Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Q+A: Dan Kuramoto

Who: Hiroshima

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Where: The Railhead at Boulder Station

Tickets: $17.75 to $29.55; 547-5300

Top row: Danny Yamamoto (drums, taiko, percussion, synthesizer), Shoji Kameda (taiko, percussion, vocals), June Kuramoto (koto). Bottom row: Dan Kuramoto (flute, saxophone, keyboards, vocal), Kimo Cornwell (piano, keyboards, synthesizer), Dean Cortez (electric and acoustic bass, background vocals).

The increasingly international and multicultural city of Las Vegas should be the perfect fit for Hiroshima, an eclectic group that has sung the praises of diversity for 30 years.

The group blends jazz, fusion, R&B, salsa and Asian into a distinctive sound accentuated by the koto, an ancient Japanese stringed instrument.

"We were well -received by fans from the very beginning," co-founder Dan Kuramoto said during a telephone interview from his home south of Los Angeles. "But that didn't mean anything when it came to how we were perceived by the industry. If you don't have a category that you can be put into, you technically don't exist.

"It's a fundamental problem. We don't have a category. We understand for marketing purposes that's really bad. But why isn't it a good thing? The great thing about America is the things that fall through the cracks."

Hiroshima has existed since the mid-'70s - created by Kuramoto, who switched from a career in art to one in music, and his former wife, June, a top koto player. Dan is a third-generation Japanese -American , born and raised in East Los Angeles. June was born in Japan but came to this country at the age of 6.

The group released its first album, "Hiroshima," in 1979. Kuramoto said skeptics at Arista Records were betting no more than 25,000 records would be sold, Kuramoto said. "In the first three months they sold more than 200,000."

Songs such as "China Latina" and "Red Beans and Rice" reflect the multiethnic influence s on the group.

The most recent of the band's 16 albums, "Little Tokyo," was released by Heads Up Records. It can be found at hiroshimamusic.com or at the group's concert Saturday at Boulder Station.

We've been at it a long time. It was logical for us. What's interesting in America is its diversity of cultures. But people are moving to the 'burbs , and places like Little Tokyo (in Los Angeles) are disappearing. We're just raising a voice for what is the coolest thing about America, its diversity, its Little Italys, its old towns. When we started there was not a category called "world music."

We formed in Los Angeles. June, our featured musician, is the only person in the band born in Japan. When she got here at 6, she grew up in the 'hood, an African -American community. Kazue Kudo, one of the top koto instructors, came to this country and lived with June's family. In exchange, she taught June. I grew up in East L.A., surrounded by salsa music. We wanted to embrace our Japanese roots and integrate them into the neighborhood music we were familiar with.

No . I was a nutsy arts school student in Cal State Long Beach when I took up music. (At) t he end of '74 I was co-musical director for the "Chinese Monkey King" in L.A. It was a very arty time and the production was fantastic. The producer said I could do what I wanted so I assembled this eclectic group of musicians. I thought that would be cool, all these different elements - koto, steel drums, electric guitar, bass, piano. I had all these musicians at one performance. We sold out. Got an amazing review, but then the producer decided it was too much work and folded it after one show. That pit band was the nucleus of something that I thought was so amazing and so interesting and so American that I shifted away from art school and focused on music. The following summer we spent the entire summer woodshedding. It was the ultimate garage experience. We'd get together and jam all day long to find out what worked and what didn't.

No. June and I moved to Las Vegas for a few weeks in '75, back when we were still married. The Hilton hotel had just opened a Benihana restaurant. They wanted a koto player to play during the dinners. They had a show going on the whole time - magicians, karate act. June would go in at 20 -minute intervals. We stayed at the Blair House. All the musicians lived there. The first day she played she was sound -checking and this guy comes up behind her and gives her a hug. It was James Moody, the great jazz musician (saxophone, flute). He was performing with Tony Bennett at the Hilton. We had met Moody a couple of years before in the Bay Area. While we were in Vegas James and I hung out every day. He gave me flute lessons. He still gives me flute lessons every time we get together.

We used to play tennis at the Tropicana at 3 in the morning. They had 24-hour tennis courts. I used to see Donny Osmond on a court next to us. Everyone went there to play after their shows were over. But after a few weeks June and I decided it was time to take our shot at putting the musicians together and so we came back to L.A. I became musical director for "Zoot Suit," a musical about the Mexican -American community in the L.A. area. It ran for almost three years in L.A. and on Broadway for a while (41 performances in 1979).

It's our 16th album, the second project without a vocalist. About 70 percent of our material is instrumental , so we thought we'd just try to go instrumental this time. It's been interesting, invigorating. We all had to shift loads a little. Oddly enough it's the best -reviewed record we have ever done.

The biggest problem is how the major record labels have failed to guide the industry in a direction for the artist. The shift we have seen, when things moved away from the whole notion of how records are sold - when it went from records to CDs - all of a sudden record companies became greedy. They thought: "We can sell all the records if we release them again as CDs." So they jacked up the prices phenomenally. They didn't copy -protect the CDs, and that hurt everybody. We're in a position now where for the seventh consecutive year earnings are down from the year before. It's all about greed, and about who runs the companies. Back in the (early days) the music was run by a lot of creative mavericks. You could grow your art, your music style. Now the accountants run things based on quarterly bottom lines. You can't do music on quarterly bottom lines.

It was becoming clearer to us that major labels are not set up to deal with anything remotely jazz or something as different as we are. The upside of being one of a kind is that you are one of a kind. And the downside of being one of a kind is that you are one of a kind.

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