I never thought that I would ever visit the Far East in my lifetime, let alone live there. But it did happen to me. My life in the service offered me a chance to be stationed in the Far East, and I accepted my service branch’s offer. My assignment placed me on Honshu Island in Japan, and for me it was quite a culture shock at first. The time was late 1977, and my assignment was to run up to near the beginning of 1980. I had never lived outside of the US before at that point in my life, and here I was as a 20 year old taking it all in. It was fascinating, this island of Japan, and I wondered about what the culture there could exchange with someone like me. Well, I was about to find out in a good way.
My fellow servicemen advised me to stay close to the installation at first, don’t wander off too far some of them said. But it turned out that I was much more excited and curious about my new surroundings than I had anticipated. There were a couple of guys there that I met who knew the island and had a car to drive. That was one way to get the lay of the land. Then there were some other guys that I met who knew the mass transit system in Japan rather deeply, it was with them that I got to understand the routes, times and locations of the mass transit there. And the mass transit introduced a new set of social rules for me to follow. It was the first time that I encountered the transit workers known as “Packers”; these uniformed workers actually push and pack people onto the train cars stopped at their stations during the transit travel rush hours in the mornings and the evenings. That to me was amazing to see, and to be a part of sometimes as I too was squished onto a couple of cars packed with transit riders during the rush hours.
Driving a car is different in Japan too, they drive on the left side of the road, and so the vehicle’s steering wheel is mounted on the opposite side of what I was used to. One service member I met who was close to his assignment in Japan ending offered to sell me his mini van. It seemed in okay shape and the price was right, so I bought it. I drove it around the installation for a couple of weeks to get used to driving on the left side of the road. Then, I took it off of the installation on a regular basis and drove out in traffic with the rest of the native Japanese drivers. One driving habit that I did pick up from Japanese drivers was the habit of dousing my headlights when pulling up to a traffic signal at night. Almost all of the Japanese drivers did this; it was their way of showing each other a courtesy by bringing down their car’s headlights; this helped also to cut down the glare from the headlight’s reflections onto each driver’s rear-view mirror while stopped at a traffic signal at night. I carried this habit with me for a short time upon my return to the US, but I didn’t keep it for very long.
I did bring over my first bass guitar to Japan with me. But I knew that it was time for a new bass soon, and in my travels, I found a nice little music store just outside of the installation where I was stationed. The store was called Three Sisters Music, and the store owners were very kind Japanese people and spoke just enough English to carry on a small conversation with me. Inside of that music store there were brands of guitars and basses that I had not heard of, Ibanez, Greco, and Yamaha instruments were on offer for musicians to try out. I liked the promotional posters on the wall inside the music store too; they were of acts named Pink Lady, Kasumi Watanabe, and even a nice poster of bassist Suzi Quatro. It turns out that Suzi Quatro was very popular in Japan during my time there.
I continued to visit Three Sisters Music in the small town of Fussa in Japan as often as I could find the time to do so. It was a great store, and one of the owners there took a liking to me. She offered me some choices in bass guitars as I was definitely looking for a new one. After trying out a few bass guitars, I settled on one that she chose for me, it was a Greco bass guitar that was modeled after the popular Fender Precision bass guitar. I liked it right away, and came back to the store shortly thereafter and bought it from her. It was a nice bass to have for sure. After meeting a drummer in the barracks one day, I found myself playing in a contemporary jazz band that also played some r&b and soul music as well. The drummer was doing all of the band’s bookings as well as finding musicians to play in his band.
That band, named the Ninth Of June, was the first true international band that I played in. The band’s makeup was a blend of African-American servicemen and Japanese Nationals; and we played together very well. The guitarist in the early band, named Kenny Moore, was an American and was very good, but his assignment came to an end and he returned to the US. The drummer then found a great Japanese guitarist named Keiji Yoshida, and Keiji stayed with the band until my assignment was over. We got to play together in that band for over a year and a half, and we did some of the best shows around the island of Honshu. I remember the first major concert that the band did, it was held in a nice concert hall in Fuchū. I wrote a new song for the band to play; we had rehearsed it before the concert. We took a little time together as a band at a little pub across the street from the concert hall, I remember being a bit nervous before our show. But one of the other Japanese guitar players that I knew there offered to share a shot of whiskey with me. It was my first shot of the famous Suntory whiskey, only one, and I was able to settle down a little bit before we had to play.
The concert was really good, and when it came time to play my original song I was ready to do it. It was the first time that a band was playing a piece of music that I had composed before an audience, and I thought it was such a great experience and a blessing to have done so on Honshu Island, Japan. I took my bass solo space that I had written into the song with some real gusto. The band’s lead singer gave me the nickname of “Ironhand” after the song was over. By the way, I never did decide a title for my song, so I named it “Indecision”. We actually played it for the rest of the time that I was with the band, and I was always honored to play it.
