RISE OF THE YURICANE

Citizen of both worlds but a stranger in both _ poet and writer Yuri Kageyama, who grew up in the U.S. and Japan, has always felt that way about those two cultures shaping her identity.

That is why the pain of marginality and the outrage against discrimination have been central themes in her writing, which spans more than three decades.

The experience of being called “Jap” in America and the experience of being told to serve tea in Japan tap into the same important source of creative power for her works.

Kageyama was born in Japan, but was 6 when she moved with her family for the first time to the U.S.

Her father was a rocket engineer and did research at the University of Maryland and later at NASA in Alabama.

And so it was natural she would choose the English language to express herself.

She loves ukiyoe as much as Andy Warhol, and pecan pie as much as sushi.

Kenji Miyazawa is as much her literary influence as is T.S. Eliot.

Another distinguishing aspect about Kageyama’s approach is her collaborations with artists in other genres, such as dance and music.

She has worked with a variety of jazz musicians, including Eric Kamau Gravatt and Russel Baba, and feels that crossing genres is as part of her vision as is crossing discriminatory cultural boundaries.

The legacy of exploring the art of “Asian America” is being passed down to a new generation in Kageyama’s son Isaku, a student at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Isaku, born in San Francisco and bilingual and bicultural like his mother, has studied “taiko,” or Japanese drumming, since he was 6 years old with Amanojaku, a professional taiko group led by Yoichi Watanabe, which specializes in the Tokyo-style of “kumi” or ensemble taiko.

Isaku is now trying to forge a new kind of “world music” through his studies at Berklee.

He is eager to win global audiences for taiko _ to gain what he thinks is the form’s rightful and respected position in the world of music _ and perhaps cross musical boundaries of his own into jazz, pop and world categories with not only taiko but other forms of ethnic percussion.

Isaku performed in a musical and poetry collaboration for a book party in San Francisco for Kageyama’s latest book, “The New and Selected Yuri: Writing From Peeling Till Now” (2011: Ishmael Reed Publishing Co.).

All the musicians who performed added to Kageyama’s multicultural vision, sound and poetics _ Gravatt, Makoto Horiuchi, Ashwut Rodriguez, Hiroyuki Shido and Glen Pearson, not just Isaku.    

She is now working on “Story of Miu,” a theater piece about the plight of Asian women, abortion and the relationship between generations of women.

The work-in-progress is being directed by Carla Blank, who has worked with Robert Wilson and also played violin at the book party.

“Story of Miu” also features dancer Yuki Kawahisa and drummer Pheeroan akLaff.

Tecla Esposito played keyboards in the reading debut of the work at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York in April 2012.

Kageyama often collaborates with visual artists.

Japanese filmmaker Yoshiaki Tago has been documenting her pan-Pacific readings since 2008, including those in the Tokyo area with master percussionist Winchester Nii Tete from Ghana.    

By collaborating with people of different genres and cultures, Kageyama hopes to achieve that perfect moment, when through poetics and music, people can come together.

This is what the great poet, novelist and playwright Reed wrote in the “Introduction” to “The New and Selected Yuri: Writing From Peeling Till Now:”

      

“They’ve called Yuri “cute” often during her life. She’s cute all right. Like a tornado is cute. Like a hurricane is cute. This Yuricane.

I found that out when she was a student at the University of California at Berkeley in the 1970s. One of her poems about iconic white women became an underground hit on campus.

In 2009 the audience at New York City’s Bowery Poetry Club was also blown away by her poem, “Little YELLOW Slut,” a devastating look at the way Asian women are depicted in the media.

‘The New and Selected Yuri’ includes poems like this; the manner by which Japanese women are imprisoned behind a ‘Noh mask,’ but Kageyama doesn’t leave it at that.

Unlike many American Gender First feminists,she is capable of understanding how men are also victims of outmoded customs, though they are not dismissed merely as “reproductive machines,” as one minister was caught saying in an unguarded moment. Women should be “quiet” and have bok choy ready when the men come home from
drinking with the boys.

It’s also the women, who bear the miscarriages, the abortions, the rapes, the beatings from a father, who, years later, can’t give an explanation for why he did it. In the United States, the white men who own the media and Hollywood blame the brutality against women on the poor and minority men. White middle class women, and their selected minority women, who want to remain on their payrolls in business, politics and academia, have become surrogates in this effort.

Courageously, Yuri Kageyama debunks this myth and correctly calls out men of all backgrounds and classes as women abusers. The father who inflicts gratuitous punishment upon his daughter is a NASA scientist.

