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Ryo Kawasaki (川崎燎,
Kawasaki Ryo) (born February 25, 1947) chose a career as a jazz fusion guitarist after spending some years studying
as a scientist. During the 60s he played with various Japanese jazz groups and
also formed his own bands. In the early 70s he came to New York where he settled and found steady
work in very distinguished company, including the bands of Gil Evans, Elvin Jones, Chico Hamilton, Ted Curson and Joanne Brackeen. In the mid-80s, Kawasaki
drifted out of performing music in favour of writing music software programmes for computers. He also produced several techno
dance singles, forming his own company, Satellites Records, for their release. Ryo Kawasaki was born in Kōenji, Tokyo while Japan was still
struggling and recovering from the early post World War II period. His father
Torao Kawasaki was renowned and honored Japanese diplomat worked for Japanese
Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1919. Torao worked at varieties of
Japanese Consular and Embassies including San Francisco, Honolulu, Fengtian (then capital of Manchu, now Shenyang as city of
China), Shanghai and Beijing while active as English teacher and translator for official diplomatic
conferences. Ryo's mother Hiroko was also multilingual and spoke German, Russian,
English, and Chinese aside from her native tongue Japanese. Hiroko grew up in Manchu and then met Torao in Shanghai. Torao was already 58 years of age
when Ryo was born as only child and these unique circumstances of Ryo's parents
may already have hinted Ryo's later developments and wandering nature in
international circuit as an artist. In high school he began hanging out at coffee-houses that
featured live music, formed a jazz ensemble and built an electric organ that served as a primitive synthesizer. By the time he was 16, his band
was playing professionally in cabarets and strip joints. Although he continued
to play music regularly, he attended Nippon University, majored in quantum physics and earned his Bachelor of Science
Degree. Although he has failed to prove his main interest and intuitive belief
at that time, which is to prove that speed (propagation) of gravity must be much greater than speed of light. He also did some teaching and
contest judging at the Yamaha musical instrument
manufacturer's jazz school. Additionally he worked as a sound engineer for Japanese Victor Records and BGM/TBS
Music where he learned mixing and editing. He recorded his first solo album for Polydor Records when he was 22. Although he
continued to perform with his jazz group, and at a young age was voted the #3 jazz guitarist in a Japanese jazz poll,
Ryo spent most of the next three years working as studio musician on everything from advertising
jingles to pop songs including countless radio and TV appearances. He recorded
his second album for Toshiba when he was 24. He
played with B.B. King at a blues festival and also met George Benson (they jammed for five hours at
Ryo's house). He also has recorded and worked with notable Japanese Jazz
legends such as drummer Takeshi Inomata and Sound limits, saxophonist Jiro
Inagaki and Soul Mates, saxophonist Keiichiro Ebisawa, saxophonist Seiichi Nakamura,
pianist Masahiko Sato (佐藤允彦), saxophonist
Hidehiko Matsumoto (松本英彦) and many
others. Ryo
Kawasaki with Gil Evans at Sweet Basil in New York City,1982 Ryo with Elvin Jones and David Williams, 1977 In 1973, Kawasaki arrived in New York. A friend picked him up at
the airport and offered him an immediate gig with Joe Lee Wilson playing at the Lincoln Center as part of the Newport Jazz Festival.
Soon Ryo was jamming regularly as part of the jazz community's "loft
scene", and was invited to play with Bobbi Humphrey. A few months later, Ryo walked
up to his apartment and found a stranger waiting for him at his front door. It
was Gil Evans and he invited Ryo to join The Gil
Evans Orchestra (David Sanborn, Howard
Johnson, Tom Malone, Lew Soloff) which was then working on a jazz recording
of Jimi Hendrix compositions. Hendrix had dreamed
up the concept with Evans, but Jimi died a week before the project started in
1970. Kawasaki also played on another Gil Evans album on RCA, There Comes a
Time, with Tony Williams on drums. Ryo rehearsed for a month with the
third edition of Tony Williams' Lifetime with trio format with bassist Doug Rauch
working with Carlos Santana at
that time, but Tony left to spend a year in Europe before the band got the
chance to perform in public. Kawasaki followed in the footsteps of Jim Hall, Gabor Szabo and Larry Coryell by becoming the guitarist in the Chico Hamilton Band, playing on a U.S. tour
and working on various film scores that Chico recorded in Hollywood. Ryo made his debut U.S. album,
Juice, in 1976 for RCA and was one of the first Japanese jazz
artists to sign with a major label in the States. Sidemen on the project
included Tom Coster (Carlos Santana) and Sam
Morrison (Miles Davis).
