Saori Yano : Real hunger
Written by Writer on Thursday, October 30th, 2008
Saori Yano : Real hunger
Ikuko Kitagawa / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
Hunger can mean many things to a musician. It can be the desire and passion needed to get what they want in life. But it can also be quite literal–a lack of food and the necessities to get by day-to-day. For 21-year-old jazz sensation Saori Yano, both meanings were key to her success.
Since first picking up the saxophone in her primary school brass band, Yano has continued to teach herself to play jazz. At the age of 16, she landed a recording contract with the prestigious Savoy label.
“The label was talking with me, but I couldn’t imagine that I would be asked to release a CD,” Yano told The Daily Yomiuri. “To me, playing jazz means performing just so you can survive to the next day. And that’s what I do.”
Yano first discovered jazz when she was 11 through a recording of Charlie Parker’s “Donna Lee.”
“We didn’t have any entertainment–by which I mean TV–in my house when I was in school. So I was always reading, drawing, listening to music or playing with my little sister,” Yano said. Adoring her father, Yano said she listened to anything he listened to, from David Bowie and Funkadelic to jazz, to the life-changing Parker CD.
Yano was a mere 14 years old when she seriously started thinking about her future.
“I figured that, if I wasn’t going to school, I would have to find a job. My father told me, ‘You won’t see a yen out of me if you end up in a low-level high school.’ I knew I wouldn’t get into a good school, so I began thinking about work,” she said.
What started as necessity became serendipity: Around the same time, Yano encountered the book that changed her life–Billie Holiday’s autobiography, in which the legendary singer recalls making ends meet by singing at a jazz club when she was only 14. The book inspired Yano and drove her to call jazz clubs asking them to let her play.
“Going to Berklee [College of Music] or Waseda [University's] jazz circle might’ve been an easier career path. But I did what I had to back then. When you’re clutching at straws, you’ll do what you have to.”
Yano called all the jazz clubs she could find in Tokyo, but was brushed off because she didn’t have her own group. But one club in Adachi Ward allowed her to audition.
“Maybe the owner thought he can’t just brush off a middle school student. I wasn’t good enough to be paid yet, though,” she recalled.
Following that performance, however, doors began to open. Since then, Yano has found professional musicians who instilled in her the basics of jazz in just a year and a half.
Her reputation as a funky teenage saxophonist spread by word of mouth, reaching the people at a record label. By the time she was 16, she had released her debut album from Savoy/Columbia Music Entertainment. The same year, she flew for the first time to New York to jam at the city’s clubs, including Harlem’s renowned Lenox Lounge.
The following year, she played alongside big-name international artists. At home, she recorded with pianist Takashi Matsunaga, an endeavor that ended with the release of “Open Mind,” which became the theme song for TV Asashi’s nighttime news show Hodo Station.
By the time she turned 20, Yano had continued to steadily, but rapidly, shape her music career, all the while going to high school.
“When I made my debut, I already had been labeled things such as high-school student-cum-saxophone player. I had proved I could make a decent living before even graduating high school,” Yano said.
Any thoughts of studying abroad?
For her, going abroad means forgetting about what she has and starting from scratch, she said.
“I often hear stories about Japanese who go to New York with a dream, but end up washing dishes. If it’s a good experience for them, that’s good. But I don’t think it would be for me,” she said. “Money is important. Studying abroad just to go into debt isn’t my style. Going to New York is good, but I don’t think going there to wash dishes…It just doesn’t sound right to me.”
On the contrary, Yano’s path to success in the United States already has been laid. “I get to work with unbelievably great artists and tour with them,” she says. “That’s not because I’m good. That’s because I pay them a lot to be band leader.”
It’s impossible to get musicians like Randy Brecker or James Moody to play together just by asking, Yano said, but the base she has built in Japan enabled her to tour with them.
“The happiest thing for me was to be told by members of my band that, ‘Working with you helped buy me a car.’ That’s the greatest comment for me. As a band leader, I don’t want my members to go hungry,” she said.
The achievement earned in her early days can sometimes prove a burden or pressure. But Yano continues to push herself, not letting ego stand in the way. “I try not to think ‘I have to sell at least 15,000 CDs’ or ‘I have to fill the concert hall.’
“Women tend to be more street-smart than men and are more flexible. But an inflexible woman is hopeless…I don’t want to be like that,” she said.
Yano said she’s ready to do anything she needs to do–whether it would mean taking a part-time job or posing nude–to get by. But for now, she feels blessed that she can make a living doing what she loves.
On Saturday and Sunday, she will play at the fourth Ginza International Jazz Festival, alongside popular musicians from around the world. Today, she will play in the Kabukicho entertainment district in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, for the opening ceremony of the Kabukicho Festa [see story below]. Yano will perform both standards and originals, providing a good chance to feel the hunger and drive that keeps her going.
(Oct. 31, 2008)