These poems are honest. Blunt. When she says that writing a poem is like taking “a bungee jump,” she means it.

Very few of the world poets have Yuri Kageyama’s range. Her poems critique Japanese as well as American society. The Chikan. The arrogance of the gaijin, who, even when guests in a country, insist that everybody be like them. Some are erotic. You might find allusions to Richard Wright, Michelangelo, John Coltrane. Music is not only entertainment but like something that one injects, something that invades the nervous system.

I asked writer Haki Madhubuti, what he meant by African Centrism. He said that it was based upon selecting the best of African traditions.

Some of Yuri Kageyama’s poems might be considered Nippon Centric. She wants to jettison those customs that oppress both men and women, especially the women, and keep those of value. The Kakijun, The Enryo and The Iki.”

Kageyama has named the band she reads with The Yuricane in homage of Reed’s words.

Among other artists in Japan and the U.S. that Kageyama has read with: Shuntaro Tanikawa, Geraldine Kudaka, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Seamus Heaney, Sachiko Yoshihara, the Broun Fellinis and Lorna Dee Cervantes.

Kageyama’s poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in many literary anthologies and magazines, including “Y’Bird,” “Greenfield Review,” “San Francisco Stories,” “On a Bed of Rice,” “Breaking Silence: an Anthology of Asian American Poets,” “POW WOW: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience _ Short Fiction from Then to Now,” “phati’tude,” “Other Side River,” “Beyond Rice,” “Bridge, ” “Yellow Silk,” “Stories We Hold Secret,” “KONCH,” “Pirene’s Fountain,” “MultiAmerica” and “Obras.”

She has translated Kenzaburo Oe and Hiromi Ito, as well as the words of Suzushi Hanayagi for Robert Wilson’s performance piece “KOOL _ Dancing in My Mind.”

Kageyama’s poetry, translated into Japanese, is featured in a 1985 anthology of Japanese-American and Japanese-Canadian poetry published by Doyo Bijutsusha. She has a 1993 book in Japanese co-written with Hamao Yokota on the Japanese workplace.

She is a magna cum laude graduate of Cornell University and holds an M.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.

She lives in Tokyo, where she also works as a journalist. To visit Yuri Kageyama's website CLICK HERE

Isaku Kageyama, born on December 12, 1981 in San Francisco, California, is a taiko drummer in Boston, MA. who has brought the traditional Japanese instrument to the cutting-edge modern art scene across the globe. His distinct sound, strongly rooted in classical Japanese music, adds elements from a wide variety of music genres such as rock, jazz, electronic, Latin, and African, to produce a powerful groove that goes far beyond traditional taiko. 

Isaku Kageyama is a pioneering taiko drummer who has brought the traditional Japanese instrument to the cutting-edge modern art scene across the globe. His distinct sound, strongly rooted in classical Japanese music, adds elements from a wide variety of music genres such as rock, jazz, electronic, Latin, and African, to produce a powerful groove that goes far beyond traditional taiko.
Isaku has collaborated with jazz greats Terumasa Hino, Toshinori Kondo, and Kazutoki Umezu, as well as a wide range of ethnic musicians such as NATA (digeridoo), and Winchester Nii Tete (African percussion), He has worked on projects with fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto, and anime legend Takashi Yanase.
He is also a two-time National Odaiko (large drum) Champion, becoming the youngest person to win highest honors at the Mr. Fuji Odaiko Contest in 2000, and Hokkaido in 2003. Isaku has appeared in television commercials and events for brands such as Toyota, Boeing, Japan Postal Service, Aioi Sonpo and Shin Nihon Tatemono.
A powerful musician and icon of traditional Japanese culture, Isaku is one of the primary taiko drummers who will carry the art into the 21st century.

He has a popular online taiko course on Loopto with students from around the world
http://www.loopto.com/taikolessons 

To Visit Isaku Kageyama's website CLICK HERE

Quintessential Quincy

QUINTESSENTIAL QUINCY    

An impresario in the broadest and most creative sense of the word, Quincy Jones' career has encompassed the roles of composer, record producer, artist, film producer, arranger, conductor, instrumentalist, TV producer, record company executive, magazine founder, multi-media entrepreneur and humanitarian. As a master inventor of musical hybrids, he has shuffled pop, soul, hip-hop, jazz, classical, African and Brazilian music into many dazzling fusions, traversing virtually every medium, including records, live performance, movies and television.

