Is this something worth going to?

[Blue]

Is this something worth going to?

[billdsmall]

Yes, Yes, Yes, if you have the chance to see John Kaizan Nepture live in concert, don't miss this opportunity!! He is arguably the most phenomenal shakuhachi player on the planet. I have 2 Dvds of him playing and at least 10 of his CDs. He's been living in Japan for the past 30 or so years and perfecting his craft. He plays a lot of jazz and Indian music.

[Blue]

Well, I've made a reservation. Hope they give me permission to make a recording so that I could post it here!

[billdsmall]

Enjoy the show! It would be great if you could post a recording, or at least post a review.

[Blue]

Looks like he is a frequent visitor to Taipei, though.

He was in the 2011 Taipei Musical Instruments Fair:



And this was published on youtube last year:

[billdsmall]

The first clip is Neptune and band performing his composition "West of Somewhere". It's the title song of a long out-of-print album, but fortunately a couple different versions of the song are heard on other Neptune CDs.

The second clip is a stunning example of his virtuosity, especially considering the shakuhachi's only got 5 holes!

[Blue]

It's 30 min before the start of the concert and the room is pretty full.
List includes

Tsuru no sugomori
Haru no umi
Blue wind
Senka
Bamboo born
5 and 13 are prime numbers
Roots and branches
West of somewhere

Impulsively bought 2 of his CDs for usd30 at the front door

[Blue]

Audience demographics are mostly 50 to 60 somethings

[Blue]

An old man next to me is showing me his camera videos of 向天蝦 which is a special shrimp species that lives one week

[billdsmall]

Tsuru no Sugomori is a traditional shakuhachi song about a family of cranes in their nest. It affords the player the opportunity to really show off his chops, there are all sorts of techniques and embellishments used. Neptune's recorded it on his Words Can't Go There CD.

[Blue]

Concert just ended . . . Will write a report latter. Did u know his son's middle name is bamboo?

[billdsmall]

Didn't know he had a son. No doubt there are worse middle names than Bamboo...at least that's not his first name...

[Blue]

As you can see here, I took a lot of notes while observing the concert, so it will take maybe up to a week to write an entire report!




But this should suffice to demonstrate I did watch this concert, but I will keep this image on the forum for up to 24 hours.

<picture removed ~2 weeks later>

[billdsmall]

Great photo of the 2 of you! You both look pleased so I'll presume that it was a good show...although I won't know for sure until your review is posted. You certainly did take a lot of notes! Thanks very much for taking the time to post all these photos, I for one really appreciate your efforts.

I hope you talked some sense into Neptune and convinced him enough already with all this shakuhachi stuff, it's time to pick up a dongxiao! LOL.

[Blue]

Demonstration of playing chords by singing when one blows into the Shakuhachi! This was done without the aid of anyone else or hi-tech intervention.




Here he rotates the shakuhachi by 90 degrees and plays it as a transverse flute!

[billdsmall]

Another neat shakuhachi trick is to play the flute "upside down". Rotate the flute 180 degrees so that the thumb hole is on top and the other 4 holes are below. Once you find the right blowing angle, almost completely vertical, you can play at least 1 clear tone. I would think that this could probably be done with a Tang Xiao, since the mouthpiece is essentially the same as a shakuhachi's.

[Blue]

Well, I don't have much of a music background, so I won't be able to provide the language and terminology used by a music critic. Also, I'm going to call the end blown flute of different lengths generically as Shakuhachi (in Chinese: chiba, 尺八) even though strictly speaking 尺八 refers to an end blown flute that is one and 8/10 foot. In the Chinese discussion portion of the concert, it's very apparent that one wouldn't call a 1.6 foot a 1.8 foot. For those not used to the flute measurements, one Asian foot is 0.994 English foot; somehow the average node distance of bamboo is approximately equal to someone's foot!

Also, I might refer to John Neptune by his name in Chinese characters (kanji/hanzhi/漢字) as 海山.

