Aeolian trio us Tour 2024
schedule
8/29 (Thu.) East Sound/ Orcas Island/ Odd Fellows Hall/ 7PM
8/30 (Fri) East Sound/ Orcas Island/ Little Farm on Olga Road/ 3PM
9/01 (Sun) Portland, Oregon/ Salon Concert/4 PM
9/02 (Mon) Arcata, Ca./ Evening Concert
9/03 (Tues) Humboldt Redwood Japan Live Streaming Concert/
9/04 (Wed) Oakland, Ca/ Salon Concert/6 PM
9/05 (Thur) Sebastopol, Ca./ Soft Medicine/ 7PM
9/06 (Fri) / Willits, Ca./ Willits Arts Center/ 7PM
09/08 (Sun) Boulder, Col./ Congregation Nevei Kodesh/ 7PM
9/10 (Tue) to 24.09.12(Thur) College Station Tex./Texas A&M University/ Lectures and Concerts
9/11 (Wed) College Station, Tex. Texas A&M University/Main Concert/7PM
9/12 College Station Texas A&M University A and M/ Lectures and Concerts
9/14 (Sat) New York city/ Keio Academy Concert/ 9 AM
9/14 (Sat) New York City/ Van Cortlandt Park/ 4 PM
9/15 (Sun) New York/ Croton Library Concert/ 4 PM
About The Aeolian Trio
Japan-based Californian shakuhachi player Bruce Huebner and Tokyo guitarist Koufuu Suwa join New York percussionist Todd Isler to form the Aeolian Trio.
Solo artists in their own right, together the three share a deep love of music making and devotion to the traditions of their respective instruments—a Japanese traditional bamboo flute that is rooted in Zen Buddhism; a Spanish folk guitar that has become the giant of jazz, rock and pop; and a Brazilian & South Asian drum assemblage that spans percussive worlds.
A unique blend of talents—Bruce, Koufuu and Todd have joined forces to create the satisfying and transcendent fusion that is the Aeolian Trio.
Bruce Huebner/shakuhachi
In 1993 California-born Bruce Huebner was the first non-Japanese to graduate, first in his class, from the prestigious Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music where he studied under National Treasure Yamaguchi Gorô. He went on to give two solo shakuhachi recitals of Japanese classical music, and in 1999 Huebner co-founded the ground-breaking world music group "Candela," which brought shakuhachi to the NY Blue Note, Toronto Jazz Festival, Rome University and beyond. In 2007 his duo with koto master Curtis Paterson, “Curt and Bruce,” toured Japan with guest Susan Osborn and recorded the album “Orcas Takes” under Susan’s direction in 2009. Since the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011 his “Going Home” project has performed over 80 concerts in the affected areas. Aera, one of Japan’s leading news and culture magazines, wrote, “Huebner keeps that simple, nostalgic sound we Japanese associate with shakuhachi yet blends beautifully with the rhythm and harmony of jazz.”
Suwa Kôfû/guitar
Self-taught from the age of 13, Kôfû Suwa began his professional guitar career in 1985 at the age of 17. Working his way up through the cabaret and studio scene in Tokyo he is now conductor and guitarist for enka star Yamauchi Keisuke, performing nearly 200 shows a year. Besides being at the top of the world of enka, a ballad style that epitomizes the “heart and soul of Japan,” he is active as a producer, composer and clinician of jazz, flamenco, banjo, ukele, and more. His “Koufuu Supporter Club” is as devoted to him as he is to making music that connects us to beauty and nature.
Todd Isler/percussion
Todd Isler has been active in the jazz and world music scene in New York City for over 30 years, and is heard on hundreds of genre-crossing recordings with the likes of Joe Lovano, Dave Liebman, Sting, Steve Turre, Melvin Sparks, Cisao Machado, Mike Gordon and many, many others. In India, Todd studied a classical hand drum, the Mrdangham, under Ramnod V. Raghavan and Karaikudi R. Mani, and in Brazil percussion with greats Portinho and Vanderlei. He has gone on to perform extensively in Europe, Brazil and Africa. His book, You Can Ta Ka Di Mi This, teaches musicians of all genre rhythmic accuracy and groove through the South Indian traditional rhythm system. His wife. Jenny, a professional saxophonist, was Bruce’s elementary, Jr. and high school classmate.
Aeolian Trio Program Notes
Sakura (arr. Koufuu Suwa)
Koufuu’s arrangement of Sakura, probably the most famous Japanese melody, starts with a funk groove that bookend a “traditional” rendition. The cherry blossoms blizzard like a snowstorm.