Celebrating more than 60 years performing and being involved in music, Quincy's creative magic has spanned over six decades, beginning with the music of the post-swing era and continuing through today's high-technology, international multi-media hybrids. In the mid-50's, he was the first popular conductor-arranger to record with a Fender bass. His theme from the hit TV series Ironside was the first synthesizer-based pop theme song. As the first black composer to be embraced by the Hollywood establishment in the 60's, he helped refresh movie music with badly needed infusions of jazz and soul. His landmark 1989 album, Back On The Block--named "Album Of The Year" at the 1990 Grammy Awards-- brought such legends as Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Miles Davis together with Ice T, Big Daddy Kane and Melle Mel to create the first fusion of the be bop and hip hop musical traditions; while his 1993 recording of the critically acclaimed Miles and Quincy Live At Montreux, featured Quincy conducting Miles Davis' live performance of the historic Gil Evans arrangements from the Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain sessions, garnered a Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance. As producer and conductor of the historic "We Are The World" recording (the best-selling single of all time) and Michael Jackson's multi-platinum solo albums, Off The Wall, Bad and Thriller (the best selling album of all time, with over 50 million copies sold), Quincy Jones stands as one of the most successful and admired creative artist/executives in the entertainment world.

His 1995 recording, Q's Jook Joint, again showcased Quincy's ability to mold the unique talents of an eclectic group of singers and musicians, in what resulted in a retrospective of his broad and diverse career from that of a seasoned Jazz musician, to skilled composer, arranger, and bandleader, to acclaimed record producer.

A reference to the backwoods club houses of rural America in the 1930's, 40's, and 50's, the platinum selling Q's Jook Joint featured performances by artists such as Bono, Brandy, Ray Charles, Phil Collins, Coolio, Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds, Gloria Estefan, Rachelle Ferrell, Aaron Hall, Herbie Hancock, Heavy D., Ron Isley, Chaka Khan, R. Kelly, Queen Latifah, Tone Loc, the Luniz, Brian McKnight, Melle Mel, Shaquille O'Neal, Joshua Redman, the Broadway musical troupe Stomp, SWV, Take 6, newcomer Tamia, Toots Thielemans, Mervyn Warren, Barry White, Warren Wiebe, Charlie Wilson, Nancy Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Mr. X, and Yo-Yo, among others, and garnered seven Grammy nominations. His recording, From Q, With Love, featured a collection of 26 love songs that he recorded over the last 32 years of his more than 50 year career in the music business.

Named by Time Magazine as one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century, Quincy Jones was born on March 14, 1933, in Chicago and brought up in Seattle. While in junior high school, he began studying trumpet and sang in a gospel quartet at age 12. His musical studies continued at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he remained until the opportunity arose to tour with Lionel Hampton's band as a trumpeter, arranger and sometime-pianist. He moved on to New York and the musical "big leagues" in 1951, where his reputation as an arranger grew. By the mid-50's, he was arranging and recording for such diverse artists as Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Big Maybelle, Dinah Washington, Cannonball Adderly and LeVern Baker.

In 1957, Quincy decided to continue his musical education by studying with Nadia Boulanger, the legendary Parisian tutor to American expatriate composers such as Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copeland. To subsidize his studies he took a job with Barclay Disques, Mercury's French distributor. Among the artists he recorded in Europe were Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel and Henri Salvador, as well as such visitors from America as Sarah Vaughan, Billy Eckstine and Andy Williams. Quincy's love affair with European audiences continues through the present: in 1991, he began a continuing association with the Montreux Jazz and World Music Festival, which he serves as co-producer.

Quincy won the first of his many Grammy’s in 1963 for his Count Basie arrangement of "I Can't Stop Loving You." Quincy's three-year musical association as conductor and arranger with Frank Sinatra in the mid-60's also teamed him with Basie for the classic Sinatra At The Sands, containing the famous arrangement of "Fly Me To The Moon," the first recording played by astronaut Buzz Aldrin when he landed upon the moon's surface in 1969.

When he became vice-president at Mercury Records in 1961, Quincy became the first high-level black executive of an established major record company. Toward the end of his association with the label, Quincy turned his attention to another musical area that had been closed to blacks--the world of film scores. In 1963, he started work on the music for Sidney Lumet's The Pawnbroker and it was the first of his 33 major motion picture scores. In 1985, he co-produced Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Alice Walker's The Color Purple, which garnered eleven Oscar nominations, introduced Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey to film audiences, and marked Quincy's debut as a film producer. In 1991 Quincy helped launch NBC-TV's hit series, The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, for which he served as an executive producer.

