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Hiroshima
 In
1971, Duke Ellington recorded an album entitled The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse. As
part of that work, Ellington proclaimed “that whole world was going
[Asian],” and that no one would know “who was in the shadow of whom.”
The celebrated ensemble known as Hiroshima is the fulfillment of
Ellington’s prophecy. In the three decades since they first convened,
the Los Angeles-based ensemble of Dan Kuramoto (keyboards, woodwinds,
composer, producer), June Okida Kuramoto (koto), Danny Yamamoto
(drums), Kimo Cornwell (piano/keyboards), Dean Cortez (bass) and newest
member Shoji Kameda (taiko drum/percussion) have blended jazz, pop, and
rock with traditional Japanese folk music and instruments. The
resulting sound was a pioneering voice in the world music movement of
the late 20th century.
While Hiroshima have sold more than three million records in their
prolific career and have had 14 albums in the Billboard Charts, they’ve
done something even more important in the process: they’ve introduced a
variety of traditional Asian instruments to a global audience, and
integrated them seamlessly into a new music and art form. The Japanese
koto, a zither-like, 13-stringed instrument, shakuhachi, a five holed
bamboo flute, and the powerful taiko (which literally means drum)
combine with instruments with the Western Hemisphere to create their
unique musical palette.
 For Hiroshima – which takes its name from the Japanese city
that sustained a nuclear blast during World War II, yet rose
phoenix-like from its own ashes – the “ride” began in the polyglot
metropolis of Los Angeles. Of all of the members, only June Kuramoto
was born in Japan. She arrived in Los Angeles when she was six and
lived in an African-American neighborhood. As Dan Kuramoto, her
ex-husband recalls, “When she came here from Japan, she couldn’t speak
a word of English. As is by providence, the leading koto player of
Japan needed a place to teach. This madam Kazue Kudo taught at June’s
house in the ghetto. In exchange, June got free koto lessons. As June
grew as a classical prodigy, so did the influence of her life in
America. By junior high school she asked her teacher if she could play
songs by the Temptations on the koto. "She’s always had a soulful feel
in her playing.” Dan Kuramoto, who sang in a Baptist church choir
during his youth, also grew up with an interest in African-American
music and multi-culturalism.
Dan and June formed Hiroshima in 1974. Their self-titled debut on
Arista in 1979 spawned the hit single, “Roomful of Mirrors” and the
intense showstopper, “Da Da.” They quickly developed a loyal following
among cities with African-American audiences – particularly
Washington, DC, Chicago and Atlanta – and they enjoyed radio airplay on
black and contemporary jazz radio stations nationwide.
 Their
subsequent albums were equally successful. Odori, released in 1980, earned a
Grammy nomination. In 1983, they signed with Epic and released Third Generation. Two years
later, Another Place
generated the popular single, “One Wish,” and became their first gold
record. Go, released in 1987,
sat at the top of the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Chart for three
months, and the album won a Soul Train Award for Best Jazz Album of
1987.
East, released two
years later, contained music from Sansei,
Hiroshima's critically acclaimed play that was performed at the Los
Angeles Music Center’s Mark Taper Forum. Providence (1992) featured “Time on
the Nile,” a tribute to Miles Davis (with whom they’d toured before his
death in 1991), and a inventive rendition of Stevie Wonder’s “Ribbon in
the Sky.” After their stint with Epic, Hiroshima signed with Quincy
Jones’s Qwest label and released LA
(1994), an album that encouraged healing in the aftermath of the L.A.
race riots, and Urban World Music
(1996), which featured Quiet Storm sounds with Average White Band
vocalist Hamish Stewart. Voted top ten record of the year by The
Network, Between Black and White
followed in 1999 on the Windham Hill Jazz imprint.
The band joined the Heads Up label with the 2003 release of The Bridge, a recording that
extended their unique and universal artistry into the 21st century.
They followed with the 2004 release of Spirit of the Season, a holiday
album that celebrates cultural diversity in a way that only a
L.A.-based Asian American band with shades of Latin percussion and
other world music sensibilities can do.
In the spring of 2005, the group released Obon, their first instrumental record and a tribute to
the musicians, places and events that have inspired the band throughout the years. Obon also marked the band’s 25th
anniversary and the 60th anniversary of the imprisonment of the
Japanese during WWII.
Hiroshima’s latest Heads Up release, Little
Tokyo, was released on May 22, 2007. The album title, a
reference to the well known Asian neighborhood in southern California,
is the group’s nod to the increasing importance in 21st century America
of maintaining a positive multicultural world view in the midst of
international and intercultural tensions.
Downloads
>
Hiroshima Bio (pdf)
>
"Little Tokyo" Press Release (pdf)
> "Little
Tokyo" Reviews (pdf)
>
"Little Tokyo" Track Notes (pdf)
>
Hiroshima Billboard Charts (pdf)
> Hiroshima
e-card
Master College Clinics
Clinic syllabus coming soon
>
Hiroshima Promo Video
"Midnight
Sun" from "Little Tokyo" (2007 Heads Up) (mp3)
"Hidden
Times" from "Little Tokyo" (2007 Heads Up) (mp3)
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