 Kodo
Taiko drummers part 1
Wow! I just got back from an amazing trip to Sado Island, the
home of the famous Kodo Taiko drummers. So many weird and beautiful
things happened that I have to tell you about it. My first association
with the Kodo Drummers was when I recorded on their latest CD
"Mondo Head" which was produced by Mickey Hart (of the
Grateful Dead) for CBS Sony. They recorded two of my songs and
one of them was chosen to be official music for The World Cup
2002 soccer games in Asia. After the recording I was asked to
perform in their annual "Earth Celebration Festival"
on Sado Island. I had to put together a special percussion group
and so I called Giovainni Hidalgo and Meia Noite, a percussionist
from Bahia Brazil. And of course Flora Purim. To prepare we prerecorded
some amazing nature sound which we would play "on top of".
My sound engineer Celso Alberti stored them all in his computer
and off we flew with no rehearsal.
We flew from Los Angeles California to Tokyo Japan, then took
a four hour ride on the "Bullet Train" all the way to
the oceans edge and then rode for one and a half hours on a huge
hovercraft before we reached Sado Island. The Hovercraft was nothing
like I expected, it was smooth like flying. When we finally arrived
the Kodo group was waiting to take us to their "mountain
top" headquarters.
After all that "high tech" travel, arriving at their
headquarters was so beautiful and peaceful it was as if we had
gone back in time. It was pretty incredible, even the building
we ate dinner in was built in the 1700s. I was amazed at how organized
and disciplined these people were. While their offices are filled
with the best high tech equipment in the world, they grow their
own food, get their water from the pristine mountain streams and
their fish is fresh from the nearby ocean. They make their own
drums from what must be 50 acres of their own forest land, and
they replenish the forest by replanting more trees. We were so
impressed with their spiritual energy and their respect of nature
and the land.
The next day we rehearsed from 8 am till about 10:30 at night.
There were about 30 of us just sharing the environment and energy
of the music. A real team. The next day there was a huge street
market selling things from all over the world, and it was here
I found some new "toys" for my collection. Then we rehearsed
again till late at night. The day of the concert it had been raining
hard, but it stopped shortly before and we performed to an audience
of about two thousand people from all over the world. Out in nature,
under a beautiful full moon, the audience dancing as we played,
it was a great night. And it wasn't even the concert with The
Kodo Drummers! |
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 Kodo
Taiko drummers part
2
I can not find the words to describe the concert with the Kodo
Drummers. It is so huge and so incredible. They have such precision
and coordination that even when I am part of it, standing in
the middle, it seams unreal and impossible. It is extremely
visual, with every movement choreographed to add even more to
the mix of rhythms, precision and changing stage sets. Huge
sets of drums and percussion stands on platforms were moved
on and off stage throughout the show and the audience would
hardly notice because their attention would be drawn to a different
part of the stage. At one point I was asked to be the "distraction",
I was told to just do what I wanted. So... I went out and started
playing some weird instruments that I have and began chanting
and dancing all over the place. I felt so great that I forgot
they were changing things behind me and the next thing I knew,
I was flying over a couple of monitor speakers and crashed into
something really big and hard. I had no idea what it was until
a spotlight came on and right in the center of it was the biggest
drum in the world and the main Kodo drummer. I know that when
I crashed into it I moved the whole platform, but the drummer
just stood there motionless waiting to begin our duet. He had
no idea I was lying on the floor, nowhere near my percussion
stand. A few seconds had passed, or an eternity and all I could
do was be quiet. I was confused. I knew I could not just pretend
every thing was normal, the whole audience had gasped when I
crashed into the drum.
Finally he began to play and I stood up and started acting like
a little boy scared of the great big drum. I acted like that
all the way up the riser where my percussion stand was and finally
began to play. I can't believe I made it there and after all
that still played a great duet with the "Odaiko" drummer.
Wow! What an experience.
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