Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

A while back, I was googling Jin Nyodo just to see what was out
there.  In one session I came across a reference to a KPFK radio
series on traditional Japanese music, and it mentioned a set of
performances by Jin Nyodo on Radio Pacifica in the early 1960s.

The program was called "Evening on the Roof," and was hosted by
Peter Yates.

Particularly intriguing was that Jin had apparently played sankyoku
as well as honkyoku.

Not too long after that, Peter Hill came through LA and we had a day
of shakuhachi lessons and general hanging out.  The woman who put the
day together was Professor Rachel Rudich, who teaches at Pomona
College, where we held the day's activities.  I got into a
conversation with her husband, Ron Sappington, who mentioned that he
had salvaged a garage full of old KPFK tapes years ago when the
radio station was cleaning house.

I mentioned the Jin Nyodo stuff to him, and he dug through the tapes
and found the lost Jin Nyodo concerts, as well as some interestingly
related stuff - in particular, recordings of Myoan-ji temple komuso
playing choshi, and some shomyo chant, both with introductions.

Ed Heckerman had a working reel-to-reel tape deck which he lent to Ron.
Ron used it to record the stuff and burn it to CDs, and sent me a
set of disks. 

Those music files are now available online as MP3s at:

        http://shikan.org/KPFK

Enjoy!

p.s. if anyone has further information on these performances, please
let me know so I can add the information to this archive.

Last edited by Bruce (2009-11-17 11:24:48)