NikkeiWest--Northern California Japanese American Newspaper

By J.K. Yamamoto

For Kenny Endo, hearing taiko for the first time was a life-changing experience. More than 30 years later, he is having a major impact on the art form, bringing both traditional and contemporary taiko to audiences around the globe.

Endo is visiting the Bay Area this month, performing at Berkeley Buddhist Temple’s Satsuki Bazaar and Arts Festival on May 23 and Rhythmix in Alameda on May 28.

In a phone interview from his home in Hawaii, Endo said that he has played drums since the age of 9, including the band and orchestra at his elementary and junior high schools. He started playing a drum set in high school and later belonged to a number of rock bands in Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

Recalling his exposure to taiko in the early 1970s, he said, “When I saw it for the first time, I was really impressed with the sound of it. Also, visually it was a very dynamic and exciting art form. You experience it not only with your ears but your whole body. A soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to do it.”

He was a student at UC Santa Cruz when he saw a performance by San Francisco Taiko Dojo, the first taiko group in North America, founded in 1968 by Seiichi Tanaka. Endo later transferred to UCLA and joined Kinnara Taiko, the first such group in Los Angeles, founded by Rev. Masao Kodani at Senshin Buddhist Temple.

Of his experience playing with Kinnara, whose name is a Sanskrit term representing a supernatural being of music, Endo remembered, “It was something that many people had never seen before, so it was quite exciting for people to be able to see. I guess part of it was that … we were not just sitting and playing, but standing in kata, a specific stance. It was visually impressive as well.”

Endo went back and forth between L.A. and San Francisco until his graduation in 1976, playing with both Kinnara and SFTD. He then moved to San Francisco and stayed there until 1980, studying under Tanaka. When Endo decided to move to Japan to study taiko, Tanaka “helped me out quite a bit.”

The original plan was to spend a year in Japan to get in touch with the origins of taiko and his cultural heritage. He wound up staying for a decade.

Living and Learning in Japan

It was the first visit to Japan for Endo, the son of an Issei father and a Nisei mother. “My Japanese wasn’t good,” he said. “I had taken Japanese in college and had been exposed to it … when I was really young.”

Although he has made much progress — he recently did an interview in Japanese for KZOO Radio in Hawaii — he said, “I don’t consider myself 100 percent fluent. There’s four parts. Hearing is the easiest, speaking, then reading and finally writing. You have to have all four of those aspects covered to be considered fluent. My reading and writing are certainly not as good.”

Endo studied two styles of kumi-daiko, the type of group performance familiar to many audiences today, which is a relatively recent phenomenon dating back to the 1950s — Sukeroku-daiko, which he described as “Tokyo style, urban,” and Osuwa-daiko, “country style.”

In Tokyo, Endo was a pupil of Oedo Sukeroku Taiko, led by Seido Kobayashi, “one of four original members that started this group when they were quite young, teenagers. It actually became the first professional taiko group in Japan.”

In Nagano, Tanaka’s home prefecture, Endo studied under Daihachi Oguchi, who is “considered by many to be the father of this modern kumi-daiko style … His influence was huge all over Japan.”

He added, “He passed away about two years ago … It was a real loss to the world of music, to the taiko world. Everybody who plays taiko is somehow, directly or indirectly, influenced by him.”

Endo also studied Edo bayashi (Tokyo festival music) and hogaku hayashi (classical drumming), achieving natori status in the latter. He was given a taiko name, as is the practice in other Japanese art forms such as koto and classical dance. “They don’t do that in kumi-daiko. (Hogaku hayashi is) probably the only drumming that they give natori in,” he explained.

“The name was given to me, based on my teacher’s name. My teacher was pretty high up there … When I first got my natori, his name was Chosaku, my first name was Choji. Then he became iemoto (grand master) Tazaemon. Then my name became Tajiro. Later he even became Bokusei, but my name still remains the same, so my natori name is Mochizuki Tajiro. Mochizuki is the family name of that school.”

Today there are many Japanese Americans studying taiko in Japan, but at the time, Endo was the only one. He describes his experience: “When you go to a foreign country … it’s the same in that maybe for 80 percent of the people there, it doesn’t really affect them one way or the other; 10 percent of the people are on your side, really help you out; maybe another 10 percent make you feel like you’re a foreigner or you don’t belong there.

“My experiences were generally good, people really helping me out and really teaching me a lot, supporting what I was doing. Of course I was treated differently because I didn’t speak good Japanese, I looked Japanese but didn’t understand 100 percent of the customs. There were definitely struggles, times when people treat you differently; on the other hand, there were other times they treated me favorably, especially after I had been there three years or so. They really knew I was serious.”

By the time he left Japan in 1990, he had become a noted solo performer. Although it was “difficult” to leave, he decided to return to the U.S. because his children, 1 and 3 at the time, were going to start school. (Today, Miles and Zen Endo are both attending mainland colleges.)

