| The
many flavors of her current palette are on the menu for
a concert titled We Are the One at Warehouse
21 on Saturday, May 15.
"The focus of my creativity
and journey has been travel, going back to my father's
homeland of Sendai, Japan, to study traditional Japanese
music One of the characteristics of traditional Japanese
music is a sparse rhythm, and it does not have regular
chords. In Japanese music one cannot beat time with
one's hands because there is a space called "Ma".
The rhythms are based on ma; silence is important. ,"
Sato told Pasatiempo. "That led to collaborations
with traditional Japanese musicians such as Koji Nakamura,
the Grammy-winning taiko drummer, and some collaborations
during the last year or two with Paul Winter.
Sato was born in North Carolina,
where she spent her early years taking in Southern blues,
gospel music, and, at home, songs from the jazz songbook
that her mother sang and played on the piano. The child
acted, sang, and danced in school productions starting
in the fourth grade. Traveling and seeing and hearing
new things was also part of her childhood. Her father,
Tadaharu Sato, first came to this country to study languages
at the University of West Georgia. When Madi was a preschooler,
her father died during a family visit to Japan. The
family spent time in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas,
Vermont, and a South Pacific island. Madi moved to Santa
Fe 19 years ago, when she was 16.
In the 1990s, she performed in
nightclubs and operated Pizzeria Espiritu with her then-partner,
Tom Berkes. For a time, they ran a sister restaurant
called Espiritu Canyon Road; this was a restaurant and
a music venue that featured performances by Herbie Mann,
Eddie Daniels, Chris Calloway, Mose Allison, and Alan
Pasqua.
Sato went on to produce a 1940s-style
musical revue called Stompin' at the Savoy and to co-found
a performing tap-dance company. She (often in the company
of drummer Nakamura) played the Santa Fe International
Folk Art Market, the College of Santa Fe's World Music
Day celebration, and the free summer music series on
the Plaza. In 2002, she decorated the (now-defunct)
nightclub The Paramount with a Southern theme -- Spanish
moss and weeping-willow trees -- and sang in a kimono-style
dress to celebrate the release of her first album, Soul
in Love.
In 2004, she opened for jazz singer Cassandra Wilson
at the Lensic Performing Arts Center A performing arts
center, often abbreviated PAC, is a multi-use performance
space that can be adapted for use by various types of
the performing arts, including dance, music and theatre.
and performed (singing and fan-dancing) at the Awakening
Museum to mark the release of her second disc, Madi
Sato. One of the album's songs, "Lady Pearl,"
won first prize in the R & B category of that year's
New Mexico Music Industry Awards. The following year,
Sato had a starring role in the Red Thread Collective
musical production of Aucassin and Nicolette, a love
story of 12th-century France.
For the last four years, the
Renaissance woman has created and performed music for
conferences presented by Richard Rohr. A Catholic priest,
Rohr is the founding director of the Center for Action
and Contemplation in Albuquerque.
In 2009, Sato offered a free
"Turn Poetry Into Song" workshop for kids
at Warehouse 21. Then she hooked up with teens from
the Santa Fe Indian School for a tour of Latvia, Lithuania,
and Estonia. The 10-day cultural exchange for the school's
Spoken Word Team was sponsored by the U.S. State Department.
Participants were Tim McLaughlin, the team's coach;
apprentice coach Nolan Eskeets; and Sato served as assistant
coach.
In the past seven years, Sato
has learned traditional Japanese folk songs while collaborating
with Japanese musicians playing taiko drums, koto, and
bamboo and shakuhachi. Sato said her teacher is Silvia
Nakkach, an Argentine woman who teaches "yoga of
the voice" through her Vox Mundi Project in Emeryville,
California. Sato herself offers private singing lessons,
sound-healing sessions, and instruction in a devotional,
vocal-meditation practice.
"It's called Sound Journeys:
Discovery of the Authentic Voice," Sato said. "It's
weekly classes that utilize indigenous sacred music
from around the world, blending Eastern and Western
spiritualities and music. I've learned this way of bringing
out a person's authentic voice, and part of what I do
is using sacred music that I've learned through working
with this Tibetan singer and meeting with Aboriginal
elders in Australia. These different songs from various
places are like passports to travel through sound to
other worlds.
"People learn how to use
the full capacity of their voices. We actually sing,
but the idea is that through the devotional practice
we can reach a place of true liberation," she said.
"It is a transformative process; it's about releasing
emotion, and it is very empowering when people are guided
in a safe environment with group participation."
The May 15 event starts with
a concert by Clara Natonabah's band, Remedy at Daybreak.
Natonabah and Nolan Eskeets, who plays drums (a traditional
drum kit and a Taos Pueblo tribal drum), also participate
with Sato in other parts of the event. The cast of musicians
includes John Rangel on piano, Joel Fadness on percussion
and drums, Luis Guerra on bass, and Angela Gabriel on
vibraphone.
"It's going to be diverse,"
Sato said. "We're featuring Timothy McLaughlin
as a poet. He will weave poetry in and out of the concert,
and we have Lithuanian chants and Gregorian chants and
Japanese chants. And we have the Santa Fe Sacred World
Music Choir. This is a group of 20 local women of all
ages that, since its formation on Feb. 25, have been
setting their hearts on fire with the joy of singing.This
concert will be a blend of cultural traditions and music
combined with poetry and contemporary sound, including
some of my original music. I wrote the song 'We Are
the One,' which is like an anthem of realization, for
the women's choir.
"This whole thing,"
Sato said, "will be from ethereal to solid jazz
arrangements.
Details:
We Are the One concert
Featuring Madi Sato & The Sacred World Music Ensemble
& Choir
Opening: Remedy at Daybreak
7 p.m. Saturday, May 15
Warehouse 21, 1614 Paseo De Peralta
reprinted from the Santa
Fe New Mexican. |
