Cousins in country music
Next week in Bangkok, Isaan's boisterous morlam meets the mellower charms of ryuku from Okinawa
MUSIC FROM ISAAN and Okinawa will be performed side by side for the first time in Thailand next Friday in a celebration of their shared ability to soothe the soul as well as their considerable difference in levels of exuberance.
The Siam-Okinawa Music Festival will feature the Paradise Bangkok Molam International Band, Thailand’s best-known purveyors of the rousing northeastern music overseas, along |with Misako Oshiro and Kanako Horiuchi, two of Japan’s most revered specialists in the distinctive music of Okinawa.
Its tunes inspired by the hardships of the parched rice field, unrequited love and the simple joys of rural life in the Northeast, morlam is a staple of the music playlist for half the country’s population.
From a basic ensemble of khaen (bamboo mouth organ), wode (reed pipe) and vocals, morlam has evolved to include full strings, drums, electric guitars and a slew of exotically attired dancers. And yet it still maintains its soulful character.
This “party music” you normally hear at countryside gatherings and temple fairs has been taken international by the Paradise Bangkok Molam International Band, which includes both young and older professional musicians. (It uses a slightly different English spelling for the genre.)
With several CDs out on ZudRangMa Records, Paradise has taken the sounds of Isaan on the road and around the world, thrilling foreigners with its zesty musicianship and troupe of dancers in electrifying, colourful outfits. The biggest wows come when it’s “freestyling” with humour and flair.
Often headlining parties in Bangkok alongside electronic music DJs, the outfit gets more serious this time for the Siam-Okinawa Music Festival, featuring a highly respected and elderly Japanese artist.
Misako Oshiro is 77 and has been performing for five decades. Born in 1936 in Osaka’s Taisho-ku district, home to many Okinawans, Misako’s family moved back to the southern island while she was still a child. She grew up at its north end, in a village called Henoko.
At nine she was already singing and could read music, and by 20 she was playing classical ryukyu music. While working in a restaurant she met songwriter Tsuneo Fukuhara, who encouraged her to undertake a proper career in music.
She has released many recordings of traditional Okinawan music, performed at ryukyu festivals in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto and appeared in several films, such as 1973’s “Hotel Hibiscus” and 1998’s “Tsuru-Henry”, directed in Okinawa by Go Takamine, in which she had a lead acting and singing role.
For her Bangkok debut, Oshiro’s protege Kanako Horiuchi will accompany her.
The Hokkaido native works as “young mamasan” at Shimaumui, a bar where the staff performs traditional and modern Okinawan music under Oshiro’s supervision. She’s also a vocalist for Lovers Ska, a band that fuses ska with the folk sounds of Okinawa.
>>>The Siam-Okinawa Music Festival is next Friday (November 1) at 8pm at the Imperial Queen’s Park Hotel’s Sundowners’ Bar on Sukhumvit Soi 22.
>>> Only 200 seats are available. Tickets cost Bt700, inclusive of a drink. Advance booking is recommended at Kinjo Okinawa Restaurant and Izakaya, 50 metres down Sukhumvit Soi 69 near the Prakhanong BTS stop.
>>> For information in English and Japanese, call Mr Otaka at (089) 047 1456. There’s also a “Siam Okinawa Music Festival” page on Facebook.
