By WARREN FURUTANI
Harry Manaka’s iconic book, “Sansei Rocker,” along with the resurgence of the music that drove the dance scene in the Japanese and Asian American community in the ’60s and ’70s, has experienced a rebirth. One reason is the Sansei generation is now retired and attracted to those special times.
No longer at Roger Young auditorium, Parkview Woman’s Club or Baby Lions, you can now catch Elemental Funk and the singing group Asian Persuasion at venues like the Gardena Elks Club or at Nishi Hongwanji Temple.
But another branch of the music tree from those times was not rooted in the Motown sound or other dance music; it was unequivocally rooted in the jazz/fusion genre. One of the pioneers and practitioners of this trend was Alan Furutani.
Alan passed away Aug. 24, 2023. But the musical tradition that he and so many other musicians established in the community continues and many are still “wood shedding” and playing at obscure venues and on the big stage ala Hiroshima (jazz fusion).
Alan was a sax man and played most of the woodwind instruments (tenor sax, soprano sax and the flute). He also founded many different jazz bands over the years, including Fujazz and Visions. He also played with many other jazz-based groups from So Cal, Nor Cal and the Pacific Northwest. But Alan was not a snob. He also played in several dance and garage bands like Street Flower and the Benjo Blues Band.
Alan’s jazz roots can be attributed to his father, Chuck, and their neighbors when he was growing up. The Stones, Floyd and Vernell, were musicians and Floyd was the owner of CS Music store on Western Avenue in Gardena. Alan, along with his older brothers, Norman and Warren, took music lessons from the Stones. The youngest Furutani brother, Stony, was named after Floyd Stone, whose nickname was Stony.
Chuck was a working man and a 442nd veteran. He met the Furutani brothers’ mother in the swamps of Arkansas in the Rohwer and later Jerome concentration camps. Mary Yamada Furutani was from the Elk Grove area south of Sacramento and Chuck and his family were Terminal Islanders.
Chuck grew up with many different cultural influences, being from an island in the Port of Los Angeles. He was also a Sansei (third generation Japanese American), which made him different from most of his Japanese American peers who were second-generation Nisei.
He was also a jazz drummer and singer who plied his musical trade at small clubs and bars like the Bluebird Club on Western Avenue in South L.A. Chuck indoctrinated his sons in the ways of music, especially Jazz.
Norman, the oldest, played in the marching bands at Peary Junior High School, Gardena High School, and Cal State Long Beach. He also played in the local big band, the Esquires. Warren, the second-oldest, played guitar and was influenced by the folk and protest music traditions of the ’60s.
But Alan played the consummate jazz instrument, the tenor sax. He enjoyed playing groove-based tunes like John Coltrane’s “Equinox and Naima.” Of course, Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage” and Herbie Mann’s jazzy blues tune “Comin’ Home Baby” were on Alan’s playlist.
He was strongly influenced by the jazz and R&B sound of the ’70s and such artists as Pharoah Sanders, Grover Washington Jr, and Idris Muhammad. And although the sax was Alan’s main axe, he was an excellent flute player and Herbie Hancock and Hubert Laws seeded his early style.
He and his wife and soulmate, Marsha (Kawagoye), played at the inaugural San Francisco Asian Amerasian Jazz Festival in 1985. Alan started the Amerasia Bookstore Jazz Festival and performed at many more Asian American and other jazz festivals. He and Marsha also played at three San Francisco Nihonmachi Street Fairs and later held down the small stage at the Coffee Cartel Coffee House in the Hollywood Rivera for 17 years. Marsha is a singer.
Alan worked at many different kinds of jobs to pay the bills. His last job was as a dispatcher for Jo-Mi Plumbing in the Sawtelle area. But make no mistake, Alan was a musician to the end. He was practicing, “wood shedding,” with his last breath.
He will be missed by his family and friends. But his music will live on. The family is having an intimate family gathering to send him off but his musical compadres are planning a musical tribute and memorial celebrating Alan’s music and lifelong commitment to jazz and other styles and music genres in the spring of 2024.
Alan is now playing his flute as he and Obachan walk through his favorite pear orchard and through Ojichan’s strawberry patch.
——————–
Warren Furutani has served as a member of the Los Angeles Unified District Board of Education, the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees, and California State Assembly. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of The Rafu Shimpo.