Spanish Wind (comp. Koufuu Suwa)
In this original composition by Koufuu we fuse the music of Spain, Japan and India into a new Aeolian sound. Flamenco, shakuhachi and South Indian drumming are rooted in ancient cultures were joined together by the Silk Road, so after all, this sound is a reunion of old friends.
California Highway (comp. Bruce Huebner)
A rock shuffle that evokes the thrill of young brothers joining their dad on a trip to the Sierra Nevada.
Moldau (comp. Bedrich Smetana; arr. Aeolian Duo)
Playing music by a river is one of our favorite passtimes. Although we have yet to see the famous Moldau that Smetana evoked, when touring in Tohoku (North Eastern) Japan we enjoy creating our own versions of the materpiece with The Abukuma (in Fukushima) or The Mogami (in Yamagata) or The Kitagami (in Iwate) in mind. On this tour we hope to play with The Mad, or The Smith or The Eel.
Zui Zui Zukkoro Bashi (trad. arr. Tomoya Hara)
This Edo Period children’s song is known by most Japanese of older generations. The comic song is about some kids who are messing around on the front porch and disturb the stately procession of a Feudal Lord (Daimyo) passing on his way to Edo.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (comp. Joe Hisaichi: arr. Aeolian Trio )
The melody of this Hayao Miyazaki Ghibli Studio film theme is uncannily similar to a phrase found in many Kinko shakuhachi honkyoku, particularly tsuru no sugomori (Nesting Cranes.) The book and animation Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was “A Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hayao Miyazaki. It tells the story of Nausicaä, a princess of a small kingdom on a post-apocalyptic Earth with a toxic ecosystem, who becomes involved in a war between kingdoms while an environmental disaster threatens humankind. “— Wikipedia
IchiKotsu (comp. Yamamoto Hozan, arr. Aeolian Trio)
Shakuhachi great Yamamoto Hozan composed Ichikotsu as a three-movement work for koto and shakuhachi in 1970. It has been a Contemporary Hogaku favorite ever since. Our version follows the original with the koto solo introduction and main theme of the first movement, adds a middle “jazz solo” section, returns to the main theme, and finishes with a coda made from the ending of the original’s third movement.
In adapting the piece for the Aeolian Trio, Kofu has been aware that koto players use three large sharp finger plectrum to strike downwards , and that the koto has thirteen strings with the higher pitched ones nearest the player. Meanwhile guitarists generally pluck or strum upward and that the guitar is tuned in the opposite direction from the koto, with the highest strings closest to the player.
Haru no Umi Spring Sea (comp. Miyagi Michio, arr. Aeolian Trio)
Haru no Umi, written in the 1920’s by Miyagi Michio, is undoubtedly the best-loved work for koto and shakuhachi in Japan. Miyagi is considered to be the founder of modern music for koto and shakuhachi. The quaint folk pentatonic scale belies the sophisticated formal and thematic structure of this masterpiece of Western and Japanese fusion. Spring Sea, as it is called in English, was premiered by Miyagi with violin instead of shakuhachi, and while it is popularly associated with the New Year season, Miyagi actually wrote it to portray the Inland Sea and the lilt of the rowers of wooden boats. We recently toured the areas that surround this serene yet dramatic waterway - Kagawa, Ehime, Tokushima and Hiroshima. The new Aeolian trio version of “Spring Sea” will emerge naturally as the US tour progresses.
Bachalora (comp. JS Bach, arr. Aeolian Trio)
From the Flute Sonata in E Flat Major, BWV 1031: II. Siciliano. Our version draws on grooves associated with South America and Africa.
Aegean Sea (comp. Koufuu Suwa)
Aeolian was born onboard a ship traveling from India to Greece. At the first concert performed while sailing across the Indian Ocean, the shakuhachi - a Japanese traditional bamboo flute that is rooted in Zen Buddhism - and the guitar - a lute with roots in Spain and the Renaissance - met in what seemed to be a reunion of long-lost friends. In fact the guitar and shakuhachi share roots in the ancient world and their ancestors were carried on the Silk Road and Indian Ocean trade routes.
Koufuu composed this piece on that trip, inspired by the sparkling Aegean and the multi-metered dances of the children of Rhodes Island.
Aeolian Jongara Bushi (arr. Aeolian Trio)
Tsugaru shamisen, a virtuosic lute style from northern Japan, is driven in part by the buzzing of the sawari where one of the three strings of the lute is purposely hampered to create sympathetic vibrations. Koufuu has created a guitar sawari for this famous melody.
Tiptoe (comp. Todd Isler)
A simple melody played over a delicate samba in 3/4 time.
Kalalau Trail (comp. Todd Isler)
A tune that evokes both the beauty and precariousness of the famous trail on the Napali coast on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. 7/4 meter with various combinations of 2, 3, 4, and 5 make this a fun challenge.