In 1990, Quincy Jones formed Quincy Jones Entertainment (QJE), a co-venture with Time Warner, Inc. The new company, which Quincy served as CEO and chairman, had a broad ranging, multi-media agenda which encompassed programming for current and future technologies, including theatrical motion pictures and network, cable and syndicated television. QJE produced NBC Television's Fresh Prince Of Bel Air (now in syndication), and UPN's In The House and Fox Television's Mad TV, among other syndicated shows and television specials. In 1991 Jones founded VIBE Magazine, and with his publishing group VIBE Ventures, would go on to acquire SPIN and Blaze Magazines before divesting his magazine interests.
In January 1992, Quincy Jones executive produced the An American Reunion concert at Lincoln Memorial, an all-star concert and celebration that was the first official event of the presidential inaugural celebration and drew widespread acclaim as an HBO telecast.

On March 25, 1996, Quincy Jones, executive produced the most watched awards show in the world, the 68th Annual Academy Awards. The show received widespread acclaim as one of the most memorable Academy Award shows in recent years.

In 1997, Quincy Jones formed the Quincy Jones Media Group. QJMG’s feature film projects in development include such highly anticipated films as the adaptations of the Ralph Ellison novel Juneteeth, David Halberstam’s The Children for Home Box Office in association with producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, a bio-pic on the 19th century Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, Pimp and Seeds of Peace for Showtime, among others. For television, QJMG is developing the sit-com The White Guy. QJMG is also active in live entertainment, direct response marketing, and cross-media projects for home entertainment and educational applications. Along with Harvard University and MicroSoft, Jones produced the complete encyclopedia of African and African-American culture, Encarta Africana.

As a record company executive, Quincy remained highly active in the recording field throughout the 1990s as the guiding force behind his own Qwest Records, which boasted such important artists as New Order, Tevin Campbell, Andre Crouch, Gregory Jefferson and Justin Warfield. New Order's album, Substance earned Qwest a gold album in 1987. Tevin Campbell's T.E.V.I.N was both a critical sensation and major commercial success, and the label's release of the Boyz N The Hood soundtrack album was among the most successful soundtrack recordings of 1991. Qwest Records has also released soundtrack albums from the major motion pictures Sarafina! and Malcolm X.

In 1994, Quincy Jones led a group of businessmen, including Hall of Fame football player Willie Davis, television producer Don Cornelius, television journalist Geraldo Rivera and businesswoman Sonia Gonsalves Salzman in the formation of Qwest Broadcasting, a minority controlled broadcasting company which purchased television stations in Atlanta and New Orleans for approximately $167 million, establishing it as one of the largest minority owned broadcasting companies in the United States. Quincy served as chairman and CEO of Qwest Broadcasting. In 1999, taking advantage of the rapid escalation of broadcast station values, Jones and his partners sold Qwest Broadcasting for a reported $270 million.
The laurels, awards and accolades have been innumerable: Quincy has won an Emmy Award for his score of the of the opening episode of the landmark TV miniseries, Roots, seven Oscar nominations, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, 27 Grammy Awards, and N.A.R.A.S.' prestigious Trustees' Award and The Grammy Living Legend Award. He is the all-time most nominated Grammy artist with a total of 79 Grammy nominations. In 1990, France recognized Quincy with its most distinguished title, the Commandeur de la Legion d' Honneur. He is also the recipient of the French Ministry of Culture's Distinguished Arts and Letters Award. Quincy is the recipient of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music's coveted Polar Music Prize, and the Republic of Italy's Rudolph Valentino Award. He is also the recipient of honorary doctorates from Howard University, the Berklee College of Music, Seattle University, Wesleyan University, Brandeis University, Loyola University (New Orleans), Clark Atlanta University, Claremont University's Graduate School, the University of Connecticut, Harvard University, Tuskegee University, New York University, University of Miami and The American Film Institute, among others. In 2001, Jones was named a Kennedy Center Honoree, for his contributions to the cultural fabric of the United States of America; and most recently was recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts as a Jazz Master, the nation’s highest jazz honor.

In 1990, his life and career were chronicled in the critically acclaimed Warner Bros. film, Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones, produced by Courtney Sale Ross, a film which helped illuminate not only Quincy's life and spirit, but also revealed much about the development of the African American musical tradition. Reflecting on the changes in pop music over the years, Quincy says, "If there are any common denominators, they are spirit and musicality. I go for the music that gives me goose bumps, music that touches my heart and my soul." Over the years, Quincy Jones has reached the essence of music and art: the ability to touch people's feelings and emotions.

