Miho Wada

???·????Kiwi??????????????????????Orcon?CM???????????????????????????????????????????????????????Japan Night??????????????????????????????????????????

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?????????????????????????Postcards to your Bed?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????J-pop???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????Japanese Punk Jazz?????????
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?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????6????????????????????????Japan Night???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

7?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????(?) ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? - ecube

Japanese punk jazz? Pushing musical buttons as well as boundaries is a good thing. Having recently read on a noted jazz trumpet player's blog that jazz stopped being cool in 1959, then perhaps it started being fun with Miho Wada and the release of the eclectic, quirky but oddly engaging five track ep Para Ti.

An intoxicating spin on Japanese and Afro-Cuban rhythms performed by Miho Wada and ten other eclectic musicians. The classically trained Wada plays with a strong lyrical sense of harmonic development without self indulgence or without limiting her artistic voice. Playful, whimsical but incredibly grounded music that is not easy to ignore. Miho Wado is the real deal having worked with a wide range of artists from Iggy Pop to the Buena Vista Social Club. It is the rather organic fusion of a myriad of influences that give Wada's music such intriguing texture as demonstrated by the use of percussion and string arrangements on the opening tune "Bailamos." Despite being a ten piece ensemble the approach is intimate and played with great energy. "Fancy Tango" is a daring tune with a dark cello opening fusing the Cuban and Japanese elements into a harmonious cultural blend for a dynamic contemporary sound played with incredible finesse. "Welcome Home" is a delightful tune, Mark Dennison's clarinet solo and Takumi Motokawa's piano excursion lend themselves to a more New Orleans based sound again adding great texture and balance to this highly entertaining release.

The hybridization of jazz is certainly a serious component when speaking about the growth and advancement of the music for the next generation. Academia is not enough, passion must be played and boundaries challenged. Miho Wada is the next generation of jazz, not a young artist simply mimicking the works of a Herbie Mann or Dave Valentin. Wada is a unique voice that embodies the diversity and richness that should be celebrated within the jazz community. Purists may be shaking their heads in righteous indignation or it could be in disbelief that this classically trained flautist can pull from so many influences and pull off this Japanese free fusion with such relative ease.

Tracks: Bailamos; Fancy Tango; Welcome Home; Cats Out; Los Dos.

Personnel: Miho Wada: flute, alto sax; Pascal Roggen: violins, electric violin; Leo Corson: bass guitar; Takumi Motokawa: piano; Dillon Mayhew: french horn, trumpet; James Donaldson: cello; Mark Dennison: clarinet, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone; Claire MacFarlane: violin; Andrew Rudolf: guitar; Alistair Deverick: drums, percussion; Tala Niko: conga, percussion.

http://www.mihowada.com/ - @CriticalJazz

It's always nice when a record falls into your lap from nowhere and immediately confirms itself as a lifelong favourite. I was prompted to listen to Miho Wada's PARA TI after reading her name in several jazz journals and noting that she belongs to that, nowadays all too rare species, the jazz flautist. Thanks, in part, to legendary Anchorman Ron Burgundy, the jazz flute seems to have rolled into the groove cut by the cheesier side of jazz, often being regarded as one of the stand-out instruments of 'light' and 'smooth' jazz. I, however, have always been a dedicated member of the Jazz Flute Appreciation Society, forcing Eric Dolphy and Herbie Mann albums upon those who insist on sullying the instrument's status, before reminding them of the genius of Ian Anderson. Thanks to Miho Wada, I now have another reason to fight for the cause.

A brief glance at this five-track EP may result in some confusion. Tokyo-born, New Zealand-based Miho, with pink hair, pigtails and striped stockings, looks like she's just emerged from the pages of a Japanese Manga. Indeed, Miho is leading a self-confessed double life, releasing a handful of jazz recordings whilst also performing with her wonderfully-named Japanese Punk outfit, Miho Wada & The Shit Fight. But never mind the punk – the five tracks on PARA TI explore a range of other, perhaps more palatable musical influences.

Bailamos is a buoyant, feel-good opener that not only introduces Miho's bright, lilting flute but also acquaints the listener with the raw and graceful violin playing of Claire MacFarlane and Pascal Roggen. And there's an almost anticipated shift to a more traditional folk style with the second track, Fancy Tango, which demonstrates Miho's ability to blend several styles of international folk music with her own brand of Eastern jazz. The track also benefits from the effervescent, charged piano of Takumi Motokawa.

There's another shift with Welcome Home, this time into a more mainstream, swing style, featuring the stunning clarinet of Mark Dennison. Surely the thirst of any jazz-fan's ears are quenched with this track's catchy melody and wide jazz orchestra production.

