The Beat Goes On

Photo by Lawrence Tabudlo

It’s 50 years and counting for taiko master Kenny Endo, who’s planning a celebration next month for fans of the influential Japanese art form.

If anyone was meant to bang away on objects and produce wondrous sounds, it’s Kenny Endo.

At age 4, he became enthralled with beats.

Dum, dum, dum, dum.

In his pre-teens, he took his first drum lessons.

Tszz-ts-ts-tszz-ts-ts-tszz.

As a high schooler, he rode the snap, crack and buzz of the snare drum as a band member.

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat-tat.

And as a young adult, he’d find every opportunity to beat out rhythms to his favorite classic rock, jazz, Latin or funk tunes on his trusty drum kit.

Ba-dum-tss!

To Endo, the sounds produced by a drum aren’t just to be heard “with your ears,” but felt “down in your bones.”

“It’s a very powerful experience,” he says.

Yet nothing could compare to his introduction to taiko, and the thundering, ritualistic sounds that would emanate from these large, barrel-shaped Japanese instruments.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

“It was a sound that struck me … I was really influenced by it,” says Endo when recalling the first time he heard the taiko drum beat coming from an ensemble in the 1970s. “As soon as I heard it, I said, ‘Oh, man, I gotta do this.’”

That he did — and he’s been thumping away on drum skins ever since. Now comes his golden anniversary as an influential taiko drummer and ambassador for the Japanese art form that traces its roots back to the 6th century CE. Called “MA vs. Groove,” Endo’s 50th anniversary celebration/tour is scheduled for Aug. 9-15 in Honolulu, and consists of concerts, workshops, lectures, demonstrations and a film premiere. (See accompanying story on page 13 for more details.)

The tour will continue with concerts on two neighbor islands: Kahilu Theatre in Waimea, Hawaiʻi island, Sept. 19; and Anaina Hou Community Park in Waimea, Kauaʻi, Sept. 20. Thereafter, Endo and his ensemble will travel to Ohio, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and California for several fall performance dates.

“Taiko drumming can be very hypnotic, very soothing and can actually put people in a good place,” says Endo, whose taiko journey began in 1975 when he was accepted into the Los Angeles-based taiko group Kinnara Taiko. “My hope is that people will not only enjoy and be entertained by our art form, but it will inspire them to develop their own passions.

“There’s also a potential for performing arts to bring people together, to bridge cultures and to inspire people to do good rather than to do no good,” he adds.

The taiko master says he came up with the name for the event by juxtaposing two contrasting concepts of Japanese rhythm.

“The word ‘ma’ means ‘space,’ and in music, it refers to the space between sounds,” Endo explains. “That’s very important in Japanese music because you’re taught to maintain the energy even at rest — when you’re not making a sound but there’s still energy happening.”

As for the thought behind the word “groove,” Endo points to the Japanese term “nori.”

“This isn’t the nori that you put on your sushi, but the nori taken from the verb noru, which means to ride on,” he explains. “That’s the term for playing in the groove, or playing the swing or, as we sometimes say, playing in the pocket.”

Interestingly, Endo didn’t have to think too long and hard to come up with the name.

“‘MA vs. Groove’ was actually the title of a concert I did back in 1990 after I had been living in Japan for 10 years. I thought because it was 35 years later, I should just use the same title as kind of a work in progress,” he says.

In 1980, Endo had a decision to make: either move to New York and pursue a career as a professional rock/jazz/funk drummer, or relocate to Japan and fully immerse himself in taiko.

He chose the latter.

“I had a real curiosity about my roots and my cultural heritage. Both my parents were citizens of Japan and, although I grew up in the United States, I could understand Japanese, even though I didn’t speak it well,” explains Endo, who was born and raised in Los Angeles, California.

Initially, he only intended to stay in Japan for a year, but those plans changed once he realized “how little I knew about taiko.”

Ultimately, “one year turned into 10 years very quickly,” he adds.

In that decade of living abroad, Endo mastered three drumming styles: kumi-daiko (group), hogaku hayashi (classical) and matsuri bayashi (festival). He also became the first foreigner to receive a natori (stage name) in hogaku hayashi. The name he took was Mochizuki Tajiro.

Aside from performing with notable talents, such as Bobby McFerrin and for icons like Michael Jackson and Prince, Endo had the honor of traveling to Moscow in 1989 to entertain Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He also had the distinct privilege of interacting with many other Russians on that occasion.

“The people over there treated us so well, and we had such a great experience, but I had this realization that people are the same everywhere,” he says. “As an American growing up, I was told, ‘Russia is your enemy.’ But I realized then that it’s the governments that are fighting people.”

Taiko, he believes, is a bridge that helps to bring people together.

“In ancient Japan, they would have drummers come out to instill courage in soldiers before they went to battle. But my feeling has always been that if the drums have that much power to inspire soldiers to war, then it can also be used to inspire people to bring peace in the world,” says the 72-year-old Endo.

“That’s the potential I see with taiko.”

In 1990, Endo moved his family — consisting of wife, Chizuko, and their two young sons, Miles and Zen — to the islands to pursue his graduate work in ethnomusicology at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Soon after, the couple opened the Taiko Center of the Pacific, which today still educates people of all ages in traditional and contemporary Japanese drumming.

“My career has opened many doors and taken me around the world,” Endo says. “I’ve learned about the power of music and culture to transform peoples’ lives and outlooks. People around the world are basically the same with similar needs and hopes and it’s been wonderful to share the art of taiko with people of all walks of life.

“In some ways,” he adds, “I feel as though I’ve just begun as there are so many things to learn, people to collaborate with and lives to impact.”