A statement via raw fish and jazz

Leila Navidi

Pianist John Matteson of the The Outside in Trio play at Osaka Japanese Bistro in Henderson Thursday, July 30, 2009.

By Jerry Fink

Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009 | 2 a.m.

The Outside in Trio

Launch slideshow »

The jazz flowing from the backroom of the Osaka Japanese Bistro isn’t the typical smooth jazz played for background in some restaurants.

The Outside In Jazz Trio plays straight-ahead jazz tinged with an occasional rock vibe.

Every Thursday evening for the past six years, restaurateur Gene Nakanishi has served up this musical treat to go along with the sushi, sashimi and tempura.

Nakanishi is every musician’s dream, a successful businessman who recognizes and appreciates talent and understands artists’ plight.

“It really is a shame there isn’t a bigger jazz scene here,” Nakanishi says. “I don’t make money with the trio; it’s just a statement. Somebody’s got to do something.

“Nobody wants to pay for jazz. Only a handful appreciate it here despite the fact that jazz musicians can make tremendous money in Europe or Japan, where they worship jazz musicians. I think they get it over there. Unfortunately, MTV has dumbed down American music. I think once people understand what jazz is, they realize it’s a tremendous art form. Those who keep jazz alive, I’ve got to hand it to them.”

Most jazz fans agree the Vegas scene is pretty bleak.

“We have some great musicians here, but most of them are forced to do other things,” says Geoff Neuman, bassist for Outside In. “What needs to happen more is that some of the younger musicians need to be exposed to other things besides what they’re getting in school. That would help grow the scene a little bit more.”

Enter Nakanishi. The 49-year-old Vegas native owns two restaurants and a catering service that supplies sushi to many of the buffets in town. He learned the restaurant business from his folks — but music is his passion.

He studied piano and trumpet as a child, and attended the prestigious Berklee School of Music in Boston for jazz composition, arranging and music education. In his third year he landed a gig in New York’s Theater District. The job lasted six weeks — and then the workaholic found himself scuffling for work on the East Coast.

“In Vegas I was always working,” he says. “Even in high school I was playing with a band or working at the restaurant. I always had a job — but after six weeks of ‘Sweeney Todd,’ I had no job and I thought, ‘Gosh, is my life going to be this way?’

“What I realized was, being a musician is not so glamorous. It’s very hard — one-night gigs, traveling by bus. Some say it’s cool. It’s not cool.”

After finishing at Berklee he found his way back to Las Vegas where he spent the next 16 years as a band director in the Clark County School District. At the same time he worked in the family restaurant business, dabbled in real estate and ran his own business importing Mexican soda.

“When I first started teaching, my salary was $900 a month and my mortgage was $950 a month,” Nakanishi says. “You do the math.”

He retired from teaching 11 years ago, when two major events happened — his first daughter was born and Osaka landed a contract with the Bellagio to supply a million pieces of sushi.

“If you make more in one month and a half than you did in 10 years of teaching it gets you to think, ‘Gosh, I love to teach but I have a kid now. Maybe I better rethink this.’ ”

So he put away his horn and baton and focused on business and raising a family — he and wife Amy now have two daughters, both of whom play musical instruments and study dance.

“It kind of took the love away when I had to play to pay rent,” he says. “But now my kids are starting to play and I’m starting to get back into it. Now, I realize why I loved music. I pull out the horn because I want to play — that’s one reason I put a trio in the restaurant, so I can sit in with them once in a while.”