SHINSEI BAND
Japanese music & the Big-Band sound come together to produce a cultural blend
showcasing one of San Francisco’s most popular dance bands.
The sound on these two recordings Shinsei Band 10th Anniversary & Shinsei Band Daini shu, shaped the Japanese American community starting in 1956.
They continued to entertain generations into the late 1980s – that’s over three decades!

It’s a cross-cultural blending of musical genres, arrangements, & selections
of music that serve to preserve what was the earliest Japanese American-Asian
Pacific American soundscape.

The Shinsei Band (Shinsei translated from Japanese means New Star) established the
Japanese Music Festival in 1957 and went on to become a multi-generational group
with members consisting of Kibei, Nisei, & Sansei.
It grew into a 13-piece ensemble with seven singers.

The music on these two discs is an integral part of the Japanese American-Asian Pacific American culture, but you don’t have to be Japanese, or even speak Japanese,
to appreciate this incredibly good music.

READ STORY ABOUT THE BAND MEMBERS - PRINTED BY HOKUBEI.com
North America's Japanese Newsource

SONG LISTING 10th Anniversary
<click underlined titles for audio clip>
TOKYO NO HANAURI-MUSUME
RINDO TO-GE
YEI-LAI-SHAN
SANDWICH-MAN MONO=GATARI
SHINA NO YORU
SHO-SHIN NO AME
EDO NO YAMITARO
GENROKU HANAMI ODORI
A-OSAKA-JO
KON-INCHIWA AKA-CHAN


Review - John Berger -
Honolulu Star Bulletin
The Shinsei Band recorded two albums for Golden State Records in the 1960s, and this one, out of print for years, was the first.
It dates from 1966 and was an important milestone for the group: A Japanese-American big band of 14 musicians is heard here, and although the original group included four singers, several additional vocalists were included on the album.

Japanese-Americans of a certain age will recognize Shinsei as being from the mainland, but anyone who welcomed HanaOla's CD reissues of recordings by the Hawaii big band Club Nisei will welcome the reissue
of this album as well.

Composers' credits and translations are not included in this economically packaged album, but presumably the vast majority of its target audience is Japanese-speakers. Anyone not fluent in Japanese is on their own.
 

SONG LISTING Daini Shu
<click underlined titles for audio clip>
MEOTO SHUNSHU
KOKO GA II NO YO
GUNKAN MARCH
HONE MADE AISHITE
KOYUBI NO OMOIDE
HAKODATE NO HITO
SHITAMACHI SODACHI
KOI NO SHIZUKU
YOGIRI YO KONYA MO ARIGATO
SOMA BON UTA
SAKURA MATSURI ONDO

Daini Shu - Review
John Berger - Honolulu Star Bulletin
Michael Cord brought back welcome memories for many older Japanese-Americans in 2000, when he took the calculated risk of re-issuing a series of Japanese-language recordings released in Hawaii after
World War II.

An anthology, "Hawaiian Nisei Songs," which Cord originally thought would sell only in Japan, did so well here and on the West Coast that it was followed by two larger collections. Those recordings were by Club Nisei,
a major Japanese-American band of the era, and all of them had been out of print since the demise of George Ching's 49th State
Hawaii label in the 1950s.

Cord is now expanding his Japanese catalog with the reissue of this album by the Shinsei Band. Japanese-Americans of a certain age will recognize Shinsei as being from the mainland -- San Francisco, to be exact --
but anyone who welcomed the Club Nisei reissues will be interested in this
re-release as well.

And, in addition to the 10 songs that were on the original album, released by Golden State Records in 1969, Cord is including two versions of a Shinsei Band single, "Sakura Matsuri Ondo," as well.

Translations are not included in the liner notes of this economically packaged album, but presumably most of its target audience
speaks Japanese.