Tak-Shindo
Tak Shindo, a Japanese-American soundtrack composer, studied under Miklos Rozsa. Academically trained as a musicologist, he also spent time studying traditional Asian music at the University of Tokyo. Shindo employed this background in the Hollywood sound studios of the 1950s. Between soundtrack assignments for Hollywood orientalia, such as Sayonara and Stopover Tokyo, he recorded a series of albums under his own name. Its Shindo's recordings as arranging bandleader that have the most significance for the field of pop exotica.
Thanks to CD reissue, Shindo's orchestral fantasy of Africa, Mganga, is probably the best known of his LP exotica work. However, Brass and Bamboo and Accent On Bamboo were more typical of his output. Shindo took his audacious juxtaposition of stereotypical eastness and westness to the limit on Far East Goes Western, which offered Hollywood cowboy tunes like "San Antonio Rose" and "I'm An Old Cowhand" tinted in Asian colors. All these albums were distinguished by Shindo's effective interweaving of traditional Japanese instruments and big band instrumentation. His subtle balance of koto (thirteen string zither), samisen (three string lute), bamboo flutes and temple gongs with brass, reeds, and drumset in skillful arrangements of big band chestnuts and Hollywood theme tunes achieved a blend that was witty, cosmopolitan, and almost immediately outmoded as the ascendancy of rock and its youth market turned American pop music into an arena of generational identity politics.
Along with other '50s film and television composer-arrangers like Les Baxter, Robert Drasnin, and Esquivel, Shindo's music gained stature in hindsight, rating reappraisal thanks to the intervention of exotica specialists and an intensification of interest in vintage film music. That deserved second listen demonstrates that Shindo's albums amount to much more than the kitsch of their cover graphics.
© Richard Pierson /TiVo
-
-
Mganga! The Primitive Sounds of Tak Shindo / Far East Goes Western
Jazz - Released by Blue Moon on 1 Jan 1958
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tak Shindo. Brass and Bamboo / Accent on Bambo. Exciting Big-Band Standards with an Oriental Flavor
Jazz Fusion & Jazz Rock - Released by BLUE MOON on 2 Oct 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Far East Goes Western
Classical - Released by Vinyl Masters on 1 Nov 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
-
Presenting Tak Shindo
Lounge - Released by Universal Digital Enterprises on 31 Mar 1958
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Space Age Collection; Exotica, Volume 6 (Stereo)
Lounge - Released by PROFOUND on 7 Feb 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Brass And Bamboo
Jazz - Released by CAPITOL CATALOG MKT (C92) on 1 Jan 1959
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Far East Goes Western
World - Released by Mercury Records on 1 Sep 1962
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Accent On Bamboo
World - Released by CAPITOL CATALOG MKT (C92) on 25 Jul 1960
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Brass And Bamboo (Album of 1959)
Lounge - Released by Memories on 31 May 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mganga! - The Primitive Sound Of Tak Shindo (Original Album Plus Bonus Tracks 1958)
Pop - Released by Weird Music - Exotica on 1 Jan 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Space Age Collection; Exotica, Volume 4 (Stereo)
Lounge - Released by PROFOUND on 7 Feb 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Space Age Collection; Exotica, Volume 7 (Stereo)
Lounge - Released by PROFOUND on 7 Feb 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Accent on Bamboo (Album of 1960)
Pop - Released by Weird Music - Exotica on 31 Oct 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Space Age Collection; Exotica, Volume 5 (Stereo)
Lounge - Released by PROFOUND on 7 Feb 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Far East Lounge Exotica Jazz Moods
Jazz - Released by Jazz City Records on 1 Dec 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
-
The Exotic World of Tak Shindo: Brass and Bamboo
World - Released by SINETONE AMR on 16 Nov 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Exotic World of Tak Shindo: Far East Goes Western
World - Released by SINETONE AMR on 16 Nov 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mganga! The Primitive Sounds of Tak Shindo
Latin America - Released by SINETONE AMR on 25 Jan 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo