Interviews

1. Decision between becoming a minister or musician

2. Starting Japanese American taiko their own way

3. Buddhist philosophy in taiko

4. Japanese American taiko is not Japanese taiko

5. Women playing taiko

6. Parents didn't accept me playing taiko in the beginning

7. Performing in the first Asian American play, "The Monkey Play"

8. Performing the koto and taiko drum together, in Japan

9. Taiko considered "Jazz" in the Philippines

10. Thoughts on the term, "Nikkei"

Mori,Johnny

(b. 1949) Musician and arts educator and adminstrator.

Performing in the first Asian American play, "The Monkey Play"

In December of 1973, we did this play. It’s called “The Monkey Play.” It’s produced by this guy named Julian Foch. He kind of like ran in the Hollywood circles. He had a store, he and his mom. Actually his mom had the store up on Sunset Boulevard in the Virgil area. He knew a lot of actors, actresses, people that were in the business. So this is the first time that Asian Americans that he assembled—directors, producers, dancers, choreographers that were Asians that were in the business—put on this play called “The Monkey Play,” based on the Chinese stories of the Monkey King and stuff like that. He got these actors and actresses. And he employed the band to do the music for the play and also to have a concert after the play. We wrote some pieces and put them together and performed them. That was the first time.

Hiroshima (city) Hiroshima Prefecture Japan The Monkey Play (play)

Date: October 15, 2004

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Art Hansen, Sojin Kim

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

John Yukio “Johnny” Mori is a musician and arts educator/administrator from Los Angeles.

Born November 30, 1949, he is the second son of his Issei father and Nisei mother. As a young man, he was an early activist, draft resistor, and general hell-raiser during the Asian American Movement in the 1970s, and ran the Amerasia Bookstore in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo. The shop was a co-operative bookseller that also served as a community meeting place and political action and performing arts venue. Mori went on to travel the globe as a percussionist for the jazz-fusion band, Hiroshima, before retiring in 2003.

Mori is a seminal member of Kinnara Taiko, one of the first Japanese American taiko groups in the United States. For the past 20 years, he has also taught workshops on taiko and Japanese American culture to participants ranging from elementary school to university students. He currently serves as the Producing Director of Performing Arts at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles. (June 13, 2007)