Okinawan tree
trades peace for pop

RECORD REVIEW

KINAWAN POP

rocks out Kina-style;

Geggy Tah refresh;
Gershwin jazz classics resur-
face.

Shoukichi Kina - Asia Classics 2,
Luaka Bop/Warner Bros. 1994

A bizarre yet joyous cultural
clash yields the equivalent of a
sushi and steak full meal deal.

Kina is from Okinawa, an
island south of Japan that has its
own language and musical tradi-
tion.

He once worshiped and lived
in trees under the tutelage of a
hermit yogi, but since the mid-
1960s, Kina has planted
Okinawan folk roots on territory
which accommodates the formal
and rural indigenous music with
everything from western country
and boogie to electronic dance.

This collection, which
appears on David Byrne’s always
adventurous Luaka Bop label,
spans Kina’s career to date. From
1966 there’s Basha-gua Suncha
(The Cart Puller), a lively little
ditty about a peasant hauling
food to market.

Ry Cooder shows up on sever-
al tracks recorded in Honolulu in
1980. The best of these, Hana
No Kajimaya (Flower Windmill)
is a traditional song bubbling
with life and child-like pleasure.

Geggy Tah - Grand Opening,
Laake Bop/Warner Bros. 1994 8

David Byrne labels the sound
put out by this Los Angeles duo
“Avant-soul.”

If Tommy Jordan and Greg
Kurstin can catch some attention
with this debut, they could well
prove to be for their generation
what Sieely Dan was for the hard
rock refugees of the 1970s.

Geggy Tah are smooth and
unorthodox, They come from the
kitchen sink school of sonic con-

struction: if it makes a sound, use
it. The resulting textures are
decidedly decadent. Toss in hip-
ster fyrics heavy with evocative
imagery and laced with irony
and the result is an engrossing
debut.

Kurstin brings to the project a
jazz sensibility. He studied piano
with Charles Mingus’ pianist Jaki
Byard and has played with
Mingus’ cohort Charles
McPherson.

’S Marvelous: The Gershwin
Songbcok, Verve 1994

hnerm!

The Verve 50th anniversary is
seeing a flurry of activity as the
label re-issues music from its
extensive catalogue.

Early cn, the music of George
and Jra Gershwin was readily
adopted by jazz musicians. Their
swing standards and show tunes
continue to provide rich material
for interpretation by today’s gen-
eration of jazz artists.

This compilation includes
many definitive versions of some

See Gershwin page 29

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