Kobayashi Kiyoshi

It would be tough to call Kobayashi Kiyoshi the most famous ukulele player in Japan, but he is fairly well known.

He is putting out fifth album, "Pacific Swing" this coming Monday. Obviously, I haven't heard it, but he did give us a preview at the Ukulele Super Jam, 1 April this year. (Pictures and write-up in English sans Kobayashi). Based on what I heard there, I will probably make the effort to get my hands on it soon. I have his previous effort, "Ukulele Swing 42", which is a fun compliation of jazz or jazzy standards played in a swing style (or did the titles of these two CDs give that away?).

His playing style is not flashy, but it is articulate and precais....er, precise. One could press the case that it is orthodox, but it is nonetheless entertaining to listen to. After hearing him play at the Super Jam, I seriously considered attempting enrolling in one of the ukulele classes he offers in Swing ukulele around Tokyo, but unfortunately, they are all at impossible times for me.

Kobayashi started out on guitar and still plays, but is now probably better known as an ukulele player. Part of the reason is that he also writes books on learning how to play as well as appears in instructional DVDs. It was with one of his publications that I got started on the ukulele...true confessions time, is it?

Born in 1955, he is considerably younger than the septugenarians I wrote about in my last posting. It is hardly surprising that he teaches ukulele as he was a jazz guitar instructor at a Tokyo university for eight years. He was the first Japanese to perform at the French Django Reinhart Festival (1985).

I haven't found an English web page on this particular Kobayashi Kiyoshi, though there are pages on the voice actor by the same name.