Organ Jazz Quartet +1 For the Start…
Thank you for visiting our show today.
As you all know, we hear the word “Coronavirus” every day and notice that our lifestyle and everything around us drastically changed since it came in.
Art like Music has never had to suffer the cruel reality back since World War.
Many questions came to my mind like…
Would music matter now?
How can I make this better?
Isn’t it enough just to listen to Pat Metheny’s CD if we want great music?
(He’s awesome, by the way)
But I knew that music means more to me and I love watching people enjoying the atmosphere we create with music.
I took this unexpected “spare time” in a positive way and used it as “valuable time” for expanding what we want to express with music.
I experimented, imagined, composed, and created music while waiting and picturing all faces like our band members who play this music, and the audience who came to listen to it.
This is such an honor to hold such an unique live with all original music.
Thank you so much to all of you especially jazz bar KOHAKU for a big help to make this happen!
I promise you all will dive in “Organ Jazz Quartet World” where nothing alike from ordinary jazz lives you have experienced.
Hoping our performance will add the spice to your Friday night and make your heart beat and dance.
October 30, 2020
Chiemi Yoshida
There should be something I see when everyone else doesn’t.
I saw this statue performer when I traveled overseas.
He absolutely did not move for hours, it was such an overwhelming experience..
This music came from the image I remembered from the picture I took of him.
Sunday morning is the moment I can honestly feel that it is another brand new day.
This music expresses the excitement I always feel on Sunday mornings, thinking of what to do or what makes my day.
Steam coming from a cup of soup
Or star glowing night
Writing letters and thinking of the person
Or crackling sound from the fireplace
Being surrounded by favorite blanket
Close the eyelids slowly and softly
All those new routines and longer hours to spend at home.
What does Home mean to me?
There are many kinds of styles and designs of homes.
This music came from the inspiration when I imagined my true home.
Dance.
Just don’t stop and keep on dancing.
This music is made of the phrase above when we held a jam session with my old-time best friends and added the melody to it.
The friend who came up with this phrase has just begun the challenge of playing the piano lately.
His music is yet a bit awkward but still cool.
“Stranger” can be it.
If I could see you tonight,
I might forget to get you flowers.
I’m sure I will be excited if I find someone special at a dance party.
But “social distance” keeps us apart.
…Backup band for a dance party sounds like my next attempt.
Loner’s mind sailed away to the past
Spacious, blue, pining that everlast
Vacant years, may the yearning goes
No one ever knows, no one ever shows
Distance that blinds far off paradise
The longing for love never really dies
Mended lines, blended time
His echoing rhyme
Memories to uphold
As dawn falls, words tell tales
of forgotten soul whom she loved
The unseen fades
and pages laid
with dormant fate
undying love for the late
Lyric by Olen
I met our vocal Olen in Singapore last year.
I fell in love with her voice.
When I saw her again in coincidence, we promised we will create music together.
I regret that I could not visit her because of the closed borders.
But we decided to work on our music project online instead.
I recall…
Those simple and ordinary days.
I recall…
Those people who were always around.
Wishes found their ways to the skies
Sound of rivers running on by
Foreign lands made do with her fears
Sun rise on the silent falling tears
Love was taken
but her heart, never broken
even when time awakens pain
her soul still glows bright
like a night rain in the moonlight
Weeping willows swayed by the winds
Eyes that witnessed sadness within
Hope was endless, now it’s wearing thin
Unmanned island wondering where he’d been
Lost, unbounded
Only minds ever wondered
how the sand in her hands
seeps through like ashes do
Lyric by Olen
I happened to find an old notebook in my grandparents’ place during the self restraint period.
Its cover is worn-out and I could barely read it.
But as I turned pages one by one, my eyes caught some words.
“Showa 6th” (in 1932)
”Manchuria”
The notebook was a memorandum my great father wrote when he had to go to Manchuria as a soldier.
It was much harder than I thought to keep reading.
But I could feel his emotion from his beautiful writing;
The moment, the period, the flow he nor any others could do nothing for.
I know his and my situation is nothing in comparison,
But I can truly say that I am here only because he survived those days.
This music is for him and all others who were desperate to survive.
Sand In Her Hands
Countless people bled for this war.
She quietly collects the sand that blood flew on.
Wind is born in the sea
And it travels over to you as it passes by many cities.
There are so many things going on around this world
And music may be helpless for those emergencies
But could surround your heart at the end of the day.
I hope those who listen to our music feel a little relieved and relaxed.
Band Members
Chiemi Yoshida (Composition, organ, keyboard)
Tetsu Suzuki (Tenor saxophone, Flute)
Ken Araki (Guitar)
Toyoaki Sekine (Drums)
Yoshihiro Kaneko (Bass)
Special Guests
Yuichi Nakada (Viola)
Olen (Lyric, vocal)
Special Thanks
Minami Takeda (Translation)
Daichi Takahashi (Photography)