Bamboo Born
Bamboo Born is actually dedicated to John Neptune's son, whose middle name is bamboo. I did a little research on both google translate and the Wikipedia and discovered that 竹子, which is romanized as Takeko, is a common Japanese given name, albeit a feminine one. (An alternate Kanji form of Takeko is 武子). Let me provide a Chinese language perspective of 竹子 (there can be weird idiomatic differences between Chinese and Japanese in the use of even Chinese characters, so I can't confidently give a Japanese language perspective). 竹子 is often used as the noun form of bamboo, while 竹 itself often works like an adjective. Therefore, one normally thinks simply bamboo and nothing else when one hears “ 竹子.” If one carefully thinks beyond the box, 竹子 could be awkwardly interpreted as “son/offspring” of bamboo. So if John Neptune actually thinks himself as bamboo, then his son is the “son of bamboo.”

Still, the first thing that comes to mind to a Chinese-speaking audience when they see the title “Bamboo Born” is bamboo shoots. Based on this interpretation, the son is the shoot growing from the same rhizome. (I'm not going to digress to the subject that the bamboo only flowers once every 100 years in terms of reproduction).

The piece Bamboo Born was accompanied with an electric guitar played by Mark Miller and sounded like 70's music. John's movements with his shakuhachi and his body language made it look like he was looking down at a crib, talking or even singing to his son with fatherly love.

Blue Wind
This piece takes advantage of the Shakuhachi's minor pentatonic scale to produce Western blues. The music sounded 1980-ish too me. Three different types of shakuhachi's were played together like if they were three divas singing together: 1.6 feet (尺六) in E, 1.8 feet (尺八) in D, and 2.4 feet (二尺四) in A. 海山 played the 2.4 feet flute as if it were a sax. They way they shook their heads to change the sound of their shakuhachis was interesting.

West of Somewhere
All the instruments (electric guitar, dizi, erhu, shakuhachi, koto, yangqin, and drum) and the audience participated to produce New Age Music. I was almost afraid that this was going to turn out to be a dreadful Yanni-esque perfomance, but in the end it was enjoyable especially when the audience had to interact with the music. The funny part was when John sang “Sha – ku – ha – chi!” before he started to play the Shakuhachi. (Digression: I used to work in National Public Radio [NPR] and Public Broadcasting System [PBS] pledge drives, where Yanni CDs and DVDs were often given as thank you gifts. The consensus based on the response and acceptance decision of these Yanni thank you gifts is that you either like or hate his work. Additionally, the now defunct English language version of Asiaweek Magazine had a satire cartoon showing that the PRC devised a more humane way to execute prisoners: by forcing them to watch Yanni videos!)

5 and 13 Are Prime Numbers
5 refers to the five holes of the shakuhachi; 13 refers to the number of strings on the koto (Japanese zither). Add them together to get 18, which in Chinese, Japanese, and Jewish traditions is a positive (as in good luck) number. Here 海山 sang and blew into the Shakuhachi at the same time to produce chords (normally flutes can only play broken chords). Then he played the shakuhachi in transverse mode!

Senka (unfolding)
The announcer said this piece had some yin and yang element with the koto and shakuhachi in different scales unfolding in harmony. Initially, the melody sounded very sad, but it made a sudden change to become as joyful as can be on a minor scale.

Roots and branches
This was an American, Euro, Japanese melting pot fusion in melody. The erhu, yangqin, and koto were used.

Tsuru no Sugomori
Apparently this piece emphasize the flapping of the wings of the cranes. John closed his eyes throughout this performance, but he was constantly moving his chiba in different directions.

Haru No Umi (sea)
Apparently this piece was created by a blind composer. This is the first time that John Neptune is accompanied by a dizi player for this piece. Unlike Tsuru no Sugomori, John's eyes were always opened and was in contact with the dizi player. There was much less movement of the Shakuhachi compared to Tsuru no Sugomori.

[Flolei]

Thanks a lot, Allen, for such an interesting review of Neptune's concert.

[billdsmall]

Very nice review, informative and in-depth, thanks much.

[Blue]

Could have done a better review if I had spent the time reviewing the various video clips. But it was taking forever to write something.

I didn't talk to John because there was a long line of people wanting to take photographs; plus, I'm just a little fish in this world of notched flutes! (Not to mention that the shopkeeper in Clarion Music San Francisco said I lacked melody). No point in convincing John to take up the nanxiao if the shakuhachi requires more technical skills than a nanxiao.

John was actually visiting Taiwan to find bamboo material to construct a bamboo drum.

[Blue]

Ah, someone else posted a youtube video of the concert!



On a matter totally irrelevant to this forum, the poster curiously also has a nice collection of cat videos:

[billdsmall]

Watching John Neptune play a drum is like watching Michael Jordan play baseball...