Top taiko drum group, Kodo, rolls into town

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One of the stranger moments in the Beatles' story was a time the Fab Four seriously considered buying a Greek island on which to live and make music, far from the late-1960s madness of their native England. They abandoned the notion as unfeasible after visiting the remote, would-be sanctuary.

Around the same time, however, the roots of Kodo, the most famous taiko-drum group in the world, grew from a similar ideal. A collection of Japanese students gave up city life to form a music community on their nation's Sado Island, isolated yet immersed in a unique maritime and artistic environment.

Eventually, Kodo Village was established on the island to create a seamless world of communal living, rehearsing, apprenticeship and composing. From that fruitful environment, Kodo refines the performances that comprise their world tours, including a new one making a stop at 8 p.m. tonight and Saturday at Seattle's Meany Hall.

"The tour theme is 'One Earth,' " says Kodo member Jun Akimoto via e-mail. "Kodo has toured under that title for about 25 years. On this tour, you will see more of the younger generation of Kodo, men and women aged early-20s to late-30s."

While the accent is on playing various types and sizes of taiko drums, as well as cymbals and chimes, Kodo integrates other, nonpercussion instruments and musical influences. The group's sound is decorous yet kaleidoscopic, its stage appearances full of both pageantry and power.

"The musicians are drumming quite extensively and heavily as usual," says Akimoto. "But they also sing, dance, play flute and a Japanese small violin called a kokyu. This kind of mixed-art form is very traditional. Kodo has learned it over many years from many different regions in Japan."

The new tour, Akimoto says, includes the debuts of new compositions by younger members. But there will also be fresh takes on some of Kodo's older material.

"Tamayura no Michi," composed by 25-year-old Shogo Yoshi, turns traditional melodies on bamboo flute and kokyu into a taiko piece that seems simultaneously old and new.

"Tobira," by Tsubasa Hori, one of Kodo's growing number of female members and a former rock drummer, is inspired by the rhythms of flamenco and Western Africa.

Akimoto says the integrity of Kodo's music is in its roots.

"People can feel, in our playing, the daily lives of Kodo on Sado Island," Akimoto says. "We are culturally and generationally very rich. That is why Kodo can make audiences feel something more than percussion entertainment. It is more like life on Sado is conveyed and told through our music."

Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com