Cats Out presents another jazzy production, this time with a cartoon feel that's reminiscent of Raymond Scott and, at times, Vince Guaraldi. Again, each separate instrument is given its moment to shine, particularly that lovely, scraping electric violin that perfectly captures the feline nature of this mischievous little piece.

The EP closes with Los Dos, complete with improvised solos from each musician, notably Miho herself who finds her most comfortable foothold in the rhythm of this Latin-flavoured, dance-inspiring climax.

With all that style-shifting, it may come as no surprise that PARA TI was released to accompany an educational score-book, providing students of Miho Wada with a range of improvisational exercises. The EP, however, is gaining interest in its own right; and rightly so. Whilst this EP will, no doubt, sit snugly on my iPod for many years to come, I look forward to further outings from this intriguing and vibrant new artist.

Liam Wilkinson
Northern Sky
- Northern Sky Music Magazine

Miho Wada
"Piss Off (Such A Loser)"
Hometown: Miyazaki, Japan, London, UK, and Auckland, New Zealand

The tiny-yet-energetic Miho Wada, who sneers words confidently above the fray of music about "getting lost in pleasure" or "drinking vino and playing Nintendo", creates bizarre, ska-influenced jazz punk with her international mash-up of a band. In "Piss Off (Such a Loser)", she waxes poetic on how much of a loser a former lover has become. Between descriptions of her boyfriend being high on coke, always broke and running around with other women, Wada tells him to get lost for good. After a slew of dates in New Zealand, this band is heading off to Austin, Texas to play South by Southwest.

http://spinearth.tv/articles/3753 - Spin Earth

http://www.j-popworld.com/Interviews/Miho_Wada.php

- J-Pop World

"Miho Wada"

A pint-sized Sailor Moon meets Kill Bill-esque purveyor of self confessed, "happy bedroom music", and "Japanese punk jazz", Miho Wada presents a compellingly unique proposition within New Zealand's musical schemata. Hailing from Miyazaki, Japan, Miho's father relocated her family to Christchurch when she was 16 after, in her words, "falling in love with the country", and, "deciding he had to be part of it", while watching the 1995 America's Cup. Acquiring a piano at age three after her father bought it for himself, then quickly decided, "it was actually for Miho," by the time she arrived in New Zealand, Miho already had a working knowledge of music. Leaving high school at the end of sixth form to attend university early, Miho relocated to London for postgraduate music studies and began, as she nostalgically reflects, "playing for lots of different people and seeing what I could do." At this stage operating with the realms of piano, flute, saxophone and voice, Miho started doing session recording work, playing in a dance class salsa band and touring internationally with Ska Cubano. Having since shared stages with the likes of Jarvis Cocker, Seun Kuti, members of the Buena Vista Social Club and recorded with Iggy Pop, after six years living in London and working internationally, Miho decided to relocate to Auckland at the end of a Womad tour with Ska Cubano. With her Miho Wada band, Miho and her musicians create performance driven songs built around an unconventional theoretical framework. "We play Japanese punk jazz," she laughs. "I'm Japanese and you can't escape that. I've got this Japanese J-pop thing in my blood - so it's going to happen. All the words that come out of my mouth are punk, and I'm improvising - so that's jazz." In late 2009, Miho recorded an album with respected French sound engineer Ollivier 'Le Gaze' Ballester and has just taken part in a series of showcase performances at SXSW in Austin, Texas. For her, it really is a stage - centric thing though. As she concludes, "When you're connected, the audience and the performers, you can feel it in the air - it's amazing." - Rip It Up

In 1996, a teenage Japanese
girl’s future was changed
forever when her father fell
in love with New Zealand
and its people after ardent-
ly following a sporting event.
His adoration for the southern
hemisphere was so strong that
he decided to move the family
from the sleepy seaside town of
Miyazaki to Christchurch. The
entire family did not speak any
English and they did not know
anyone in their new home.
Little did they know then that
the move was more than just
an adventure for the family, but
also the start of an unforgettable
musical journey for their young
daughter.
Today, Miho Wada, the young
girl in question, is an estab-
lished flute and saxophone
player, trained in Afro-Cuban
style of flute playing in Santiago
de Cuba, Havana and London.
Her repertoire of original songs
feature music with Japanese
flavours accompanied by vari-
ous other instruments to create
a combination of distinctive
and contemporary sounds that
appeal to audience worldwide.
Miho shared with Eastern
Times on the direction that she
is heading with her musical
pursuit in an exclusive interview
recently.

