Biography
Ryo Kawasaki earned recognition as an innovative, prize-collecting jazz guitarist while gaining equal prominence for his work as a software engineer and inventor. In his role as a performer he helped shape the evolution and worldwide reach of jazz-rock fusion. On the engineering front he partnered with Korg and Roland to develop the guitar synthesizer. The release Ryo Kawasaki & the Golden Dragon Live ranked among the earliest fully digital recordings, and he also designed the initial Kawasaki Synthesizer for the Commodore 64. In 1976 he issued the jazz-fusion landmarks Juice and Eight Mile Road, later adding the contemporary jazz-funk album Prism in 2001. Although his parallel career building music-oriented software and hardware occupied much of his schedule in the opening years of the twenty-first century, he continued to record and perform live, especially after moving from New York City to Estonia in 2000. The standout unaccompanied guitar album Spain, released in 2012, highlighted a more personal dimension of his musicianship, and he simultaneously guided and worked alongside younger Estonian musicians across numerous styles.
Born in Kōenji, Tokyo, to a diplomat father and a multilingual mother, Kawasaki received early encouragement to engage with music beginning at age three—an influence that proved decisive, though not in the classical direction his mother had envisioned. Instead of pursuing her preference for piano and ballet, he took voice and solfege classes at four, started violin at five, and learned to read music before elementary school. At ten he purchased a ukulele; at fourteen he acquired his first guitar. The Kenny Burrell–Stanley Turrentine album Midnight Blue became central to his jazz education. Two years afterward he assembled his own working ensemble that performed in neighborhood bars and strip clubs. During the same period he constructed an electronic organ that functioned as a rudimentary synthesizer. He completed a quantum-physics degree at Nippon University. Following graduation he maintained his instrumental practice while working as a sound engineer for Japanese Victor Records.
At twenty-two, in 1969, he recorded his debut album, Easy Listening Jazz Guitar, for Polydor. Although it attracted notice within the jazz world—he placed third in a Japanese jazz poll in 1970—he functioned chiefly as a studio musician, arranging and performing on pop and rock singles as well as radio and television advertisements. His second album, 1972’s Guts the Guitar, drew praise for its forward-looking fusion approach. That same year he took part in the historic Jam in Yokota alongside fellow jazz-rock musicians Ushio Sakai, Tetsuo Fushimi, Takeru Muraoka, and Hidehiko Matsumoto.
Kawasaki relocated to New York City in 1973, where professional opportunities arose rapidly. A friend who met him at the airport secured an immediate engagement as Joe Lee Wilson’s guitarist for the Newport Jazz Festival. There he encountered Bobbi Humphrey and performed with her group for a period. Returning home one day, he discovered Gil Evans waiting at his door; the arranger invited him to join the Gil Evans Orchestra. Kawasaki appears on the album The Gil Evans Orchestra Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix, a project conceived by Evans with the late rock guitarist, and he also contributed to Evans’ There Comes a Time. In 1975 he toured the United States with drummer Chico Hamilton. One of the first Japanese jazz artists signed to a U.S. label, he released his influential RCA debut Juice in 1976. That year he also issued Prism and Eight Mile Road—the latter named for the road dividing Detroit from its suburbs—on Japan’s East Wind label. Subsequently he joined Elvin Jones’ band for a fourteen-month tour across North and South America and Europe. During breaks from that itinerary he managed to record Ring Toss for Chiaroscuro in 1977. In 1978 he collaborated with pianist Joanne Brackeen on the duo album Trinkets and Things. His following project, the 1979 big-band recording Mirror of My Mind, became the first of three releases for Open Sky; it reprised the title track from the earlier album and featured Harvey Mason and Leon Pendarvis. Little Tree and Live with Golden Dragon appeared in 1980. The next year he recorded the Philips solo album Ryo, performed on acoustic and nylon-string guitars plus guitar synthesizers; its extended treatment of “Concierto de Aranjuez” was arranged and overseen by Evans. Lucky Lady, another guitar-and-synthesizer collection, followed in 1983. Images, issued in 1987, presented an entirely solo set of Kawasaki’s own pieces except for his interpretation of Ravel’s “Quartet.” He also scored the documentary Pleasure Garden. Between 1986 and 1990 he largely set aside jazz performance, instead founding Satellites Records and producing a series of 12-inch dance singles.
Signed in 1991 to Japan’s One Voice label as both artist and producer, he signaled his formal return to jazz with the solo acoustic album Here, There and Everywhere, followed by My Reverie in the same format. Love Within the Universe, released in 1994, marked his return to electric fusion, a direction continued on 1996’s Sweet Life. Over the ensuing years he concentrated on touring, composing, and producing for other artists before reappearing with the live-in-studio album Reval, recorded in Tallinn with Estonian musicians. Between 2000 and 2002 he served as composer, music director, and guitarist for the jazz ballet Still Point at the Estonian National Opera House. His third unaccompanied acoustic recording, E, appeared in 2002.
In 2005 Kawasaki formed Art of Trio with American drummer Brian Melvin and Estonian bassist Toivo Unt; the group toured Europe with Estonian vocalist Jaanika Ventsel. He then recorded two duo albums with Japanese bassist Yoshio “Chin” Suzuki—Agana in 2007 and Late Night Willie in 2009. Beginning in 2009 he spent nearly two years working in Lebanon with various local players; the concert recording Live in Beirut, featuring Lebanese organist Arthur Satyan and drummer Fouad Afra, was released in 2011. A year later his fourth solo acoustic album, Spain, appeared.
