Support Ryo Kawasaki

It is with great hesitation and even greater hope that I share with you that my father, Ryo Kawasaki, internationally renowned Jazz/Fusion guitarist and composer, has fallen on hard times. At 72 years old, the good news is that he is of sound body and mind; the bad news is that he is broke. Through a series of unforeseen circumstances, my father is facing homelessness and a vigorously accruing debt in the immediate future. It is not easy to go public with this kind of personal news, but it is my hope that by sharing his story with you, that together we can help him get back up on his feet.

My father has been a self-employed musician; remaining an original jazz-fusion guitarist, composer, band leader and recording artist for over five decades. Born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1947, he moved to NYC in 1973 and resided there for 30 years. In 2003 he relocated to Tallinn, Estonia (until present) after being invited as a composer and music director to the Estonian National Opera House’s new Jazz Ballet Program in 2001-2003.

Projects always seemed to come easily to Ryo throughout his career, yet being an extremely intelligent and industrious person, he always continued to follow other interests aside from music.

From a very young age, in post WWII Japan, my father would build electronic devices – radios, TVs, and audio systems including amplifiers and speakers. In fact, he invented the first guitar synthesizer ever used on a live stage, and in the 1980's he successfully created and developed three music/sythesizer softwares for the then cutting-edge Commodore 64 computer (the first pc with a music chip).

Ryo’s interest in music began when he was introduced to piano and violin, even before entering elementary school. He could read music before he could read language. He went on to university and received a BS from Nippon University in Quantum Physics.

Ryo’s first ‘real’ gig in NYC came in early 1974, after relocating from Tokyo (where he was an exceedingly busy sideman in the music industry there). Gil Evans surprised him by knocking on his 105 MacDougal St. apartment door, to ask Ryo to join his orchestra. There followed the recordings with Gil of ‘Gil Evans Plays The Music Of Jimi Hendrix’ and ‘There Comes A Time’. Ryo’s smoking guitar was needed to replace some of the parts meant to be played by Jimi Hendrix himself, following the death of that icon.

Ryo played everywhere with all the ‘Cats’ for free, (or a free meal), in all the Village jazz clubs with the likes of pianist JoAnne Brackeen at ‘The Surfmaid’ on Bleecker St., singer Joe Lee Wilson and saxophonist Monty Waters at ‘The Ladies Fort and Alley Gallery’ on Bond St.,  with Gil Evans and Elvin Jones at 'The Village Vanguard;' he even teamed up with trumpeter Ted Curson for a US national tour. Ryo even made his way up to ‘The Apollo’ in Harlem with organist “Jiggs” Chase.

Ryo’s reputation on the NY jazz scene quickly became widespread. Drummer Chico Hamilton heard of, and hired Ryo to tour as a sideman with him for a few years. Then Ryo was sought out by drummer Elvin Jones to join his quartet. He played with Elvin for about 3 years all over the world.

My father’s current downturn of fortune has come about through a series of co-incidents:

1. Ryo had been making a living income up until last August (2018) from having created innovative online trading instruction videos, as well as trading outright for Binary Options and Forex online trading during 2015-2018. The ESMA (European Securities and Markets Authority/European Union financial regulatory agency) suddenly banned all online tradings in July-August, 2018. Ryo’s average 3,000 eur/mo income dropped to zero in August 2018.

2. All the other income sources (including regular music related income) inexplicably dried up within that same time frame.

3. Finally, as a last resort, Ryo turned to the US distributor of his Satellites Records label, wherein $26,000 outstanding payables to himself had accrued. The distributor has refused to pay, using a statute of limitations as a defense strategy to avoid payment. Even if Ryo could win in a court of law, it would require much time and money to ‘lawyer up’.

The end result is very bad timing for everything, altogether and at once. He is behind in rent payments for the past 3 consecutive months. In US terms it is not a huge amount (500 eur/mo), but it is an occurrence that has never happened in his entire life, and he could never have imagined it happening now, at 72 years of age. Unfortunately, he has no friends or family members who might be rich enough to support his monthly life basics until he can reinvent and gather more income resources.

Ryo receives a 200 eur/mo pension from Estonian government, and has been struggling to raise any sort of livelihood through music activities such as royalties, album licensing and live gigs which are failing to come anywhere close to covering the vital necessities. To simply pay back rent/associated bills, and to survive until the end of June, 2019 he needs immediate support of $3,000. To secure a pattern of living for the next several months would require at least $10,000 support until he can reorganize and regain income functionality, seeking opportunities as a musician, as well as utilizing his other skills. I have set the goal at $20,000 in the hope that it might be possible to give him a true sense of security so that he can move forward and formulate a plan that can help sustain him into retirement.

Therefore, I am appealing to any and all who may feel compassion and respect for a man who has always been true to himself and the music he has created. My father has given so much to the world through his life’s works, and has never before faced such a daunting reality that he could not overcome by his own fortitude and labors. Any and all donations, great or small will be accepted with immense gratitude and relief. Thank you for your kind consideration of this appeal.

Recent Video Footage 
Ryo's Website 
Wikipedia 
1986 - Tane performs with her father 


Papa & me, NYC 1976