My free topic

I thought a lot about what I wanted to post here for my own free topic. I finally decided on a musician I like a lot, but you probably haven't heard of. I heard of him through the international media and on the Internet, but I couldn't get his music until buying music on the Internet became possible. He's just not that popular in Japan - at least yet. My daughter, who likes J-Pop, thinks he's just too weird.

"Dad, that music is so weird!" She told me.

"Hey, I love Jazz and I love Bluegrass. How could I not love this?" I responded.

Béla Fleck plays music that is an intricate mix of Bluegrass and Jazz, both very indigenous American musical genres that combine African and European instruments and traditions. Music sites like iTunes don't know what genre to put him in, and sometimes his different albums are in different categories. Needless to say, he doesn't get much air play. He's too country for the Jazz stations, but too jazzy for the Country stations. But I do run into other people who like his music.

Japan has both Jazz and Bluegrass musicians. In fact, even before I met my wife and thought of moving here, I had an album of Japanese Bluegrass music that I used to play for friends. And of course everyone who knows anything about Jazz has at least heard of Sadao Watanabe, probably the most famous Japanese Jazz musician ever.

Here's a Béla Fleck clip from YouTube for you to enjoy: