A lot’s happened. This time I truly shall be brief.
When I last left off, I was heading to a jam in Fuse, a ward of Osaka to the East of the city center. I had only a set of subway directions and a poorly drawn map to guild me (I should note that I was the one who poorly drew it). Fortunately, I saw a guy (his name turned out to be Ko) walking down the street with a sax strapped to his back. I asked him in a mix of English and Japanese if he was going to ‘Cross Road.’ He said yes, and I followed him to the club.
It’s a small place, but since there weren’t many people there, there was some wiggle room. The place is owned a run by an older cat who’s a damn decent drummer. There was also a house bassist, a couple of horn players, one other drummer, and a piano player named Umiharu. I got to play about six tunes or so. The owner is very strict about the time, both on the drums and off. The jam goes from 8-10 and no later. I figure it’s something to do with the neighbors. Either way, they were really nice to me, and did their best to communicate with me, even though none of them could speak English very well. Umiharu and I screwed around on the piano after the jam, and showed each other some stuff. He bought me a beer, too, and all of us stood around the bar and talked (as best we could manage with my guijin language skills). They were all very amused about my cheap digs down in Nishinari-ku, and kept on me about going to Tobita Shinchi.
After staying too long, I left the club and literally ran the ½ mile or so back to Fuse Station and caught the LAST train back to Nipponbashi (catching the final train seems to be a theme for me here Japan). I returned the following night to the same club to hear an American pianist from Miami, Phillip Strange, play with a vocalist. They were both very good, him especially. He’s quite into superimposing rhythms, and on the whole, is a very percussive pianist (though his harmonic sense is nice as well). Swell guy, too. He’s recorded with Bob Magnusson. We talked a lot about jazz and the like. The club, however, was basically dead. The only people there besides the band were myself, Umiharu, a drunk, and the bartender. Because of this, Strange let myself and Umiharu (who studies with him) play a song each. He played ‘Con Alma’ in 7 (well, he kind of flip-flopped between 7 and 4). I played (badly) ‘So in Love’ in 3, a personal favorite of mine. After the show, we all headed back to Fuse and I caught the train back to my retched hive of scum and villainy (I’ve been being quite cautious).
Friday it rained. The rainy season was getting underway, and a typhoon was coming in. I spent the day at the hostel then headed back up to Rug Time for the jam. The host band was a organ trio. The organist wasn’t the best swinger, but she has her organ idioms/language down (nice use of stops, volume, and leslie). She also had a nice a rig: a Nord C2 Combo Organ (with double manuals!). I played piano all night, but at the end of the night I screwed around on it. She, and everyone else, was kind of impressed I could walk left hand bass. I’m okay at it, but I’m not the man or anything. Maybe that’s rare in Japan?
There were some good drummers and guitarists there, as well as a bassist and another organist/pianist. We played for a few hours, and as it came time to go, one of the drummers (a guy named Yu wearing a Keith Jarrett standards trio T-shirt) offered to give me and the other keyboardist a lift. I was very relieved, for I was not looking forward to trudging all the way from Namba to Nishinariu-ku, a distance of maybe 3 miles, in the now pouring rain. We headed out, walked North through Shinsaibashi to an underground parking garage. Soon after, we were tearing through the streets of downtown Osaka blasting Yaya3 as we went.
The next morning found me waking up later than I intended. I had meant to rise at about 8 and head up to Minoh early and do some hiking before meeting up with Alphie and the family. I got up a bit too late, and by the time I got to Minoh it was a little past noon. I decided to head up the trail anyway, make it as far as I could. I didn’t make it far, but I found a nice spot on a hill surrounded on three sides by a river. I sat there in the cover of some trees (and my umbrella, for it was raining) for a while before heading back down the trail and meeting Alphie, Henry, and Clara at the station.
Earlier in the week I had bought a couple of cheap little gifts for them. Knowing Clara’s infatuation with aliens, I got a little keychain for her featuring the alien from Toy Story. As for Henry, I had a much harder time finding something. I knew he liked dinosaurs, but I couldn’t find something good. I had given up for the day where I found a small gift/book shop. I was drawn to the place by the name: Village Vanguard. Not only was this a blatant rip off of the club name, the title was even written in the same font. The store had almost nothing to do with jazz. It was sort of combination book/joke/junk shop, but all with a very American counter-culture vibe.
I actually liked the place, though. Some of the items were a bit strange: backpacks that resemble Koopa shells, costume wigs from anime, and (my favorite) a pop-up book version of ‘The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon’ by Steven King. I got Henry a pair of glasses complete with the traditional Groucho nose, and moustache. These also had eyebrows, though, and with the twist of a small knob on the tip of the nose, the eyebrows and moustache would articulate. I had hoped a 10 year old might find it funny, so I went with that.
We ran a number of errands before spending some time at the new Minoh foot bath they built near the train station. After that, we visited the local cultural/art museum. I learned some of the local history, which helped explain why the town is such a tourist spot. It’s been that way since the 20s, though they’ve had different attractions over the years, including a now-defunct zoo. Clara was also filling me in on the some of feudal era dramas and practices, including seppuku (about which she was surprisingly knowledgeable).
Dinner was a feast, to put it mildly. I gorged myself on a number of things, things too numerous to list. I also played a lot of piano and with the kids a bit. Alphie played some jazz CDs during dinner, including a nice Duke Ellington version of Peter Gynt which I had never heard. As we left to head back to the station (me still in a food coma) Clara gave a really sweet note, complete with drawings. Once again, I felt very close to home.
After reaching Osaka, I bumbled through the streets of Umeda until I found Bricks again. There was band that night, as it happened, and I posted up at the bar to listen. The bassist and guitarist I knew from the last Jazz Ya session, and they were joined by a singer and a trumpet player. I made chit chit with the fellow sitting next to me, and he gifted me some of his scotch (which was a kind I did not care for, but I was grateful just same). The singer kept mentioning me in between songs because I was a native speaker. I didn’t quite know what she was saying, but I caught the gist of it. I also talked a lot with the trumpet player, who’d been to San Diego before. Toyamasan took a picture of all of us, too.
As I was getting ready to leave, the bassist (Watanabe Haruo) offered to give me a lift. As it was I was on my way to another session in Namba I had heard about from a guitarist at the Rug Time jam the previous night. It was a late session, running from (as Watanabe informed me) midnight to 5am at a place called 845. After fitting his bass and the rest of his rig into his rather tiny car, he ferried me through Umeda down Midosuji to Namba. He even got out of the car to guide me to the club. The kindness of everyone here never fails to amaze.
Once down some stairs, it was liked I’d walked into a European club circa 1966. The band hadn’t started yet, so I took a seat next to Umiharu, who was one of few people there I recognized from other sessions. Shortly after ordering a beer, the band got started. It was a guitar trio, let by a shredder named Yoshimitzu Murayama. The guy swings, to be sure, and his harmonic and rhythmic sense is tops, but he does like his wanking. A lot, actually. He just flies up and down the neck, and though he probably plays WAAAAAAY too much, I had to admit he was clean, had perfect time, and was actually pretty damn interesting to listen to. He digs his rhythm superimposition, too (to quote Umiharu, “it’s quite fashionable.”)
I got to play a few songs over the course of the next five hours, including a few with the Muray-man himself. There was also a troupe of recent high school grads in the club, some of whom were off to Berkeley in the Fall. One, Izumi, was actually from Boston, but had gone to HS in Japan. As such, he spoke both languages perfectly (and English in an American accent). We talked a lot, and I got to play with most of his friends (including a burning saxophonist with a sharp attack and bite to her tone and another really pianist who, in addition to swinging well, had some nice textures to his solos). We’ve made some plans to jam and gig in the near future.
