Post 419: HARUKA KIKUCHI

That great young Japanese trombone player Haruka Kikuchi was very proud as we approached the latter stages of 2016. Why? Because, although she had played on many recordings and with the best bands, she then - for the first time - became the Producer of a fine new recording; and she intended it to be the first of a series. She called it JAPAN: NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION SERIES Volume One.

The music was very well recorded, with fine acoustics and balance. Haruka's band comprised five musicians and had a distinctive brassy sound, with trumpet, sousaphone and trombone and no reeds. On trumpet was Naho Ishimura, yet another brilliant young Japanese musician, whose playing is nimble and lyrical. Steven Glenn made a solid and melodic contribution on sousaphone; and who better to provide the chords and percussion than Albanie Falletta (guitar) and the highly-experienced Gerald French on drums (and vocals)? So for the link to some fresh performances of old favourites, CLICK HERE.

You will even hear (and be able to learn) the vocals to Struttin' With Some Barbecue and Muskrat Ramble. That's something that doesn't often happen!

Then in March 2017 Haruka produced JAPAN: NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION SERIES Volume Two, featuring Gospel Jazz. Haruka made this recording with fellow musicians who play gospel music with her in church every Sunday morning:
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.
I specially enjoyed the lusty performance of Jesus on the Main Line - a spiritual I have always liked, ever since the late great Milton Batiste introduced me to it in the 1990s.

In September 2017, Haruka added a third volume, with Shingo Kano from Osaka on piano and Grayson Brockamp  on bass. The trio swings very pleasantly through When It's Sleepy Time Down South, Back Home Again in Indiana and the rarely-heard Small Fry, which Hoagy Carmichael composed for a cartoon film in 1938. To sample these tracks,  CLICK HERE.

Haruka Kikuchi -
about to play with The Audacity Brass Band
at The French Quarter Festival, 2016

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When I visited New Orleans in April 2016, a great pleasure was meeting and hearing Haruka Kikuchi again. This young lady, though slight of build, is one of the best and most powerful trombone players in the world. She is also one of the most versatile. Haruka was very kind and helpful during my visit, giving me a warm welcome and also supplying me with tips about bands and gigs that I might enjoy.

In April of the previous year, I met her for the first time - when I came across her playing with The Shotgun Jazz Band. In 2015, she was also playing regularly with Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers and with The Swamp Donkeys.Haruka toured with The Swamp Donkeys in England, Scotland, France, Holland and Spain during July and August 2015.

Since the  start of 2016, she has become much more independent and freelance. She now plays from time to time with even more bands but she has also started running a band of her own. Her diary is so full: it seemed to me that she was averaging seven gigs a week - sometimes with seven different bands.

In May 2016, Haruka toured in Japan, where she was the guest star in a series of jazz concerts with Japanese bands.

Haruka grew up in Chiba - a few miles east of Tokyo - and settled happily in New Orleans at the end of 2013.

During my 2015 visit, I heard her playing a couple of times with the dynamic and energetic Shotgun Jazz Band. Haruka seemed to have become rapidly integrated into Marla Dixon's very happy Shotgun family.

The Shotgun Jazz Band

What a team they were - driving each other to ever greater heights. Haruka's powerful, creative playing - remarkable from a young woman of her stature - was a mainstay of the band's success.

Haruka started learning to play the piano, violin and cornet from an early age. But when she was 15 she was bowled over by discovering the early recordings of New Orleans jazz. Haruka was greatly encouraged and supported by Ken Aoki - the internationally-renowned banjo player. She decided the 'tailgate trombone' was for her, her hero being Kid Ory. She studied at Tokyo University of Fine Arts, graduating in 2010 with a degree in Music Science. But, while studying, she also joined and played at the Jazz Club (that has existed for many decades) at the nearby Waseda University.

Earlier, Haruka had formed a dixieland jazz band with school friends. And she set about serious study of New Orleans jazz from the earliest times up to the Revival. On YouTube there is some good evidence of the music she was playing with her teenage friends in those days: CLICK HERE.

During a visit to a New Orleans Mardi Gras, she was stunned by the atmosphere and enthusiasm for the music in the City. This led to her organising a Mardi Gras event in Matsue City, Japan, complete with Big Parade, Second Line, and all the usual beads and brollies. Quite an achievement for a young woman.

Today Haruka is one of the best and most exciting trombonists in the world of traditional jazz. If you want to understand how traditional jazz works or if you are learning to play in a traditional jazz band, you could hardly do better than study Haruka's playing. Just notice the line she takes - how well it supports the melody. Notice how she phrases the music and where she takes a breath. Notice how she drives the band along, both in her ensemble work and in her exciting solos. Start with this video, which shows her in close-up: CLICK HERE TO VIEW.

In 2017, Haruka joined and made a great contribution in the wonderful all-ladies Shake 'Em Up Jazz Band, which has evolved into one of the best bands in the world today. THIS VERSION (Click on) of 'Savoy Blues' may be the best you will ever hear.

At the 2016 French Quarter Festival, she even appeared with the veterans in an old-style New Orleans Brass Band. I did my best (despite difficult filming conditions) to make a video of them playing Bugle Boy March and hope you may care to watch it. You can do so BY CLICKING HERE.