In 2001, Quincy Jones added the title “Best Selling Author” to his list of accomplishments when his autobiography “Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones” entered the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal Best-Sellers lists. Released by Doubleday Publishing, the critically acclaimed biography retells Jones’ life story from his days as an impoverished youth on the Southside of Chicago through a massively impressive career in music, film and television where he worked beside legends such as Billie Holiday, Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and Michael Jackson, among many others. In conjunction with the autobiography, Rhino Records released a 4-cd boxed set of Jones’ music, spanning his more than 5 decade career in the music business, entitled “Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones.”

The audio recording of “Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones,” (Simon & Schuster) earned Jones his 27th Grammy Award, in the Best Spoken Word Category, while “Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones” garnered him a 15th NAACP Image Award, in the category of Outstanding Jazz Artist.
In 2008 “The Complete Quincy Jones: My Journey & Passions, (Palace Press) examined the virtuosity of the man Frank Sinatra named “Q,” celebrating his prolific contribution to American art and culture. The book included a foreword by Clint Eastwood, preface from Bono, an introduction by Maya Angelou and an afterword by Sidney Poitier. Comprised of personal interviews and recollections from Jones, this collection peers behind the veil of celebrity, with extraordinary access to his creative inspirations and achievements.

Jones next projects include the forthcoming release of Soul Bossa Nostra, an album featuring some of today’s biggest recording artists and producers such as Usher, Ludacris, Akon, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige, T-Pain, Robin Thicke, LL Cool J, John Legend, Snoop Dogg, Wyclef Jean, Q-Tip, Talib Kweli, Three 6 Mafia, David Banner, Bebe Winans, Mervyn Warren, Jermaine Dupri, DJ Paul, and Scott Storch, among others, who have joined together to celebrate the music of the multi-Grammy winning producer, composer and arranger by recording contemporary versions of popular recordings from his massive catalog; the book “Q on Producing” which recounts his six-decade long career working in the recording studio with music icons such as Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson, among many others; a duets album with Stevie Wonder and Tony Bennett; as well as multiple projects for film and television
.
With a long history of humanitarian work which began in the 1960’s and 70’s, Jones was one of the key supporters of Jesse Jackson’s Operation P.U.S.H. In 1985, he pioneered the model of using celebrity to raise money and awareness for a cause with “We Are the World.” The song remains the best-selling single of all-time, and raised more than $63 Million for Ethiopian famine relief. More importantly, however, it shined a spotlight on the Ethiopian drought and U.S. Government responded with over $800 million in aid.
In 1999 Quincy Jones joined Bono and Bob Geldof during a meeting with Pope John Paul II as a part of the Jubilee 2000 delegation to end third world debt. The delegation’s visit resulted in $27 billion in third world debt relief for Bolivia, Mozambique, and the Ivory Coast.

In 2004, in front of a live audience of more than a half-million spectators, Jones launched the We Are the Future initiative with a concert featuring Carlos Santana, Alicia Keyes, Josh Groban, Oprah Winfrey, Norah Jones and a host of other entertainers from around the world. The initiative has established Municipal Child Centers in the cities of Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Asmara (Eritrea), Freetown (Sierra Leone), Kigali (Rwanda) and Nablus (Palestine) where youth are being trained to run child-based programs in health, nutrition, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Sports and Arts.

In 2007, Jones and the Harvard School of Public Health joined forces to advance the health and well-being of children worldwide through Project Q, a strategic initiative of School’s Center for Health Communication. Through the strategic use of media, Project Q challenges leaders and citizens of the world to provide essential resources to enable young people to achieve their full potential.

A centerpiece of Project Q is the Q Prize, which recognizes extraordinary leadership by public figures and social entrepreneurs who are championing the needs of children. The inaugural Q Prize was awarded in January 2007 to Scott Neeson, founder of the Cambodian Children’s Fund, and over $600,000 was raised in support of Neeson’s work. The 2008 Q Prize will be awarded on October 23 in New York City.
Through his personal foundation, The Quincy Jones Foundation, Jones raises awareness and financial resources for initiatives that support global children’s issues in areas of conflict, malaria eradication, clean water and efforts to restore the Gulf Coast (post-Katrina). Philanthropic partners include Malaria No More, Millennium Promise, and R&B singer Usher’s New Look Foundation.

To visit Quincy Jones' website CLICK HERE