Mark Izu’s new show ‘J-Town’ is a musical scrapbook of SF history

Over the past three decades, bassist Mark Izu has written scores for a series of dramatic and often gripping productions featuring stories crafted by poet, actress and spoken word artist Brenda Wong Aoki, his wife and creative partner.

In thinking through his first performance since the advent of Covid-19, the Emmy Award-winning composer decided to take a different tack. Premiering Saturday at San Francisco’s historical Presidio Theatre, “Songs for J-Town” is an open-ended community portrait sketched with jazz.

While Aoki serves as a presiding spirit, the multimedia elements and poetry add texture rather than providing a specific narrative.

“I wanted to present something about all of us being together in the Western Addition and Fillmore and the history and the legacy of J-Town,” Izu said. “But after COVID, it’s just as much about sharing personal stories, coming together and being with your dear ones, grieving together, sharing joy and celebrating births and marriages.”

The work celebrates the legacy and resilience of the people who have called San Francisco’s Japantown and Western Addition home since the 1930s. Known as the Harlem of the West when it was a thriving African American nightlife district, the neighborhood was also a center of Filipino culture. A musical conjuring of the past, “Songs For J-Town” is also a gentle exorcism of the transformational trauma wrought by the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

At the same time, Izu opens the evening with a Shinto blessing by Rev. Mas Kawahatsu “at a sacred tree in the courtyard we’re going to gather around,” he said. “So many people passed away and we couldn’t mourn together. People can put the names of their loved ones on the tree. Our son got married in London and we couldn’t be there. We want to make a space for all of those joys and sorrows.”

With its conspicuous absences and new faces, Izu’s band directly reflects the experience of the past two years. He’s still taking in the February loss of his pianist, George Yamasaki. At 86, he was San Francisco’s longest-serving city commissioner, and an indelible presence as the emcee for the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival.

“Songs for J-Town” includes Izu’s arrangements of the swing era standards “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” and “Moten Swing,” tunes he learned from Yamasaki, “who was around playing this stuff when it was popular,” Izu said. “I learned so much from him. I’m not a swing bass player, but he was always part of the band.”

The “Songs for J-Town” ensemble brings together a stellar cast of players, including percussionist George Yamasaki on taiko drums and trap set, reed expert Jim Norton, vocalist Caroline Cabading, guitarist Karl Evangelista, and spoken word artist devorah major. Izu’s long-time koto player, Shoko Hikage, left the Bay Area “and now I need to fly several artists in to participate,” he said.

Sara Sithi-Amnuai, a rising force on trumpet and sheng, is coming up from Los Angeles. Masaru Koga, a busy sideman on the Bay Area scene before he relocated to New York City in 2019, is back in town for Saturday’s performance, which features his work on tenor saxophone and bamboo shakuhachi (flute).

Koga has played on many of Izu’s and Aoki’s collaborations over the years, “and this is the first time I remember that the focus is really on Mark’s music, and the execution and delivery of the storytelling is purely musical,” Koga said. “At our first rehearsal Mark said something really beautiful, that art is where the community should gather, and that’s what’s happening with this piece.”

“Songs for J-Town” includes digital collage by Andrea Wong and film by Tonilyn Sideco. The concert centers on several original pieces infused with gagaku, a 1,500-year-old ceremonial Japanese tradition that Izu studied for many years under his mentor, Togi Suenobu.

After dozens of collaborations with Aoki, Izu is comfortable containing contradictions within his music. Like writing diverging counter melodies, he references grief and joy, life and death, venerable tradition and cutting-edge technology.

If gagaku ties his music to centuries-old cultural forms, he’s just as excited about the presence of Sithi-Amnuai, who has created an electronic glove-controlled interface that she can trigger with one hand while playing trumpet with the other. “She adds a whole other character to the work,” Izu said. “Mas and I have been working with her remotely and we were so impressed by everything she can do.”

Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.