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GY: So we got more and more involved with -- I got more involved with music. I don't know when it was, but let's see, maybe going for thirteen. In 1989, about that time, '85-'89, I met Mark Izu, a Sansei bass player, and I really marveled at his proficiency, technique, interest in music. He wanted to be, at that time, a professional musician. In fact, he was a professional musician. That was his trade at that time, but not too many gigs, of course. But I talked to him and said, geez, Mark, sure would be kind of fun to have a big band of some sort because we started hearing more about the availability of Sansei musicians. I said, it'd be kind of neat to have an organization to introduce them to swing music if you had not -- if they had not played in such a group, which they had not. And so we had our first rehearsal on February 1989. And we were short on trombone players. We had a piano player from, from, from locally, George Yamasaki, originally of Hawaii, playing the piano. And I played drums. We found a bass player -- oh, Mark Izu was the bass player. Found about four saxophone players, all Sanseis. We found one female, Jan Yona -- Yonemura -- excuse me. Yonemura. Yonemoto -- who played the saxophone and clarinet. And it was a kind of nice addition to the family, good to have a female Sansei playing. It was so neat. Trumpet players, and maybe we had one or two hakujins there because -- one of the trumpet players who used to play in the Heart Mountain band, joined us. That was neat. And he would bring a friend in.

So we had the saxophone section, the trumpet section, and maybe one trombone at the most. This trombone player was kind of an interesting -- Tomita was his name. And he was at Mills College, but he was sort of an avant-garde musician who had studied in France. But I saw this photograph of him. Tuxedo, trombone, and in bare feet. That's just -- a really interesting person, very much into music, avant-garde. And he played for us for a while, and that was kind of neat. And they were rather scarce. So we had our first rehearsal on that date. We announced several -- I think we may have put announcements in the paper, jazz paper. So that was the beginning. That was thirteen years ago, and we're still going strong. And it's really a great organization, I think, musically. But in terms of social contacts and the sharing of --

AI: And this, this was the J-Town --

GY: J-Town Jazz Ensemble. And I used the word "ensemble" because if I said "J-Town Big Band," I didn't know whether we'd be a big band, how big or small it was. It was, turned out to be seventeen pieces: five saxophones, four trumpets, four trombones, four-piece rhythm section. We do have two vocalists now. And I was graduated into something other than playing the drums because there were so many young drummers who could read the music and were quite capable. And again, it was the, my idea was to serve as a role model, too. If that wasn't there, there'd be nothing for them. I wouldn't say nothing, but it, the kids would not have had the experience of what we're doing now. It became a very social group. And every year we'd have a birthday party, and David Umemoto had a big house. And, and -- well, I don't know about every year, but in the last few years, we have a anniversary party. And it was a nonprofit organization in that none of us expected any money for gigs, but sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. Nonprofit. Played for local Cherry Blossom Festivals, et cetera, et cetera.

Last year it was a very outstanding event for me because the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles had a, as usual their annual fund-raising program, which was a dinner-dance at the Palladium. Now, the Palladium is a very well-known ballroom, built about sixty years ago. And it opened in LA with great fanfare. It was a beautiful ballroom. And the dance band that opened it was Tommy Dorsey with his new singer, Frank Sinatra. And man, at that time, he had a big, big seller. I don't know what. Million sell, whatever, a tune called "I'm Fall -- " let's see. What is it? "I'll Never Smile Again" and tunes like that. And I had a date that night, one of these rare dates, and just really enjoyed Tommy Dorsey, Buddy Rich, Frank Sinatra, The Pied Pipers, and several other singers. Great show. And then here it is sixty years later, no -- never been there since. Last year, here our band is down there, playing on the same stage as Tommy, and it was quite a thrill to me. We were saying to -- talking to some of my friends, if the walls could only talk, in the same small, cramped dressing rooms and all that. It was a great thrill for me and for some of the older guys to play at the same ballroom as Tommy Dorsey. That's sixty years ago, my first -- one of my first dates, too. Yeah. So that was good.

So we -- we're still working, and next week we'll be playing at the Sacramento State University for their Day of Remembrance program to play the tunes that Niseis enjoyed many years ago. So that's the J-Town Jazz Ensemble.

<End Segment 48> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.