Kawasaki followed that recording with two more albums, Prism and Eight
Mile Road, for the Japanese label East Wind. He also joined the Elvin Jones Band for a year-long tour of North
and South America and Europe. By 1978, Kawasaki was tired of touring with other
bands and returned to his own projects. Kawasaki invented his own guitar synthesizer
in 1979, and used it to perform numerous solo shows at planetariums from 1980 to 1983. He also formed
the jazz-rock group The Golden Dragon and performed concerts regularly in the
80s. Fostex developed the first quarter- inch-tape,
eight-track recorder and asked Ryo to be the first artist to use it. He
recorded the album Ryo in 1981 for Philips Records and gained notoriety for
creating all the music himself. He played only a nylon-string acoustic guitar
with all his backing tracks created on his guitar synthesizer including the
entire original orchestration of Joaquin Rodrigo's well known Concierto de Aranjuez—Adagio movement. He did another similar
recording, Lucky Lady, the next year. When the Commodore 64
computer came out with a sound-chip in it, Kawasaki became fascinated by the
possibilities. He learned to write computer programs and devoted 16-hours-a-day
for two years creating four music software programs—Kawasaki Synthesizer,
Kawasaki Rhythm Rocker,
Kawasaki Magical
Musicquill, and Kawasaki MIDI
Workstation—distributed by Sight and Sound Music. The first
three programs were for school and home use, and the last one was for
professional studios. He created an all-synthesized album, Images, in 1987; and
the soundtrack, Pleasure Garden, in 1990 for an IMAX
film about the preservation of the earth's endangered tropical rain forests. From 1986 to 1990, Kawasaki produced a series of high-charting 12 inch dance singles—"Electric World",
"One Kiss", "No Expectations", "Say Baby I Love
You", "Don't Tell Me", "Wildest Dreams", "Life is
The Rhythm", "Pleasure Garden" and "Acid Heat"—that
mixed free-style, house, acid house and ambient sounds. All of the production
was done at his home studio, The Satellite Station, and the records were
released on his own label, Satellites Records. His band and a dance troupe also
performed extensively in New York dance clubs. In addition, for five years
(1988 to 1993), Kawasaki was the New York producer and director of two Japanese
national weekly music radio programs, "The Music Now" and "Idex
Music Jam." In 1991. He also collaborated with Japanese koto
master Kicho Takano and produced "Crystallization" in 1986. Kawasaki's musical direction took another dramatic turn when he
was signed by the new jazz and adult contemporary Japanese label One Voice as
an artist and record producer.
Ryo's return to jazz, and his first album for the label, was the 1992 acoustic
solo guitar album "Here, There and
Everywhere" (released on One Voice in Japan and on Satellites
Records in the U.S.). Kawasaki has produced and performed on three albums by Brazilian singer and guitarist Camila
Benson for this label. Ryo's has continued to release a steady
string of albums—the acoustic "My Reverie" (music from Bill Evans, Debussy, Ravel
and Gershwin), the electric jazz guitar-oriented
"Love Within The Universe" (which received considerable airplay
across the country), "Remixes Remixes Vol. 1" (also featuring
Benson), "Sweet Life" and CD releases of "Mirror of my
Mind" (a jazz ensemble recording with Harvey Mason, Michael Brecker, Anthony Jackson, Leon Pendarvis and vocalist
Radha Shottam). During 1995 - 1999, three noteworthy hip hop Super Stars Puff Daddy, Kool G Rap and Keith Murray have recorded Ryo's original
composition "Bamboo
Child" on their latest albums more than twenty years later from
its original recording, proving that even Ryo's old recording would perfectly
match with current Hip-Hop beats and moods. Ryo has released live studio trio album "Reval" in
2001, recorded in Tallinn Estonia with Estonia's leading musicians Toivo
Unt on Bass,Aivar
Vassiljev on Drums and Kristi Keel on English horn. His other projects include being a composer, music director as well as guitarist for the jazz ballet "Still
Point" for Estonian National Opera House during 2000 -2002. This ballet is
choreographed by Russell
Adamson, a native Jamaican who resides in Helsinki. Ryo also released his third acoustic guitar solo album 'E' in 2002. From
year 2000, Kawasaki has further expanded his live appearances into Russia and Baltic region Jazz Festivals. His quartet has
appeared at Rigas Ritmi Jazz Festival in Riga/Latvia, Pori and other jazz festivals
in Finland, Ukraine, Lithuania as well as Саранск
(Saransk) Jazz Ark Festival, Saransk is a
Capital of Mordovia Republic located 630 km east from Moscow. He
also appeared numerous times at Nõmme Jazz Festival in Estonia while assisting the production of this
jazz festival. Kawasaki's most recent projects during 2005 − 2008 include
guitar trio project with American drummer Brian Melvin and Estonian bassist Toivo Unt under the name "Art of
Trio" performing in variety of venues in Finland, Sweden and Baltic states, and performing with Estonian vocalist Jaanika Ventsel, while touring and
recording in Japan for the duo project with bassist Yoshio 'Chin' Suzuki (鈴木良雄), their new
duo CD "Agana" was released in February 2007. In
2008, Ryo has formed jazz ensemble with Estonian pianist/keybordist Tõnu Naissoo. Also his 2nd duo CD with Yoshio
'Chin' Suzuki (鈴木良雄) and first CD
with "Art of Trio" are completed and ready to be released during 2009
while his composition "Raisins" was included on "Grand Theft Auto IV/GTA4"
fusion station in 2008.
printable Press Kit of Ryo Kawasaki. For Ryo kawasaki bio in other launguages, please refer to
wikipedia.org, there are complete translations in Spanish, Japanese, Russian and Esperanto.
Early
life (1947 − 1968)
Early
career in Japan (1969 − 1973)
Developments
in New York City (1973 − 2002)
1973 −
1979 (as guitarist)
1979
− 1990 (as inventor and programmer)
1991
− 2000 (return to jazz guitarist)
New
developments in Estonia and beyond (2000 − present)