Kawasaki returned to Estonia in 2014 and assembled a new jazz-fusion ensemble called Level 8, drawing inspiration from some of the country’s younger musicians; it represented his first retrospective glance at the collective-band fusion era of Golden Dragon since the early 1980s. The group’s self-titled debut album, Level 8, arrived in 2017. He also became the subject of several retrospective releases on the U.K. indie label Nunorthern Soul, including the 2016 EP Selected Works 1979 to 1983 and the 2017 collections Selected Works, Pt. 2: 1976 to 1980 and Jazz Ballet “Still Point” + “Coltrane Medley.” Ryo Kawasaki died in Tallinn, Estonia, on April 13, 2020, at the age of 73.
Born in Kōenji, Tokyo, to a diplomat father and a multilingual mother, Kawasaki received early encouragement to engage with music beginning at age three—an influence that proved decisive, though not in the classical direction his mother had envisioned. Instead of pursuing her preference for piano and ballet, he took voice and solfege classes at four, started violin at five, and learned to read music before elementary school. At ten he purchased a ukulele; at fourteen he acquired his first guitar. The Kenny Burrell–Stanley Turrentine album Midnight Blue became central to his jazz education. Two years afterward he assembled his own working ensemble that performed in neighborhood bars and strip clubs. During the same period he constructed an electronic organ that functioned as a rudimentary synthesizer. He completed a quantum-physics degree at Nippon University. Following graduation he maintained his instrumental practice while working as a sound engineer for Japanese Victor Records.
At twenty-two, in 1969, he recorded his debut album, Easy Listening Jazz Guitar, for Polydor. Although it attracted notice within the jazz world—he placed third in a Japanese jazz poll in 1970—he functioned chiefly as a studio musician, arranging and performing on pop and rock singles as well as radio and television advertisements. His second album, 1972’s Guts the Guitar, drew praise for its forward-looking fusion approach. That same year he took part in the historic Jam in Yokota alongside fellow jazz-rock musicians Ushio Sakai, Tetsuo Fushimi, Takeru Muraoka, and Hidehiko Matsumoto.
Kawasaki relocated to New York City in 1973, where professional opportunities arose rapidly. A friend who met him at the airport secured an immediate engagement as Joe Lee Wilson’s guitarist for the Newport Jazz Festival. There he encountered Bobbi Humphrey and performed with her group for a period. Returning home one day, he discovered Gil Evans waiting at his door; the arranger invited him to join the Gil Evans Orchestra. Kawasaki appears on the album The Gil Evans Orchestra Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix, a project conceived by Evans with the late rock guitarist, and he also contributed to Evans’ There Comes a Time. In 1975 he toured the United States with drummer Chico Hamilton. One of the first Japanese jazz artists signed to a U.S. label, he released his influential RCA debut Juice in 1976. That year he also issued Prism and Eight Mile Road—the latter named for the road dividing Detroit from its suburbs—on Japan’s East Wind label. Subsequently he joined Elvin Jones’ band for a fourteen-month tour across North and South America and Europe. During breaks from that itinerary he managed to record Ring Toss for Chiaroscuro in 1977. In 1978 he collaborated with pianist Joanne Brackeen on the duo album Trinkets and Things. His following project, the 1979 big-band recording Mirror of My Mind, became the first of three releases for Open Sky; it reprised the title track from the earlier album and featured Harvey Mason and Leon Pendarvis. Little Tree and Live with Golden Dragon appeared in 1980. The next year he recorded the Philips solo album Ryo, performed on acoustic and nylon-string guitars plus guitar synthesizers; its extended treatment of “Concierto de Aranjuez” was arranged and overseen by Evans. Lucky Lady, another guitar-and-synthesizer collection, followed in 1983. Images, issued in 1987, presented an entirely solo set of Kawasaki’s own pieces except for his interpretation of Ravel’s “Quartet.” He also scored the documentary Pleasure Garden. Between 1986 and 1990 he largely set aside jazz performance, instead founding Satellites Records and producing a series of 12-inch dance singles.
Signed in 1991 to Japan’s One Voice label as both artist and producer, he signaled his formal return to jazz with the solo acoustic album Here, There and Everywhere, followed by My Reverie in the same format. Love Within the Universe, released in 1994, marked his return to electric fusion, a direction continued on 1996’s Sweet Life. Over the ensuing years he concentrated on touring, composing, and producing for other artists before reappearing with the live-in-studio album Reval, recorded in Tallinn with Estonian musicians. Between 2000 and 2002 he served as composer, music director, and guitarist for the jazz ballet Still Point at the Estonian National Opera House. His third unaccompanied acoustic recording, E, appeared in 2002.
In 2005 Kawasaki formed Art of Trio with American drummer Brian Melvin and Estonian bassist Toivo Unt; the group toured Europe with Estonian vocalist Jaanika Ventsel. He then recorded two duo albums with Japanese bassist Yoshio “Chin” Suzuki—Agana in 2007 and Late Night Willie in 2009. Beginning in 2009 he spent nearly two years working in Lebanon with various local players; the concert recording Live in Beirut, featuring Lebanese organist Arthur Satyan and drummer Fouad Afra, was released in 2011. A year later his fourth solo acoustic album, Spain, appeared.
Kawasaki returned to Estonia in 2014 and assembled a new jazz-fusion ensemble called Level 8, drawing inspiration from some of the country’s younger musicians; it represented his first retrospective glance at the collective-band fusion era of Golden Dragon since the early 1980s. The group’s self-titled debut album, Level 8, arrived in 2017. He also became the subject of several retrospective releases on the U.K. indie label Nunorthern Soul, including the 2016 EP Selected Works 1979 to 1983 and the 2017 collections Selected Works, Pt. 2: 1976 to 1980 and Jazz Ballet “Still Point” + “Coltrane Medley.” Ryo Kawasaki died in Tallinn, Estonia, on April 13, 2020, at the age of 73.
Albums
