On July 16, 2011 the Artichoke Cafe (3130 SE Hawthorne Blvd., Portland, OR. http://artichokemusic.org) hosted a benefit concert for the people of Japan and featured the phenomenal guitarists Goh Kurosawa and Toshi Onizuka. Money was raised for relief efforts for those areas which had suffered from the earthquakes and tsunami of March 11, 2011.

Saturday, March 10, 2012 (March 11, Japan time) saw a return of the same artists to the Artichoke in remembrance of those who had suffered and who continue to suffer from the horrifying effects of the devastation.

Much of the music featured was written as a result of the heartache and helplessness that musicians and entertainers of Japan felt with their seeming inability to offer any real aid to the victims. The music is uplifting and hopeful and very much in keeping with Japan's tradition of songs of encouragement and strength in the face of tragedy. In a land victimized by disasters both natural and human-made, the music of the Japanese people has continually resounded with optimism and courage. Saturday night proved that point with exclamation.

The first set opened with Portland's adopted son Toshi Onizuka performing his original composition entitled A Song for Fighters. "Life is tough," Toshi explained, "and things are still bad in Japan but we keep looking up." The piece was lyrical and lovely and optimism filled the spaces between the notes, it seemed.

A Love Letter was also an Onizuka composition and revealed his nation's heart played out on Spanish guitar. It was filled with the same beautiful changes that life offers. Those chord changes were not predictable but they were emotional and were punctuated early on with quick, percussive pops like the quick beat of love's heart. It is what the Japanese call doki-doki, the pitter-patter of an excited heart.

His composition Light in Shade may be the most emotional piece of music I have ever experienced. The chords he employed were not power chords but they were powerful chords. There was an unspeakable beauty in this solo piece. I have never felt so inspired and at peace. The work is reflective and evocative at the same time. It is the song that remains in my head even now.

Goh Kurosawa replaced Toshi onstage. Before beginning, he paused for several breaths, almost meditatively. The effect on the music was instantly obvious as the piece itself became a meditation.

He employed astonishing Moorish tones and was very interactive with the whole of the guitar. Sometimes seeming dissatisfied with his effort, Goh would transform the moment into triumph. Moving from sensitive touch to aggressive strike, his smile would give enigmatic indication of what was coming next and the entire piece took on the feel of a suite.

He passed from ritual to reason in the second passage as the tone became an intellectual feast, featuring Japanese modes played out on Spanish guitar. Then a slide back to an almost Villa-Lobos touch with a sensitivity that gave the final passage a characteristic only to be described as the final move from ritual to reason to repose as the piece became a sweet lullaby and ended in peace. It was a guitar exposition on Enlightenment.

As Goh began the opening chords of the next piece, he began to speak of the devastation in Japan. He raised the question asked by so many Japanese performers as to what could a musician do in response to catastrophe. Having just returned from Japan and having seen emptiness now where neighborhoods and towns once stood, he spoke of his conclusion that the only proper answer was "There is nothing to do but not waste my life."

Then the song became Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah... and it was fitting.

It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

But even a cold and broken Hallelujah is still an utterance of gratitude and hoping for hope.

The second set saw Toshi and Goh together onstage as Toshi became the percussion in the first piece with hand-claps and a ride on the percussion box.

Meanwhile, Goh played all the tricks with slapping the soundboard, scratching the strings, rubbing the body and looping the whole excursion as he took up the melody. Fun stuff.

Toshi Onizuka plays with heart and with precision. Goh Kurosawa plays with intelligence and power. Together they are completely complimentary of each other and they make room for each other. They listen to each other.

Below is a Youtube link to Goh's trio performing Goh's own composition Believe.

Believe was Goh's work composed after the 3/11 disaster. It is the admonition to be positive and for even those not residing in the troubled areas to maintain "a happy energy for Japan."

Goh and Toshi were joined by Geli Wuerzner a violinist from Lynnwood, Washington. Geli brought a moving addition to the guitars with her 5 string violin. She had said that Japan "does not need your sympathy. They need your joy." And she brought the joy with her.

