Ryusei Hattori 6 string bass

Artist Profile

• Ryusei Hattori

  Ryusei Hattori plays the 6 string bass as if it is a classical guitar. He writes all of his own music, crossing many genres to create his unique New World style. His music transcends age, nationality, gender, and tastes. He is known for his beautiful melodies and his music transports the audience around the world. Ryusei Hattori has performed for almost 20 years as a solo 6 string bass player and has had concerts at many places including Chion-in and Honen-in, at very old and historical temples in Kyoto. He also played in Boston, USA in 2004, and was invited to The International Live Looping Festival in Santa Cruz, California as a headliner in 2005, and as a special guest in 2006/2008/2010 and toured California. In 2011, he started to play with cajon support players to produce his leader CD albums. He visited France, England, Spain with a cajon player to have CD release concerts in 2013. Since 2015 he started to play with a super percussionist, Ayuko Ikeda as a unit "Arstilé" and they performed about 30 concerts. In 2016, after a world famous drummer, Shuichi "PONTA" Murakami joined them and they played Trio as Arstilé meets PONTA. After that, Ryusei and PONTA started to play as a duo unit (named Duo Bleu) on July in 2016. Duo Bleu went around Japan from Hokkaido to Kyushu, and held about 200 concerts. September in 2018, he held a commemorative concert of Duo Bleu in Koyasan, the sacred site in Japan, the center of Japanese Buddism Shinbone sect. April in 2019, he released his new solo CD[Ryusei Hattori]with Takashi Mori/drums and Masaru Koga from USA/soprano saxophone. Taking advantage of his past valuable experience, Ryusei Hattori has put effort into his solo activities and performances including his CD release concerts with Takashi Mori and Masaru Koga.

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• Takashi Mori

  Takashi Mori is a Japanese drummer, sound engineer, music creator, from Kyoto. His first influence of music is the soundtrack by French composer, Paul Mauriat. The second is an album "Technodelic" by YMO. As for drummer, he was really inspired by the style of Stewart Copeland (The Police), and he decided to start playing drum in early teens. In late his teens, Takashi Mori has started to play drum as professional in live session or recording session with various type of musicians. At the same time, he was also interested in rhythm track making with digital equipment, and he has begun work of musical production as well with his elder brother Takuma Mori (composer, arranger, singer, organist) Because his generation is in transition of technology (from analog to digital) it was natural for him to cope with the both, playing drum and manipulating digital equipments. In 1990, he moved his base from Kyoto to Shiga pref, and he has established a musical studio "studio BOSCO" where the place commanding a distant great view of Lake Biwa and Mt. Hira, Takashi Mori has started his career as recording engineer not as drummer or programer. Since then, his musical activities develop in various ways. In recent years, Takashi Mori has started solo performance "druminism" with hybrid electric drum-set named DrLPS (using trigger, loop sampler, groove machine etc..).

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• Masaru Koga

  San Francisco based multi-instrumentalist Masaru Koga developed his worldview at an early age. Soon after his birth in Chiba Japan, his family relocated to the US due to his father's work, and spent this adolescent years moving around multiple times. By the time he graduated high school, he had lived in three different countries and nine different cities. Masaru took interest in music as a young child; especially in jazz music. At 11 years old he started learning the trumpet and joined the school band. Before long, he was listening to old recordings by Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and others. But a few years later, after another move to Munich Germany, he had a chance to borrow an alto saxophone from his sister's friend. This, ultimately changed his life. With a magazine cutout of a fingering chart and CDs and cassettes of his favorite music, he began teaching himself. He was 15 years old. With an international background, it was fitting that he would find himself at San Jose State University to pursue music in the Improvised Music Studies, where he intensively studied and explored musical tradition from around the world. With the guidance from his mentors including Dwight Cannon, Dr. Hafez Modirzadeh, Dr. royal hartigan, Dan Sabanovich, Baomi Butts, and Joe Hodge. Masaru earned his BA in IMS in 1995. Fueled with a passion for cross-cultural experience, Masaru started to incorporate the Japanese shakuhachi into his music, and began his apprenticeship with master shakuhachi artist Masayuki Koga. In addition to woodwinds, Masaru fell in love with the sound of Brazilian Samba drumming and spent several years studying and playing within the rich Brazilian Samba community in the bay area. From 2006 to 2011 he served as the director for SambAsia San Francisco, an award winning Samba group originally founded by Jimmy Biala. Masaru has had the privilage of working with artists such as Akira Tana, Anthony Brown, Mark Izu, Fred Ho, Wayne Wallace, Gail Dobson, Kenny Endo, and Kat Parra, as well as his mentors Hafez Modirzadeh and royal hartigan. In addition to performing, Masaru is an experienced educator. Aside from his regular private instruction, he has taught at California Jazz Conservatory, and also conducted workshops domestically and internationally. In 2010, he received "The Latin Jazz Corner Best of 2010 Awards" in the "Latin Jazz Flautist of the Year" category for his performance on Kat Parra's album "Dos Amantes". In 2013 he worked as a musical director for a three-week off-Broadway run of Fred Ho's critically acclaimed theater work "Deadly She-Wolf Assassin At Armageddon!" in New York City, in which he conducted and performed as the leader of the Afro-Asian Music Ensemble. His recent work includes annual concert tour to Japan with the Otonowa Project led by drummer Akira Tana, in which they give concerts and music workshops for the communities recovering from the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Masaru's sound encompasses the many cultural traditions he's been touched by, and the worldview developed though diverse life experiences. He aims to create music that respects traditions and goes beyond styles and idioms, and ultimately help diminish all other forms of social boundaries.

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