How lucky I have been to meet Haruka! On top of all her other achievements, she has also mastered English, so I have had most enjoyable conversations with her.

My most recent meeting with Haruka
- on 18 February 2017

When I was in New Orleans on 20 October 2016, I was very pleased to hear her band play. I took this picture of her and also informed her that I am adopting her as my grand-daughter. She now calls me 'Grandpa'!

Have a look at this well-made video to appreciate Haruka's versatile and venturesome approach to music making: CLICK HERE.

In 2018, Haruka married Yoshitaka Tsuji, a virtuoso jazz pianist, who had moved from Osaka to New Orleans in 2010 to seek his fortune. In recent years, he had played with several bands, but most notably Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers. He and Haruka met in 2012. They now live in Treme, New Orleans, with their son Shouta. Here are Haruka and Shouta in 2020, watching a Parade.

Post 418: THE HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAM

Here in Nottingham, where I have lived for the last ten years, one of the most famous buildings is The Bell Inn.

It is situated right in the City Centre, at 18, Angel Row. The inn dates from the Fifteenth Century and is the oldest pub in the City. Its cellars include hand-carved caves dating from the Twelfth Century.

The Bell Inn is of special importance to lovers of our music because for many years on Sunday lunchtimes a traditional jazz band has played at The Bell Inn. So it is a popular local venue.

Although the personnel has changed slightly over the years, there is a resident band and the quality of its music is high.

It was a special pleasure for me to be invited to deputise in the band on 13 September 2015 and again on 3 July 2016 and 11 September 2016, when the regular trumpet player was away on holiday. It was one of the best six-piece bands in which I have had the privilege of playing. There were on all occasions about 100 customers in the pub and many of them were obviously the core of regulars - seriously interested in the music and attentive to everything. Many customers were also enjoying the excellent Sunday lunch provided.

But telling you all this is just a crafty way of getting round to an un-jazzy subject that appeals to me. It is about Nottingham itself - a city which I have come to love. I want to share with you an interesting aspect of its history - how it got its name.

Fifteen hundred years ago, quite close to where I am typing right now, there lived Old Man Snotta.

To make a living, Snotta did a lot of trading. He set up Snotta’s Trading Centre where he bought and sold meat, animal fats, pigs, sheep, pottery, simple farming equipment, and especially garments, many of which had been made by his wife, his daughters and his sisters, who did their own weaving. His shop looked like this.

He also sold a nice line in designer footwear made from cattle skins by his son Wulfran.

Snotta was the local Mr. Big. So it is not surprising that the area round Snotta’s Trading Centre became known as Snottastun (Anglo-Saxon for Snotta’s Town).

Snotta built himself a home nearby (not too close, as he considered the Trading Centre a somewhat downmarket area). He chose a site conveniently near the river. The frame of the house was constructed from wood, cut from more than a dozen tree trunks. The house was basically one large room. For insulation, his brother – who was good at thatching – made him a thatched roof. They filled in the walls with planks and with wattle and daub. It must have been rather like this modern replica.

Being relatively prosperous, Snotta opted for a wooden floor, too. And he had a form of interior lighting – lamps burning animal fat. The house had no glass windows; people were still ignorant of glass, Mr. Snotta made do with vellum as a cover for his primitive 'window'.

In the centre of the home was a fire, built on a raised clay hearth. This was somewhat hazardous, but in the winter the Snottas were too cold to worry about the danger of the house burning down.

The house was built facing south, to make the most of the sun’s warmth.

As Mr. Snotta was quite somebody in the small community, the place where he lived became known at Snottasham. (Anglo-Saxon for Snotta’s Home).

In those days, just as today, when men such as Mr. Snotta died, the descendants often continued to run the business and live in the home. Descendants were indicated in Anglo-Saxon by the suffix ‘ing’. So his Trading Centre became Snotta-ing-tun; and his home became Snotta-ing-ham.

Other examples in England are to be found in Dersingham [the home of the descendants of Deorsige] and Walsingham [the home of the descendants of Wal].

A few centuries later, the Normans invaded England and they were particularly attracted to Snottaingham, where they developed a town and a castle of their own. But they were unfamiliar with words beginning 'Sn – ' and found them difficult to pronounce. So they dropped the 'S'. Thus, the place name eventually became simplified to Nottingham, which it is still called today.

I bet Old Man Snotta was rejoicing in his grave in 1980 when the Nottingham Forest Football Team – still bearing his name – won the European Cup.

But what about Snotta's trading centre at Snottaingtun? Well, the Normans weren’t so keen on that part of the region and left it to the Anglo-Saxons, with whom they soon integrated well. The Anglo-Saxons had no reason to drop the ‘S’, so it remained as Snottaingtun. And all that happened over the next thousand years was that its pronunciation and spelling were smoothed into the present-day Sneinton.

So today (no kidding) we have the glorious City of Nottingham, and – just a mile east of its centre – the suburb of Sneinton.

Well done, Mr. Snotta. Your name is thus curiously perpetuated in two adjoining locations.