The opening tones were gorgeous and they carried throughout this sweet melody of hope. Disaster happens quickly and recovery is slow but joy is all-sustaining.

Goh carried the melody as Toshi scratched the strings like a guiro. Geli popped the strings pizzicato while Goh rubbed the body of his guitar in time with Toshi slapping the soundboard on his. All three returned to playing the strings as they finished the joyful melody.

The audience would not let them depart and were rewarded with Blue Bossa as an encore.

The night was one of tenderness and optimism and the Artichoke Cafe was the perfect place for it. Japan still struggles but the hope found in their music and in the heart of their musicians will see them through this dark night as it has so many times before.

My wife and I had been wanting to go for a couple of months to see Toshi Onizuka's trio at the Paragon on NW Hoyt and NW 13th Avenue in the Pearl District of Portland. We had been introduced by our mutual friend Jay "Bird" Koder at a Monday night SoulMates' performance. Toshi invited us to come see him at the Paragon on any Sunday afternoon from 4 pm to 7 pm where he would be playing with another mutual friend, the great drummer Reinhardt Melz.

We knew that we liked Toshi Onizuka as a friend and "Bird" had told us that Toshi "definitely has the chops." But we were really not prepared for what greeted us on Sunday afternoon. Not prepared at all.

With Toshi and Reinhardt is John Hughes on 5 string bass and he plays with it beautifully. When asked between sets how he came to play the 5 string, he said that he started it four years ago after someone had broken into his vehicle and boosted all of his gear. He shook his head like Mr. Bojangles and said, "leaving you're gear in a vehicle...the one thing you never do." So he needed a bass for the gig and a friend of his offered to give him a 5 string bass to help build back his equipment list and he has played that same 5 string ever since. And he plays it well.

I have written at length about drummer Reinahardt Melz but almost always within the context of his playing with Jay "Bird" Koder and Jarrod Lawson as part of the SoulMates. I had previously thought that I couldn't possibly say much more about Reinhardt's talents but, again, I was wrong. This was a completely different setting with completely different musicians in a completely different genre. Reinhardt truly can play it all.

Toshi Onizuka is a flamenco guitar player and spent years and years in Spain honing his chosen style and craft. He has been in Portland for over 12 years now and has spent most of his time performing at El Gaucho at the Benson Hotel. He has lamented the fact that he came late to the guitar at age twenty but his playing shows that his heart and desire have more than made up for any time he might consider lost. There is a deep emotional undertone to his crafty musicianship.

Toshi plays lyrically and he can play percussively in the style so well served by flamenco attributes. This was showcased in the song Costa where Toshi and Reinhardt are punching at the snappy rhythm as John plays the melody on bass underneath it all. It was hot and sweet! Then Toshi lays off the strings and plays rhythm on the soundboard in step with
Reinhardt.

There is great precision but there is amazing heart in Toshi's playing. It speaks of the depth of character within him. There is a grace in his playing that can only be a reflection of the grace within himself. There are pressures and distractions that audiences never know and need not know. But character and heart and grace... call it as you will... give strength that allows them to play through it all and can even be enhanced by it all.

Toshi smiles as he plays and it is the smile of one who has seen so much.
Reinhardt was playing through a physical distraction and it never showed, not  once, in his playing. He kept finding that groove and Toshi and John fell in
seamlessly and smoothly with those stunning melodies and harmonies.

The best example of that was during one of Toshi's own compositions. The piece
was called Light in Shade and carried a meditative feel with that tugging groove. The harmonies of guitar and bass were moving and the lead switching was just electric. However, above all that, were these modulations that were so emotional, so enlightening, so satisfying.

I'll confess, my wife looked at me and said, "You're crying..." That was really the only right response from me at that moment--tears.

Satisfying. Yes, that has to be the word to describe it for me. It may sound overly-emotional or sentimental or whatever but I was simply satisfied with what was happening around me and to me.

And I didn't want it to stop.