Ryo Kawasaki

Ryo Kawasaki (川崎 燎) was a Japanese jazz fusion guitarist, composer and band leader, best known as one of the first musicians to develop and popularise the fusion genre and for helping to develop the guitar synthesizer in collaboration with Roland Corporation and Korg.

His album Ryo Kawasaki and the Golden Dragon Live was one of the first all-digital recordings and he created the Kawasaki Synthesizer for the Commodore 64.

His father, Torao Kawasaki, was a Japanese diplomat who had worked for The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1919.

Torao worked at several Japanese consulates and embassies, including San Francisco, Honolulu, Fengtian (then capital of Manchuria, now Shenyang in China), Shanghai, and Beijing while active as an English teacher and translator for official diplomatic conferences.

Ryo's mother, Hiroko, was also multilingual, and spoke German, Russian, English, and Chinese aside from her native tongue Japanese.

Hiroko grew up in Manchuria and then met Torao in Shanghai.

Torao was already 58 years old when Ryo was born as an only child.

Kawasaki's mother encouraged him to take piano and ballet lessons, and he took voice lessons and solfege at age four and violin lessons at five, and he was reading music before elementary school.

As a grade scholar, he began a lifelong fascination with astronomy and electronics (he built his own radios, TVs and audio systems including amplifiers and speakers as well as telescopes).

When Ryo was 10, he bought a ukulele and, at 14, he got his first acoustic guitar.

The album Midnight Blue by Kenny Burrell and Stanley Turrentine inspired Ryo to study jazz.

In high school, he began hanging out at coffee-houses that featured live music, formed a jazz ensemble and built an electronic organ that served as a primitive synthesizer.

By the time he was 16, his band was playing professionally in cabarets and strip joints.

Although he continued to play music regularly, he attended Nippon University, majored in physics and earned his Bachelor of Science Degree.

He also did some teaching and contest judging at the Yamaha musical instrument manufacturer's jazz school.

Additionally, he worked as a sound engineer for Japanese Victor Records and BGM/TBS Music, where he learned mixing and editing.

He recorded his first solo album for Polydor Records when he was 22.

Although he continued to perform with his jazz group, and at a young age was voted the No. 3 jazz guitarist in a Japanese jazz poll, Kawasaki spent most of the next three years working as studio musician on everything from advertising jingles to pop songs including countless radio and TV appearances.

He recorded his second album for Toshiba when he was 24.

He played with B.B. King at a blues festival and also met George Benson (they jammed for five hours at Kawasaki's house).

He also has recorded and worked with notable Japanese jazz musicians such as drummer Takeshi Inomata and Sound limits, saxophonist Jiro Inagaki and Soul Mates, saxophonist Keiichiro Ebisawa, saxophonist Seiichi Nakamura, pianist Masahiko Sato (佐藤允彦), saxophonist Hidehiko Matsumoto (松本英彦) and many others.

Ryo Kawasaki was born on February 25, 1947, in Kōenji, Tokyo, while Japan was still struggling and recovering from the early post World War II period.

During the 1960s, he played with various Japanese jazz groups and also formed his own bands.

In the early 1970s, he moved to New York City, where he settled and worked with Gil Evans, Elvin Jones, Chico Hamilton, Ted Curson, Joanne Brackeen amongst others.

Hendrix had dreamed up the concept with Evans, but Jimi died a week before the project started in 1970.

Kawasaki also played on another Gil Evans album on RCA, There Comes a Time, with Tony Williams on drums.

Kawasaki rehearsed for a month with the third edition of Tony Williams' Lifetime with trio format with bassist Doug Rauch working with Carlos Santana at that time, but Tony left to spend a year in Europe before the band got the chance to perform in public.

Kawasaki followed in the footsteps of Jim Hall, Gábor Szabó and Larry Coryell by becoming the guitarist in the Chico Hamilton Band, playing on a U.S. tour and working on various film scores that Chico recorded in Hollywood.

In 1973, Kawasaki arrived in New York.

A friend picked him up at the airport and offered him an immediate gig with Joe Lee Wilson playing at the Lincoln Center as part of the Newport Jazz Festival.

Soon Kawasaki was jamming regularly as part of the jazz community's "loft scene", and was invited to play with Bobbi Humphrey.

A few months later, Kawasaki walked up to his apartment and found a stranger waiting for him at his front door.

It was Gil Evans and he invited Kawasaki to join The Gil Evans Orchestra (David Sanborn, Howard Johnson, Tom Malone, Lew Soloff) which was then working on a jazz recording of Jimi Hendrix compositions, The Gil Evans Orchestra Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix.

Kawasaki made his debut U.S. album, Juice, in 1976 for RCA and was one of the first Japanese jazz artists to sign with a major label in the States.

Sidemen on the project included Tom Coster (Carlos Santana) and Sam Morrison (Miles Davis).

Kawasaki followed that recording with two more albums, Prism and Eight Mile Road, for the Japanese label East Wind.

He also joined the Elvin Jones Band for a year-long tour of North and South America and Europe.

By 1978, Kawasaki was tired of touring with other bands and returned to his own projects.

In the mid-1980s, Kawasaki drifted out of performing music in favour of writing music software for computers.

He also produced several techno dance singles, formed his own record company called Satellites Records, and later returned to jazz-fusion in 1991.