<Begin Segment 30>

GY: Here was a camp, had all the time, all the instruments, all the music, all the support from the community. So it was really a wonderful time of my, my life in terms of playing the music we dearly loved. We played more for ourselves than for the entertainment of others. And I would do -- we didn't play too well. One of the things that very few of us were able to do was to improvise, which is the core of jazz playing, I think. There was one person, Yuki Miyamoto, played the tenor sax, and he was a person who played at the Santa Anita Assembly Center dance band, and he was fairly good. He'd improvise and play a little bit more than the, the straight melody, and that was nice. But nevertheless, we played for dances, a few of them, maybe one or two talent shows. And we did not have vocalist except for this one sort of a medium up tempo. It was called "Wham," and it was part of the, Glenn Miller's repertoire. And I had a chance to sing that. It was kind of neat. That was the only time we did any singing -- I did any singing. So that was sort of the beginning of my short -- rather lengthy in term, in terms of playing this kind of music.

AI: What was the name of the group in Poston?

GY: In Poston, it was, we were called the Music Makers. And I think that the name was taken from a very popular dance band led by Harry James, who was a great trumpet player. Played jazz with Benny Goodman. And his parents were members of a circus band. Harry James played jazz trumpet, first with Benny Goodman, and many -- he's on many of these earlier jazz records that Goodman produced. Then he started his own band, and his band was called the Music Makers. And one of the popular tunes was a waltz called "Sleepy Lagoon." It was a very beautiful, quiet waltz, which was very, very popular in the United States and, of course, in our camps, too. It's a waltz, "Sleepy Lagoon." And Harry James about that time hired a young singer who was to become a big star. His name was Frank Sinatra. And he (sang) with them for several years. And a popular music record that he made at that time with Harry James -- that's Frank Sinatra -- was "All or Nothing at All." Big, big hit. Soon after that, he started to work for Tommy Dorsey.

So that was life in camp. And most of the records -- or rather -- excuse me. Most of the dances were dances where the music was supplied by records. They were, they were plentiful. And there may have been one or two -- excuse me -- internees who may have had fairly good record-playing system, a player with a large speaker. It may have been homemade. I really don't know, or order through mail. So they're the ones who -- I guess they're called disc jockeys today, DJs today. So they played most of the music. And we had plenty of records in camp. Mail order, orders for most items were available through camp catalogs. And that's how business was done in those days, purchasing was done in those days. So it was kind of nice, nice time for me to play the music we loved.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.