Q: How were your growing
up years in Miyazaki and in
Christchurch?
Miho: I really love the sea and countryside of Miyazaki. The
living style of tropical southern
Japan is not something people
can imagine easily, but I believe
it is quite similar to that of
Malaysia. I spent so many hot
afternoons hanging out with
friends chasing the waves under
the warm sun and blue sky.
Now that I think about it the sea
air must have helped me have
strong lungs for my playing.
We migrated to New Zealand
because my father loves the
country so much. He fell in love
after they won this yacht race
called “America’s Cup” (1995).
He was watching the race on TV
in Miyazaki for the whole season.
Team New Zealand ran out of
money just before the final race
against America and the team
captain Sir Peter Blake had to
return to New Zealand for fund-
raising. He sold red socks for the
team and went back to compete
with the funds from selling red
socks. After New Zealand’s victo-
ry it looked as though the entire
nation was wearing these red
socks! My father really wanted to
be part of the celebration and he
decided to live in New Zealand.
I went to school in Christchurch
and it was all nice and happy.
Sure, it was really hard to learn
a new language and to make
friends in a foreign place, but I
guess I understood from early on
in my life that the train (life) goes
on whether you are on it or not.
So I made the most out of it and
made sure I was not behind on
any subject even with my broken
English.

Q: When and how did your
interest in music start? Why the
flute?
Miho: I started playing the piano
when I was four years old and
although I loved playing the
piano I did not enjoy lessons and
I did not like practicing so much.
I just wanted to make up new
songs and have fun. So I stopped
having lessons while I was still in
Japan, though when my family
moved to New Zealand, my par-
ents thought I could have piano
lessons and it would become
English lessons at the same time.
We called the telephone number
on the ad we found on a local
newspaper, but instead of being
a piano teacher, the man who
turned up at the door was a flute
teacher. Luckily we had an old
flute that belonged to my father
and I had a spontaneous flute les-
son! I think I was meant to play
the flute. I loved it straightaway
and I could not think of my life
without playing the flute since
that day. Flute chose me and
not other way around. I believe
in Destiny and I think it was just
that. Before the final year of high
school, I knew the only thing I
would ever want to do was to
play music and I couldn’t waste
another year at school, so I went
to see the Music Department
Head at the University of
Canterbury and auditioned to
study the flute. I had an amazing
flute teacher there and he taught
me all I needed to know about
the sound control and tech-
niques.

Q: Did you undergo formal
training for flute playing?
Miho: After three years of studies at universi- ty, I went to further my flute playing in
London. I studied at the Trinity College of Music for two years and had a few jobs playing in professional orchestras includ- ing working for the National Orchestra of Malta.

Q: You have been to many
places with your musical
pursuit. What are some of the
highlights of your travels?
Miho: Living in Malta was very
strange. I had never lived in a
place with no trees. It was basi-
cally like living on a huge rock.
Mediterranean Sea was stun-
ning and corals reminded me of
Miyazaki, but I couldn’t breathe
without greens and I had to leave
the job.
I discovered Cuban music when
I watched the Buena Vista Social
Club - Antonia Chiam, Eastern Times, 16 Jan 2010

An experimental ad campaign that fuses music and technology has met its match in the small, but larger-than-life Miho Wada.

The Remuera resident is one of eight Kiwis who were chosen by Iggy Pop to create a modern version of the The Passenger for telecomunications company Orcon.

She is unique, vibrant and refreshing: Something Orcon hopes the ad will also prove to be.

Last week the New Zealand musicians, who are scattered throughout the country, were recorded and filmed in their own homes while using broadband to connect with Iggy in Miami.

The television advertisement, which will appear on screen from November 17, will compile footage of the musicians playing The Passenger and Iggy singing.

The godfather of punk guided them through the process, offering advice while each performer recorded.

Ms Wada, who was selected to play the flute was also asked by the Miami director to play the piano.

She says Iggy, who was "really fun, happy, helpful and chilled out" was pleased with her audition so told her to "just go for it".

"It was amazing," the 30-year-old says of the experience. "I mean it’s Iggy Pop – he’s a living legend."

Orcon chief executive Scott Bartlett says he’s amazed at the quality and number of musicians who jumped at the chance to audition for the band.

"Iggy obviously has huge pulling power in the global music community. We were expecting about 50 New Zealand musos to audition but in the end we had more than 200," he says.

"The internet is enabling Kiwis to do incredible things each day and this helps us prove that."

The eight who were selected get one year’s free broadband, something Ms Wada is very excited about.

"It’s a really new art – internet is so super fast you can play music to people overseas," she says.

"I couldn’t do all my bookings or networking without the internet."

Ms Wada has been living in Remuera for six months, after returning to New Zealand after five years in London.

Born in Japan, she moved to Christchurch with her parents when she was in her teens. Ms Wada studied at Burnside High School and then Canterbury University before furthering her musical studies in London.

She plays instruments including the saxophone, drums, bass and cello.

Earlier this year she played with London-based group Ska Cubano at the Womad festival in Taranaki and although it wasn’t intended, she ended up staying in the country.

She has since formed a Japanese punk jazz band under her own name.

