Bob Brozman, a self-described “world blues” musician and collaborator with world-music artists around the globe, is bringing his blend of steel guitar and Hawaiian influences to the WOW Hall tonight as part of his collaboration project with renowned Okinawan guitarist Takashi Hirayasu.
Their new release, “Jin Jin/Firefly,” showcases the pair’s virtuoso talents and combines Brozman’s steel and Hawaiian guitar with Hirayasu’s sanshin, a 700-year-old Japanese stringed instrument. The album’s vocals are based on Okinawan nursery rhymes, but Brozman and Hirayasu liven things up with guitar arrangements that include everything from ballads to rollicking ska-influenced rhythms.
The pair met for the first time just hours before recording the album and went directly to a small Okinawan island to record in a one-room house. That minimalist approach shines on “Jin Jin/Firefly,” and listeners can hear how well the pair meshes.
Brozman, who has put out 25 albums during the course of his career, said he tries to meet the artists “not 50 percent of the way, but three-fourths of the way” when he plays with them.
“Takashi is no different,” he said. “When we first started playing, I watched his facial muscles, his pupils, his hands, the way he holds his instrument, all to get a feel for the style of music I’m collaborating over.”
Brozman describes his latest effort as “Okinawan music meets Western styles,” but added that all music is blues of one kind or another.
“I use my instrument as a tool of expression of that,” he said.
Brozman plays a number of different types of guitar on the album, including steel guitars from his own collection, which is considered one of the country’s largest. He uses the instrument to play percussion as well as to complement Hirayasu’s sanshin, and even manages to coax a harmonica sound in one song on the album.
The sanshin is not an instrument that may be immediately familiar to American listeners, but Hirayasu plays it like a regular guitar for a sound that is something entirely different. Brozman said the sanshin is “like a banjo without frets.”
“We’re inventing a whole new style of music,” he said.
Brozman has collaborated with world music stars from more than a dozen different countries, including West Africa, India and Guinea.
“I like to focus on cultures that have been colonized,” he said. “I’m trying to form a worldwide family of musicians.”
Hirayasu, who has collaborated with artists such as guitar legend Ry Cooder, said that working with Brozman was effortless.
“It was so easy,” he said. “He has open ears; I have open ears; it was so easy.”
The pair has another project due out in the summer of 2000, which will continue the musical experimentation of “Jin Jin/Firefly.”
“My work with Takashi covers the whole range of human emotion,” Brozman said. “We just play music, not a style or genre.”
Bob Fenessy, publicist for the WOW Hall, said Brozman has played there a few times and is known for his humor and the inventiveness of his live shows.
“He definitely has an audience here. It’s a neat thing; he never does the same show twice,” he said. “He can play with anybody and it sounds great.”
Tickets are available at the WOW Hall box office and the EMU ticket office. Prices are $12 in advance and $14 at the door. Doors open at 8 p.m., and the show begins at 8:30 p.m.