At 5am, after the final blues was played, we headed topside to find that a) it was raining like a bitch (a typhoon was heading in off the coast) and b) it was dawn. Apart from the rain, this was sort of a jazz fantasy of mine. No club in California is open past 2am, and having a jazz jam go that late back in San Diego? Forget it. Naturally, even though I was tired as hell, I was exhilarated at the same time. Izumi, his friends, and myself headed down to the nearest subway line (Midosuji), and caught the first train (they went North, and I went South).
The next day was a bit odd for me. I got up around 1 (having gone to bed at 6am). I spent the day in hotel lobby, reading, and chatting it up with whoever came down. As the night came, I took a the subway to Nipponbashi and then the Kintesu over to Fuse and headed back to Cross Road, where there was another jam. This one was slightly more populous, but no less fun. Thomas, the Canadian bassist showed up with his roommate (a beginning trumpet player), and his girlfriend. Umiharu was also there, as was the bassist from the last session and the drummer/owner. I got to play a good mix of tunes, including ‘Stablemates,’ which I regret I had to read. I hadn’t played that song in ages. As such, it featured my fast failing chops. Oh well.
After the jam was over and done with, I talked with Umiharu and Thomas about this, that, and the other until we realized we’d missed the last train. Umiharu drives a scooter, so he was good, but the rest of use were a long way from home. Fortunately, Thomas’s girlfriend’s friend was there, and she was gracious enough to ferry as all back to Thomas’s neck of the woods, where I caught the last train back to Nishinari-ku. It was my third ride from a total stranger in as many days. What a country!
I used my final 150 yen to buy some noodles at the shop, then settled down in the lobby. After eating the noodles and some cake (graciously given to me by a really nice guy who I think works for the hotel), I set to work on a puzzle that had appeared on the tabletop. It was one of those ‘tangram’ (is that right?) things. It’s a series of oddly shaped, flat pieces of wood you have to arrange in various shapes. It was past midnight, and I wasn’t tired, so I kept it for some time. Eventually, a few American girls came down. After chatting for a bit, one went back upstairs to sleep, but I and the other girl (Ayla) both had sleeping schedules that were thrown off, so we talked until about 6 in the morning before going finally heading back to our rooms. It was a nice morning, actually.
After getting a few hours sleep I hurriedly packed and checked out, only to find out Al couldn’t see me until about 4 in the afternoon. Fortunately, the Mikado was cool with me hanging out in the lobby until an appropriate time to leave. I spent a few more hours on the tangram. Try as I might, I was unable to even make the first shape: a rectangle. A damn rectangle, I tell you! It was maddening! Eventually the hour drew near, and I slung up my back, thanked two guys who worked at the hotel who had helped me out a number of times, said goodbye to the people who I knew, and set off for Kyoto.
Somewhat anticlimactically, I caught the wrong subway. I was able to quickly switch trains, and soon found myself back on course, but was now running late. By the time I reached Yodoyobashi, I had to call Al and let him know I was going to be there around 4:30 instead of 4. I hadn’t gotten on a wrong train my entire stay in Osaka, so I was naturally a bit bummed to have my perfect record ruined. All well and good, though. I got on a Limited Express on the Keihan Line which got me out of Osaka and to Kyoto in about an hour.
My brother Al met me at the station, having spent all morning at the onsen (he does his reading there). After catching a smaller train from Demachiyangi, we arrived in his neighborhood. His house was a short walk from the station. The house, which is about 80 years old, sits betwixt several newer, monstrous looking mansions. It’s a very traditional Japanese house, and a startling change of pace from the Mikado. It’s drafty, and creaky, the doors are very low and the stairs are very steep. I set up shop upstairs, and after a grand tour, we took bikes down to a local eatery. Al ordered, to be honest, a bit too much food. He wasn’t sure what I tried yet. It was biggest meal I’d eaten (even larger than the feast at Alphies a few days before), and combined with a few beers, I found it difficult to mount my bike after we left. I felt like my center of gravity was about two feet below the street.
We biked through the campus of Kyoto University to a small pub Al likes, and spent the night drinking and talking, largely about beer, which Al makes for a living. He went right into technical terms, and lost me almost instantly. I had to smile and nod sometimes (he spoke clearly, but the subject matter might as well have been elementary combinatorics for all I understood it), but I’d gotten good at that dealing with the locals. This is most time we’d ever spent together, and also the first time I’d seen him as, well, an adult (the last time I’d seen him I’d been 17).
I’ll speed a bit through the next couple of days, just to hit the highlights:
1) The Gael- We’ve gone to another pub (this one Irish) called The Gael every night I’ve been here. Al is regular, and knows everyone there. It’s a good group of people, who I’m gradually getting to know as well. There’s a number of guijin ex-pats at the place, actually (including Peter, who lived in San Diego for a while). On Wednesday there was an open mic night, and both Al and I sat in. We finally got to play together. To quote Al, “The Kornhauser Brothers, together again for the first time.” The host was a very good (and very tall) English pianist named Benny, who did a few duets with me as well. It was fun night.
2) Biking through the city- Al was kind enough to loan me a spare bicycle, and I put it some extensive use. The part of town where Al lives is a short ride away from some beautiful temples, shrines, and this road known as ‘The Philosopher’s Path.” It’s just a little road, shaded mostly by trees, that runs along a deep canal. There are lots of shops, cafes, quirky houses, and a temple or two on the path.
3) The jam sessions- I hit up two sessions while in Kyoto. The first was at ‘The Blue Note,’ though it should just be called ‘A Blue Note,’ as there is no relation to the other sanctioned Blue Notes of the jazz world. The host pianist at the session has his Bill Evans impersonation down to the letter (though he’s decidedly more cheery when you talk to him). The house drummer (and indeed, most the drummers that night) were loud enough to wake the dead. Still, a good session. Yu, the guy who gave me a lift home the previous week after the Rug Time Jam was there, too. The other session I went to was a place called ‘Le Club Jazz’ (a stupider name you’d be hard pressed to invent). The place was really nice, though as the night wore on, a few too many players turned up. It was crowded, but everyone there was a player, so it was kind of an awkward crowd to play to. Still, there was very little suckage. On the contrary, most of the cats ran the gambit from decent to really good. What’s more, there were a lot of younger players there, too, including Izumi and a few of his friends, who I had met at the 845 jam the previous week. My brother Al also turned up.
4) DonQ- The Japanese do a pretty good job when French bread is concerned. There’s a bakery/café close to Al’s, and I spent many an afternoon there reading, sampling their wares, and drinking way too much coffee (they have a bottomless policy). I did a fair amount of Japanese research, as well as took down a book (‘The Siege of Krishnapur’) during the course of my DonQ days.
As I write this last bit, I’m on a train bound for Kanazawa, which is the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture on Nato-hanto peninsula. I’d really never heard of those places before yesterday at breakfast, but with Al leaving for Hong Kong this morning, I needed somewhere to go. I’ve never seen the Sea of Japan before, so this place seemed as good as any. I’ll be using Kanazawa as a base of operations for day trips out unto the peninsula, along the coast, and to the large national park which nearby.
At the moment, I’m very hungry. I can’t wait to get to the last stop so I can eat. To save money, I took a series of local trains rather than the express (I saved about 3000 yen, but it takes over 6 hours compared to 2 ½). I did miss the first train, but luckily a girl helped me find the right one. The countryside is, not to sound too terribly posh (too late), quite picturesque. Winding through the mountains and through tunnels, this train’s taken me by countless small villages, all tucked neatly into the sides of the mountains.
I do hope I can find my hostel. I wrote out the directions last night when I got home around 1am, when I was slightly drunk. I tried reading them this morning, and they’re a bit of a mess.
Soupy twist,
Edward
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