a degree in Electronic and Computer Music. During his junior year, he began jazz piano studies with the Cleveland jazz giant, Neal Creque.
He then continued at California Institute of the Arts, where he was mentored by David Roitstein, Charlie Haden and Wadada Leo Smith. It was there that he immersed himself in world music, focusing on West African drumming and dance, Balinese gamelan and North Indian tabla. After his move to New York, Art studied at the Banff Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music program with Dave Douglas in 2004.
Art has had the privilege to perform with Stacey Kent, Freddy Cole, Akira Tana, Rufus Reid, Don Braden, Roseanna Vitro, Dave Douglas, Vincent Herring, Victor Lewis, Travis Sullivan s Bjorkestra, Jim Black, Jenny Scheinman, Greg Cohen, Fred Ho, Sean Nowell, royal hartigan and Hafez Modirzadeh. He has performed around the world in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, the Middle East and extensively around the United States.
In New York, he has played at the city ’s premier venues, including Birdland, Smalls, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Jazz Standard and 55 Bar. In addition to performing, Art is an educator. He has taught master classes both domestically and abroad. He taught at the Brooklyn-Queens Conservatory and was a performing member of NY PopsEd, an educational organization focusing on bringing music to elementary and secondary schools.
Art ’s piano and compositional sound are an amalgamation of the varied musical influences he has studied and the wide range of leaders he has worked for. Art is constantly seeking new situations to challenge his musicality. Most recently has worked as a producer for recordings and musical director for various artists of different genres. arthirara.com
KEN OKADA
Noriyuki Ken Okada, a multifaceted musician and software engineer, has spent a lifetime dedicated to the pursuit of artistic and technological excellence. Born in New York and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Yokohama, Japan, Ken's diverse background has enriched his playing style, effortlessly crossing boundaries between genres such as jazz, funk, bossa nova, and fusion.
Ken began his musical journey at the age of 5 with classical piano, later discovering a passion for programming at age 10. This early fascination with both music and technology laid the groundwork for his future success in these fields. Inspired by Japanese video game music at the time, Ken developed a deep admiration for fusion music.
At 13, Ken picked up drums and bass, forming multiple bands with friends and covering Japanese fusion bands. He would also program synthesizers and perform drums live with it using a digital sequencer and click track. This period allowed Ken to hone his skills in bass and drums as well as music programming, building a foundation for composing and arranging.
While at the University of Tokyo, Ken joined Keio University's prestigious jazz big band Keio Light Music Society as a bassist and arranger, despite not being a student there. Initially attracted to jazz to improve his improvisation skills for fusion music, Ken became so enamored with jazz that he focused on it exclusively for years before returning to fusion recently. His talent and dedication contributed to their victory in the largest national college big band competition in Japan.
After college, Ken founded a software company in Japan with musician friends, focusing on AI-generated music. They successfully commercialized their innovations as interactive music arrangement apps for mobile phones for telecom carriers such as AT&T Wireless in the United States and other international carriers.
In 2002, Ken moved to the Bay Area, where he has had the opportunity to play with esteemed local artists such as John Worley, Destiny Muhammad, Leon Joyce, Kristen Strom, and Akira Tana, among many others. His contributions as a bassist, composer, and arranger to many bands and projects have earned him performances at jazz festivals like the Monterey Jazz Festival, San Jose Jazz Festival, Stanford Jazz Festival, and SFJAZZ, as well as renowned jazz clubs such as Yoshi's, Kuumbwa Jazz Center, SFJAZZ Center, and Dizzy's.
In response to the 2011 East Japan Great Earthquake, Ken participated in two significant projects to help those affected. He acted as the musical director for Jazz Katsu, a series of jazz-themed fundraiser events that raised $29,743.17 for the Tohoku area of Japan. Ken also contributed to Akira Tana's earthquake relief project Otonowa, providing arrangements for Japanese folk melodies and children's songs in a jazz style. Otonowa has recorded 4 albums and toured to Tohoku 7 times so far, and plans to tour again soon in Japan for the first time after the COVID-19 pandemic.
With an unwavering commitment to his passions and achievements in both music and technology, Ken Okada continues to make his mark on the world, one note and one line of code at a time, drawing from his rich cultural background to create a truly unique sound. noriyukiokada.com
JIMI NAKAGAWA
Born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, taiko player, composer, and educator Jimi Nakagawa started playing drums when he was in high school and performed with local bands before coming to the US in 1981. In 1987, Jimi joined the San Francisco Taiko Dojo, directed by Grand Master Seiichi Tanaka and became a performing member and instructor to adults and children.
In 1997, he returned to Japan to continue his study of taiko and to perform with Sukeroku Daiko Hozonkai and Master Kenjiro Maru of the Wakayama style festival music. In 2009 and 2010, he was given a grant to study "tsuzumi (a Japanese hand drum)" with Master Saburo Mochizuki in Tokyo. In addition to studying Japanese traditional music, he has studied jazz with celebrated drummer, Robert Kaufman, a former professor at the Berkley College of Music.
In 1999, he and three other members founded a San Francisco Bay Area based taiko group, Somei Yoshino Taiko Ensemble and started his taiko school, OH-IN TAIKO, in Oakland. After 11 years of performing in the ensemble, he left the group in 2011 to pursue his career as a solo artist and expand his taiko school.
In December of 2019, Jimi became "Natori (accredited master)" of tsuzumi and received a name, 望月武響 (Bukyo Mochizuki).
Jimi has collaborated with Peter Erskine, Nguyen Le, Frank Martine, Van Anh Vo, Aaron Germain, Sheldon Brown, Robert Moses and Robert Moses Kin, Dr. Anthony Brown and the Asian American Orchestra, Steven Kent, Habib Kahn, Mary Fetting, Ali Ryerson, Charles Loos to name a few. Jimi's refined but driving stickwork has been featured in film, video and on stage. jiminakagawa.com