Emma (comp. Bruce Huebner)
In praise of Bali beauty based on a pentatonic scale shared by the folk music of Bhutan, Okinawa and Sunda Java.
Forest in Black (comp. Koufuu Suwa)
An enchanted dark forest like that in Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Guitar harmonics, multiple lengths of shakuhachi, and a myriad of percussive sounds.
Captain (comp. Koufuu Suwa)
Composed on a long cruise to Egypt in praise of the ship’s captain, particularly his morning announcement of the ship’s log. In the style of an Irish jig, in major and minor, up and down, in and out.
Yuka Chan Sunrise (comp. Bruce Huebner)
Bali is again the backdrop - the early clatter of the markets, insects, birds and temple calls - the tropical sun.
About Kinko Shakuhachi Honkyoku
This music is ancient medicine. Susan Osborn talking about Kinko School Honkyoku
Literally “true pieces” - honkyoku is a generic term for the traditional solo repertory that the fabled komuso Zen “monks of emptiness,” who were licensed to use these pieces exclusively for alms gathering and meditation during the Edo Period (1608 to 1863.)
This form of meditation is known as Suizen, “blowing Zen,” as opposed to Zazen, “sitting Zen.” Each school has its own exclusive style with overlapping titles and kata (formal patterns.) While the modern shakuhachi appears in jazz, contemporary, experimental, modern, folk, film, animation, rock, and pop contexts, the honkyoku continues to be a link to its Zen roots.
When Japan opened to the West in the 1860’s, adaptation was the name of the game, and traditional music was no exception. The mendicant life was decreed obsolete and banned by the Meiji government, and along with practitioners of other traditions like the Noh, Kabuki, Puppet Theater, Biwa Shamisen, etc., the lovers of shakuhachi had to meet the challenge of modernization. They redesigned the instrument, established guilds, joined with koto and shamisen players, assembled repertory, wrote and printed notation, aligned with universities, and, in the 20th Century, recorded, and brought to countris beyond Japan.
Today shakuhachi is among the elite arts that are taught at the National Tokyo University of Arts with and sponsored “National Treasure,” a a government-designated practitioner of high esteem. While numbers are dropping precipitously in Japan, the shakuhachi has spread around the world. In April 2025 the World Shakuhachi festival will be held in Houston, Texas (USA.)
In the Edo Period (1608 to 1863) shakuhachi temples were scattered around the country, and many had specific claims to transmission of the honkyoku pieces. For example “Mukaiji Reibo,” one of the most hallowed, was first heard in a dream and passed down “for centuries” at the komuso temple in Wakayama. A temple in modern Saitama Prefecture passed down its own special piece “Sayama Sugagaki,” and so on.
After 1863 Imperial rule and modernization were coupled with navy building, engineering, rail networks, electrification, and the importation of western music. Centuries-old shakuhachi infrastructure was swept aside in the name of catching up with the West. How did the shakuhachi survive the the shock of Meiji “Restoration?”
A corner stone of this modernization effort was the creation of a unified and easily read and transmitted notation system. Each lineage has its own and the Kinko school, the hero in our story, had several. The creators of this notation (see the example below) combined the best of the western five-line staff with a syllabic and pictorial system influenced by Buddhist chant and Noh, as well as Gagaku Imperial Court Orchestra music dating back to the 8th and 9th Centuries.
Japanese traditions are little boxes that one must knock around in for years before you master enough to realize that there is no lid and you can fly up to freedom. Susan Osborn
The “little boxes” are the kata - “forms” - that are the central part of transmitting or learning any Japanese tradition, from tea or ikebana, to ceramics, painting or architecture. The shakuhachi kata are prescribed in extreme detail: fingering, ornamentation, every detail of the pitch slides or portamento. The student must emulate the way his teacher plays these as closely as possible.
Pedagogically, patiently cycling through the repertory with the teacher - the head of the school or his designated surrogates - verbal explanation, general principles, method books, techniques, scales or principles, crossing over and comparing etc are distract from achieving mastery of the essence of the pieces.
The pieces themselves are like run-on sentences, without clear form or melodic development. (A drop-the-needle test on even the most experienced player could be meaningless. )
The shear beauty of the sensei’s tone and the story of monks and modernization is alluring and compelling enough, but in the end the physical manifestation - the seemingly crude five holed bamboo root piece and the elegant calligraphy of the notation - have been my sustaining force. These artifacts and the teacher’s recordings are evidence of something greater than the sum and that eventually mastery of the honkyoku kata will lead player and listener alike to sense of peace and detachment.