Still active at 91 years old. The life of Sadao Watanabe, who has continued to expand the concept of jazz

Sadao Watanabe, is "jazz" your life?

Sadao Watanabe, known as "Nabe Sada of the World," is undoubtedly a pioneer of jazz in Japan. Watanabe first encountered jazz shortly after the war, and his subsequent career as a musician overlaps with the history of jazz in Japan.

Watanabe was born in Utsunomiya in 1933 and was 12 years old when the war ended.

"Within a week of Japan's defeat, the occupying forces began broadcasting. Jazz, Hawaiian, hillbilly—all this upbeat American music was playing all at once. A variety of musical films also came on the scene. The father of a man named Yamauchi, who was a grade above me, was the manager of a movie theater called Denkikan, and the film I saw there, 'The Birth of the Blues,' was a turning point for me. It's in the New Orleans docks, where some black people are playing Dixieland jazz, and a young boy comes in and plays the clarinet. I admired that boy."

Watanabe eventually begged his father to buy him a used clarinet. Jazz in Japan was still the era of swing jazz symbolized by Benny Goodman.

"My parents bought me one, but I had no idea how to play it (laughs). So, an old man at a candy store told me he used to play the clarinet, so I went for three days for 10 yen a session and he taught me. After that, I taught myself. However, I still couldn't play much, so Mr. Yamauchi from Denkikan, who was in a tango band, hired me. I mostly just stood there (laughs). I was 15 years old at the time."

And then Watanabe finally encountered the saxophone.

"It was also a movie. Les Brown's big band appears in the film 'Queen of Ice' starring a skater named Sonja Henie. That made me want to play the saxophone. I thought it was a cool instrument. So I begged my father again and he bought me a new Tanabe saxophone made in Japan in Tokyo. It cost 24,000 yen.

But when I moved to Tokyo and started playing the saxophone, I really wanted an American-made instrument, so I bought a used King surplus from the military for 40,000 yen. The Metropolitan Police Department came to investigate, wondering what a kid had done with that much money (laughs). But at that time, I was earning 5,000 yen in the daytime at Oasis in the basement of Matsuzakaya in Ginza, and 12,000 yen at night at Fantasia on Namiki-dori. This was when I was 17 or 18 years old."

At that time in Japan, jazz musicians were in high demand at camps and clubs, due to the demands of the occupying forces. Watanabe became interested in bebop, a style of music that was gaining popularity in the United States and focused on improvisation. He absorbed this music from records, which were still expensive at the time.

"At a time when the starting salary was 7,000 yen, a record cost 3,800 yen. At first, I listened mainly to jazz at jazz cafes. I frequented a place called Combo in Yurakucho, and that was the only place you could hear the latest modern jazz. The first record I finally bought was a 10-inch record called Miles Davis's "Young Man with a Horn." Masayuki Takayanagi and others would gather in my three-tatami roomy boarding house, and we'd listen to it until it wore out. Akiyoshi was there too."

The diverse jazz and musical styles he encountered in America

Another pioneer, Toshiko Akiyoshi, preceded Watanabe in studying at Berklee College of Music in the United States. Akiyoshi then nominated Watanabe to be next, and she finally went to the United States in 1962, a journey that would have a major impact on the Japanese jazz scene thereafter.

Watanabe studied jazz theory in earnest in the birthplace of jazz, jammed with a variety of big-name musicians, and returned to Japan. Young talents like Masaaki Kikuchi and Yosuke Yamashita flocked to him, and his experiences in America had a major impact on Watanabe's musicality.

"Until then, I had been completely devoted to music made by black people, but meeting Gary McFarland was a big influence. At first, I was hesitant to listen to Beatles covers, but I gradually became addicted to non-jazz music like bossa nova. During rehearsals, Gary would play little phrases on the vibraphone, and it was all so cool. I was blown away. I was also blown away by his musicianship and personality."

After returning to Japan, Watanabe spread the appeal of Brazilian music that he had discovered through Gary, and a huge bossa nova boom began.

"When I came back to Japan, I noticed that the audiences at jazz clubs were quite gloomy. I thought the samba rhythm would be interesting. Little by little, the audiences began to change. When I played a concert at Kyoto Kaikan and started samba at the end, the whole audience stood up and gathered in front of the stage."

Watanabe was invited to perform not only in Japan but also at internationally renowned jazz festivals such as Newport and Montreux, and his reputation grew exponentially overseas. This is why he was nicknamed "Nabe Sada of the World." Watanabe also visited Brazil for the first time in the late 1960s, jamming with local musicians, and traveled to Africa, the birthplace of jazz, in the 1970s, and recorded "My Dear Life" under the influence of these experiences.

"When I visit a place, I am greatly influenced by the way the local people live their lives. When I went to Lake Manyara National Park in Tanzania, I happened to see about 15 birds, and their calls were exactly like the blues (laughs). It felt like I was seeing the source of the blues."

In this way, Watanabe's interests expanded to include ethnic music, while still using jazz as a medium. He also began incorporating electric instruments in the 1970s, and began to approach fusion music. This led to the huge hit album "California Shower," but Watanabe didn't always rest on his laurels.

"I was a bit of an omnivore, trying my hand at a variety of music genres. But the jazz critics of the time criticized me for that. They said Watanabe had changed his mind (laughs). So, partly because of that rebellious feeling, after making 'My Dear Life' in Los Angeles, I went straight to New York and made the straight-ahead album 'I'm Old Fashioned' with Hank Jones."

However, there's no doubt that this omnivorous nature has broadened the horizons of jazz, a fact shared by the younger generation of musicians who lead the contemporary scene. Meanwhile, Watanabe has always said that bebop is at the core of his music, which is perhaps why he remains so consistent despite playing such a diverse range of music. Recently, Watanabe has been working on an album that both returns to his roots in "rebop" and also explores new interpretations of bebop.

It's the most fun I'm having playing right now.

Watanabe will celebrate his 70th year in the music industry in 2021 and his 90th birthday in 2023, but it is remarkable to see how he is still as enthusiastic as ever about his music production and performance activities.

"My daily routine is to wake up at 5am and take a walk. After breakfast, I practice my instrument for around two hours. Then in the afternoon, I walk for around an hour, doing squats along the way. When I listen to my performances when I was younger, I was full of energy and could play quite long phrases, but of course I can't do that now, but I am working on improving my sound every day. Right now, I am having the most fun playing."

I asked Watanabe again what the appeal of jazz is.

"It's a bit of a broad theme (laughs), but I think the appeal of jazz is that musicians can convey their own messages through their performances. That's why there should be more interaction between musicians. When we were young, we had our own hangouts. Even though we all had different jobs, we would gather in Ginza in the middle of the night and jam. That was part of our daily routine."

It's true that such venues may no longer exist, but I vaguely imagined Watanabe in such a place, jamming with musicians of today's young generation, looking genuinely happy.

Sadao Watanabe, Life's Playlist

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