Masayoshi Takanaka – if you didn’t already know – is the Japanese jazz guitarist. Famed for his guitar prowess and prodigious discography, Takanaka’s career has spanned over fifty years, and has seen him go from local Tokyo session musician to international icon. He’s held his own alongside Carlos Santana on stage, released fifty-seven albums, and occasionally, performs to thousands of people playing a guitar made from a surfboard. Takanaka is seventy-one years old. On March 9th and 10th, he played his first two shows in the United States to back-to-back sold out audiences at the Wiltern.
From the moment he walked out on stage to the second he exited, Takanaka seemed, to me, in awe of his own reception. He had flown in from Tokyo, unsure of what to expect, and was greeted by more than two-thousand rabid fans, most of whom were a good forty years younger than his demographic back in Japan.
The line outside the Wiltern wrapped around the block, and concertgoers, posters and vinyls in hand, pushed and shoved to be as close to the stage as they possibly could. The cries and screams that followed the bands’ entrance made the walls shake, and when they played the opening notes of “BLUE CURACAO,” the crowd erupted.
Lights flashed overhead, illuminating the audience as they yelled on-beat to the song’s chorus; a sea of claps accompanied every hit and crash of the drums; and in the middle of it all, Takanaka, basking in the energy, did what he does best – and played his heart out.
I’ll backtrack for a second to try and explain why these two fully packed shows were possible, and why the crowd was so young (and white). Thanks in part to postwar foreign influences, a majority of popular Japanese music, Takanaka’s output included, is easily accessible to the American ear.
Echoes of Takanaka’s own combination of latin, funk, and jazz can be heard across classic international records like Santana’s Abraxas or George Benson’s Weekend in L.A., and as a result of his significant influence within the Japanese music scene, the same can be said of Takanaka-adjacent genres like city pop, for example.
Here’s where the internet comes in: as Youtube’s popularity surged in the 2010s, videos that served as personal archives of users’ favorite records of the 70s and 80s were picked up by the algorithm, cultivating devoted fanbases basically overnight.
Songs like Mariya Takeuchi’s 1984 “Plastic Love” and Miki Matsubara’s 1979 “Stay With Me” are two of many Japanese releases that, through the Youtube algorithm, helped to massively renew public interest in the artists and innovators of their time. Emerging internet sub-genres like vaporwave made frequent reference to the aesthetics and sounds of city pop, and Takanaka himself was sampled by Grimes on her 2015 song “Butterfly.”
Japan has long been a significant exporter of pop culture, and Takanaka’s flashy style and eye-catching album covers only enabled this phenomenon. Today, four of his top five cities by listener count on Spotify are in the United States, and at the number one spot sits Los Angeles.
Regardless of any internet trend, I doubt Takanaka could have anticipated the reaction he got for his first song – or his second, or his third, even. But if he was surprised by the crowd’s overwhelming enthusiasm, he didn’t let it shake him for long.
In his red suit, bowtie, and sunglasses, it seemed as if he was having more fun than the entire audience combined, and as I looked around me, his constant smile proved infectious.
He introduced “SWEET AGNES” with his own imitation of three different bird calls. He attached colorful streamers to his microphone that unfurled in-sync with the music. And as he launched into a cover of “Europa”, his guitar quieting to a whisper as everyone else in the room braced for a crescendo, I realized I felt oddly proud to witness this seventy-one year old man captivate an audience of complete foreigners.
My dad—who spent his twenties in the same decade and city Takanaka recorded and released his greatest hits in—raised me on the music of his youth, and to see it played on this huge stage for this huge crowd moved me more than I expected.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to see Masayoshi Takanaka live again, but he seemed certain that he would return to the United States for more shows. “I’ve been waiting for this day for so long,” he announced, “And now I’m your grandpa’s age, but I am still young”.
After a three-song encore, ending with thunderous applause and several rounds of bows and acknowledgements, Takanaka’s smile had still not left his face. He was the last to exit the stage; for a small moment, he lingered, looked back at the audience, and then walked behind the curtain.