Keiji Yoshida was such a wonderful guitarist in that band. He taught at a music school in Tokyo where he had some 30 guitar students. We eventually played at Keiji’s school as a band; it was a real treat to play music for his students. He was a big fan of the band The Crusaders, he really loved their music. He liked the guitar styles of the Crusaders’ guitarists of that era, namely Larry Carlton and later, the late Billy Rodgers. Keiji also loved the way that the late saxophone player Wilton Felder played, Wilton’s melody ideas and solo ideas were something that Keiji was always interested in and admired. After playing together for about a year, Keiji came to a band practice one day with a new chart with a new song titled “Like Felder” that I just loved. The melody and that song’s sensibilities touched beautifully upon the spirit of The Crusaders music. And in the classic Crusaders style he wrote the main melody of that song to be played in unison with a tenor saxophone, it was just brilliant.
As the time went by during my stay in Japan, I found myself returning to Three Sisters Music to look for yet another new bass guitar. The same lovely lady at the store showed me another Greco model that was a beautiful custom neck through body design that I really liked. I traded in my first Greco bass that she had sold me for the new one. I just loved this new bass. This lady from Three Sisters Music actually brought her husband along and came on to the installation one Sunday night to hear me play my new bass with the band, it was a fun and memorable night for us all. And it was also at a time when I knew that my bass playing was getting better, I was happy to know that I had progressed some more on my chosen instrument.
A fellow serviceman helped me find some rehearsal space for the band to practice in on the installation. It was a good spot where we could play at show volumes and not bother anyone. Since there were three male vocalists also in the band, a public address (P.A.) system was needed for these singers. I was given keys to a medium sized van and was shown where to go and get the P.A. system for the band to play through. The place where the P.A. belonged was around an hour’s drive from the installation, it belonged to an audio professional named Aoshi Someya. I liked Someya when I met him, he had a great sense of humor and he knew a lot about the music scene in Japan and in the US. The name of his studio was Alfalfa Studios, and yes, it was named after the popular character Alfalfa from the Hal Roach TV series called The Little Rascals (Our Gang). Someya had several black and white photos of the Alfalfa character all around his studio, it always made me laugh when I would visit him to take care of the band’s P.A. system.
Among the many gigs that the Ninth Of June played was a weekly night at a serviceman’s club on the installation. The gig was always on a Sunday night, and if the P.A. system was not already picked up by a certain time from Someya’s studio then folks would begin to worry a bit. So I made sure to make the long journey out to the studio a couple of days ahead of time. One afternoon, I had agreed to meet with Someya at his studio at a certain time. I drove the band’s van out to his studio in Musashi-Sakai to pick up the band’s P.A. system. But after ringing the bell to the studio, knocking on the door, and then trying to call Someya from a public phone and still not contacting him, I decided to wait in the van for a little while. But I didn’t stay in the van for very long; I saw a pub nearby that looked like it served food, so I went inside. The local Japanese folks inside welcomed me and I sat at the small bar and ordered a beer for myself. It was a lively pub, and lots of chatter came from the people as they met after their work day and talked about things.
I was okay with sitting alone in the pub and waiting for Someya to return home. But a couple of curious Japanese guys came over to where I was at the bar, and one of them began to speak with me in broken English. This guy was doing his best to speak to me, and I tried my best to speak with him too. He would translate back into Japanese to his friend what we were speaking about. It turns out that they worked as local newspaper editors and story writers. They liked me and bought more beers, and talked some more. I did eat a little something there at the pub that night, remembering that I still had a long drive home. But my new Japanese friends were happy to speak with me, an African-American foreigner, someone that they didn’t meet every day. The beer kept coming. The big jukebox in the pub was loaded with 45RPM records, and the more folks drank, the more they would replay Bing Crosby’s version of “White Christmas”. You see, it did not have to be the holidays for the locals to play that song over and over again. They just loved it. For me, it was a little out there, but okay.
A couple of hours later, Someya looked inside the pub and found me at the bar with my new friends. Our eyes met, and he could tell right away that I was feeling just fine, if you know what I mean. He came inside the pub and up to the bar where he immediately apologized to me for being so late. I told him that it was alright, and I introduced him to my new friends. They all spoke to each other in Japanese for a moment; Someya was telling them about my work as a musician, and my reason to visit him. My new newspaper friends were delighted to know this about me as we parted ways. The pub was fun, but Someya would not let me drive home that night. He put me up at his home to sleep overnight; it was such a kind thing for him to do for me. In the morning, he and his wife served me a traditional Japanese breakfast before I left, it was delicious. And the green tea that they offered me was excellent.
There are more stories about my working with this band during my years of living on Honshu Island, Japan that I hope to share in some later blogs. To have spent the time in Japan that I did was quite special to me. The people were kind, and the Japanese musicians that I met and played music with were stellar. I’m glad to have done that. Mata aim Asho.
