Jazz in Japan: Doing What Comes Naturally

College of Music students are globetrotters who learn from and are mentored by teachers and performers from many cultures. The opportunity to learn from masters of other musical traditions is a distinctive feature of every program in the college. World-renowned musicians regularly visit East Lansing to lead master classes, and students have unique opportunities to study and perform internationally. This cosmopolitan outlook sets the MSU College of Music apart from other schools.

American jazz musicians often find their most appreciative audiences in Japan, as 28 College of Music students discovered last year when they made a six-city tour of Japan with faculty members Rodney Whitaker, director of jazz studies, and Diego Rivera, instructor of jazz saxophone and improvisation.

During their stay in Japan, the students visited Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Kasugai City, Tokyo, and Narita-Sui-Chiba. The program included gigs in jazz clubs such as the Kyoto Rag, performances for Japanese high school and college students, and time to compare performance styles with their Japanese counterparts. According to Whitaker, the performance at Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo drew the school’s largest jazz audience ever, packing the auditorium.

Whitaker worked with internationally renowned Japanese jazz pianist Yutaka Shiina to coordinate the trip. Whitaker has known Shiina for twenty years and has played music with him for 10. Shiina visited MSU in 2007, and Whitaker hopes he will make a return visit, perhaps with some Japanese students, in the near future. Whitaker himself has visited Japan 69 times over two decades.

Whitaker included free time in each city so students could explore on their own. He suggested some cultural highlights they might want to visit but otherwise left the students to develop their own itineraries and make connections with other students they met along the way. He was proud of the students’ willingness to experience Japanese culture and cuisine. But it didn’t surprise him.

“Musicians are natural travelers. They’re open to exploring,” Whitaker says. “In order to be a good jazz musician, you have to be open minded and open hearted.”

Whitaker says that the trip allowed the students to see themselves and their country from a different perspective. For example, they noticed that the Japanese have a work ethic that allows for less leisure time and emphasizes teamwork over individual achievement. The Japanese also put more money into education, and Japanese students are very serious about learning.

“American jazz musicians also use teamwork, but each individual musician has his own thing he wants to do,” says Whitaker, who notes that the Japanese students saw Americans “approaching jazz from a more joyful standard. It encouraged the Japanese students to loosen up.”

The College of Music hopes to develop a long-term cultural exchange program with Japanese jazz musicians. Whitaker notes that the universities in Osaka and Kunitachi are likely partners for such a program, and that Konan High School in Kobe is interested in developing a summer exchange program with MSU.

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