The musician is currently in Morocco playing saxophone for Ska Cubano in front of an audience of 50,000.

http://www.mihowada.com/documents/EastBaysCourierMihoWada061109-1.pdf - Michelle Cooke, East & Bays Courier 06/Nov/2009 Page: 1

A deserted, half-derelict side street on the fringes of the City of London at lunchtime. The kind of unremarkable road people pass by every day without a second glance. But today, there’s something different in the air. There’s music coming from behind a closed door to an empty warehouse, beneath a Victorian railway arch. That arch is filled by a stage and musicians. And at the front is an impossibly thin, bearded man eating a chocolate bar and shaking some maracas. A band jams behind him. That man is the former Pulp frontman and, these days, the distinguished elder statesman of Britpop, Jarvis Cocker.

....................................


“Does the death of the music industry mean that music can now go back to being an art form again?” he said before those dates. “What happens if you get a band to rehearse in an art gallery instead of a rehearsal space? What if you invite members of the public to play with the band? Or invite them to submit song titles which the band then have to base an improvisation upon. Could a live band provide the accompaniment to an aerobics class?”

It was a great success, which is why Cocker is repeating the experiment this week, culminating in a live gig tonight, where he might play something more akin to the pop songs people know him for. Sadly, there are no aerobics today – a shame, as I’d rather looked forward to laughing at 50 or so out of shape indie kids wheezing along to a fitness routine. There’s no yoga as had been advertised, either, which slightly horrifies a flautist who has turned up.

“To be fired straight into a rock set was, er, slightly interesting,” says a delighted Miho Wada from Lewisham just after her star turn. “My friends had told me to come down and mentioned the possibility of yoga, so I’d kind of prepared in my mind some meditative, calming music. The next thing I know, Jarvis is whispering in my ear: ‘Right, you’re starting this one’ as he strapped on an electric guitar. So I had to go for it!

“I’ve always been a fan of Jarvis, and to play on the same stage as him was fantastic. He’s so generous – in a way he’s making everyone else the star rather than him.”

And Wada is a star – magnificent in a mournful 20-minute jam that breaks down for an extended handclap session and ends in blasts of white noise. So good, in fact, that I Google her later and learn she is, er, a professional flautist who has recorded with Iggy Pop. Still, this isn’t a stitch-up – she genuinely did just turn up. And Cocker proves this by coming to the front of the stage again, this time, triangle in hand. “Anyone else with an instrument?” he says.

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091111/ART/711109980/1083/rss - Ben East, The National, 10/Nov/2009

A deserted, half-derelict side street on the fringes of the City of London at lunchtime. The kind of unremarkable road people pass by every day without a second glance. But today, there’s something different in the air. There’s music coming from behind a closed door to an empty warehouse, beneath a Victorian railway arch. That arch is filled by a stage and musicians. And at the front is an impossibly thin, bearded man eating a chocolate bar and shaking some maracas. A band jams behind him. That man is the former Pulp frontman and, these days, the distinguished elder statesman of Britpop, Jarvis Cocker.

....................................


“Does the death of the music industry mean that music can now go back to being an art form again?” he said before those dates. “What happens if you get a band to rehearse in an art gallery instead of a rehearsal space? What if you invite members of the public to play with the band? Or invite them to submit song titles which the band then have to base an improvisation upon. Could a live band provide the accompaniment to an aerobics class?”

It was a great success, which is why Cocker is repeating the experiment this week, culminating in a live gig tonight, where he might play something more akin to the pop songs people know him for. Sadly, there are no aerobics today – a shame, as I’d rather looked forward to laughing at 50 or so out of shape indie kids wheezing along to a fitness routine. There’s no yoga as had been advertised, either, which slightly horrifies a flautist who has turned up.

“To be fired straight into a rock set was, er, slightly interesting,” says a delighted Miho Wada from Lewisham just after her star turn. “My friends had told me to come down and mentioned the possibility of yoga, so I’d kind of prepared in my mind some meditative, calming music. The next thing I know, Jarvis is whispering in my ear: ‘Right, you’re starting this one’ as he strapped on an electric guitar. So I had to go for it!

“I’ve always been a fan of Jarvis, and to play on the same stage as him was fantastic. He’s so generous – in a way he’s making everyone else the star rather than him.”

And Wada is a star – magnificent in a mournful 20-minute jam that breaks down for an extended handclap session and ends in blasts of white noise. So good, in fact, that I Google her later and learn she is, er, a professional flautist who has recorded with Iggy Pop. Still, this isn’t a stitch-up – she genuinely did just turn up. And Cocker proves this by coming to the front of the stage again, this time, triangle in hand. “Anyone else with an instrument?” he says.

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091111/ART/711109980/1083/rss - Ben East, The National, 10/Nov/2009