Island Influences

Endo received a grant to study at the East West Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His wife, Chizuko, also entered a master’s program. His master’s thesis in ethnomusicology was on one of Oedo Sukeroku Taiko’s compositions.

“We started a school in Hawaii called Taiko Center of the Pacific,” he said. “We teach public classes. Within the school we have two performing groups, a youth group and the Kenny Endo Ensemble, my kumi-daiko group in Hawaii.”

Endo, who has recorded seven CDs of original compositions, has incorporated elements of Hawaiian music into his work. “My first CD in 1992, ‘Yume no Pahu,’ was influenced by a story a friend told me. He was a pahu (drum) maker and he did hula as well. He had a dream that he was playing an unusually shaped pahu, drew a picture of it and eventually made it. Later he sold that drum to me so I could donate it to a drum museum in Tokyo …

“ ‘Yume no Pahu’ has influences from a traditional mele (chant) which is traditionally sung, but on the recording it’s played on koto and bamboo flute in the middle of the piece … I (also) took a Tahitian rhythm, did some improvisation.”

Next month, a new CD will be released by Endo and Derek Nakamoto, a Los Angeles-based keyboardist, composer and arranger who is originally from Hawaii. Endo describes it as “comingling taiko and piano with strong influences from Hawaii and natural elements here.”

Endo’s body of work includes both time-honored and experimental pieces. “When I do kumi-daiko and traditional music, I do try to carry on the tradition in that sense, so especially in classical music and festival music and kumi-daiko pieces I brought from Japan, I do these the way I was taught.

“But I also compose a lot of new work, encourage my students to compose as well. Kumi-daiko is still evolving. There’s a lot of room for creativity. I do a lot of collaboration with orchestras. Several pieces have been written for soloist with orchestra. I work with jazz groups, other musical groups, dance, theater, video, a lot of different genres of art.”

He tries to go to Japan every year or every other year “to perform and to study and to check out what’s going on over there.”

From Michael Jackson to “Avatar”

It’s hard for Endo to pick his most memorable collaboration, but one that comes to mind is “an impromptu performance with Bobby McFerrin (‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’) here in Hawaii a few years back. That was really exciting, a lot of fun.”

“To do a successful collaboration,” he observed, “you have to totally be open to changing what you do. You want to rely on your strengths; at the same time, you have to be totally open to creating something new. If a good collaboration works, it’s something actually better than what you do individually. That’s always an exciting thing to see happen.”

Endo once gave a private performance for Michael Jackson in Japan. “Some of my friends were in charge of his off-time activities … Our group went to Osaka to perform … He sat in a box with his family. We got to meet him. He gave us all tickets to his concert.”

Another unique experience was meeting director James Cameron and composer James Horner on the set of “Avatar” and being filmed in a motion-capture suit used for computer animation. “I was actually playing a Navi drummer. The scene ended up not being used ... As the Earth people are attacking their planet, I was playing these drums to kind of instill courage in them as they went to battle.”

He said it is possible that the deleted scene is included on the “Avatar” DVD.

Worldwide Phenomenon

Regarding the growth of taiko groups, Endo said, “It’s slowed down a little bit, but at their peak there were close to 5,000 taiko groups in Japan. Now in the U.S. and Canada there are at least 200 groups. Here in the islands we have about 20 groups. I went to Brazil in 2008; there were 80 taiko groups in Brazil.”

He also knows of taiko groups in Australia, Europe and elsewhere, many of which have no Japanese or Asian members. Endo has done workshops for many such groups.

Endo noted, “An instrument like a piano a couple hundred years ago was only found in Europe, only Europeans played it. Now you see it all over the world. Not only European classical music but a lot of other music evolved out of that instrument.

“It’s kind of exciting to see taiko at that stage, being discovered in different contexts all over the world.”

Of his appearance in Berkeley, which also featured Somei Yoshino Taiko Ensemble, Endo commented, “It’s just a real community event, also a fundraiser for the temple. I really support the activities of that temple, so whenever I’m asked and I’m able to, I really enjoy participating in that festival.”

He played with Abe Lagrimas Jr. (drums, vibraphone, ukulele and taiko), who is based in L.A. and originally from Hawaii; and three Bay Area musicians, Hafez Modirzadeh (saxophone and Iranian woodwind instruments), Shirley Kazuyo Muramoto (koto, shamisen and vocals), and her son, Brian Mitsuhiro Wong (koto, percussion and woodwinds).

Endo, who did a joint concert with Somei Yoshino about 10 years ago, added, “All the people in that group are good friends of mine.”

He will also appear with percussionist/rhythm dancer Keith Terry on Friday, May 28, at 8 p.m. at Rhythmix Cultural Works, 2513 Blanding Ave. in Alameda (info: 510-865-5060, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , www.rhythmix.org).

The two first met and performed together in Tokyo over 20 years ago. They promise an “evening of spontaneous composition.”