[Dixielandjazz] Fw: Help Japan from New Orleans friends

Sat Apr 9 22:52:49 PDT 2011

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Yoshio Toyama" <saints at js9.so-net.ne.jp>
To: "NOLA" <saints at js9.so-net.ne.jp>
Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2011 9:46 PM
Subject: Help Japan from New Orleans friends 

Dear Friends,

It's been a month since we had that earthquake and Tsunami disaster in northern Japan.

We are doing fine,,,,,, but Urayasu where we live ,famous for Tokyo Disneyland , is  land fill and had problem with ground,,,,, my house tilted,,,, so now we live in house with slope,,,,,
The house will have to be raised but it will take couple of months for there're hundreds of houses like that here.

But what a tragedy!  More than 30,000 may have died. 200,000 lost houses in Tsunami, 200,000 more living in shelters, about 400,000 had to move from Nuclear danger area,,,,. 
291 schools buildings were destroyed or swept away by Tsunami, and they are 
So our problem is nothing compared to those people.

We really hope things get better and easier for all the people up north, and big problem,,,,, nuclear power plant danger settles.

After the earthquake and Tsunami ,we’ve received many emails and phone calls from our friends in New Orleans and other parts of USA and world.
Thank you so much for your concert fir Japan‼

We are also so moved by the kindest help from our friends in New Orleans!!
We are so touched so many friends stood up to help us!

Kim Katner of Tipitina’s Foundation <http://www.tipitinas.com/>  plan a concert on May 2, Jason Patterson from Snug Harbor and New Orleans Jazz celebration <http://www.nojc.org/> , Mr. Wilbert Rawlins, <http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/2010/08/yoshio_toyama_and_wilbert_rawl.html>  legendary band instructor who reminds me of Mr. Peter Davis who taught Pops in Boys Home around 1912) of O Perry walker( former G.W.Carver High), and TBC Brass band <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Be_Continued_Brass_Band>  pro band by graduates of G.W Carver, The Roots of Music, <http://www.therootsofmusic.com/>  they are getting together to have Japan Tribute on April 12 ,and Arabi Wrecking Krewe.
They all offered help for the children’s bands, school bands so forth, who lost instruments in Tsunami.

There’s a cute little children’s jazz band in one of the towns swept away completely by Tsunami, then they had fire all over town after that,,,,, Kesennuma,,, the name of the band Swing Dolphins <http://swingdolphins.wordpress.com/> .
Tipitina’s Foundation gave us contact that they are willing to help children,,,, so  we told them about the Dolphins.,,, They lost all their instruments, arrangements, and rehearsal place ,a warehouse of a company band instructor worked.
Kim Katner from Tipitina’s Foundation came up with beautiful news this morning, that the Swing Dolphins will get 14 new instruments with $11,000 donation from Tipitina’s Foundation!
The Dolphins plan to play on the 24th, at Kesennnuma school gym outdoor concert, for the people staying there using gym as a shelter .

$11,000 will be sent to our Wonderful World Jazz Foundation <http://members3.jcom.home.ne.jp/wjf/wjfenglishtop/indexeigo.html> ’s former for-Katrina fund, from where we’d donated almost $100,000 to New Orleans, including $10,00 to Lincoln Center’s Higher Ground fund.

Snug Harbor ‘s owner Jason sent out countless emails about helping children’s band, even set up  PayPal Account for us to receive donations ,so that we can forward them to needy people up there. (It is useful as cashing check in Japan you have to pay almost $50 charge!!!)
We would not  know what to do if people in new Orleans started sending check to us, which we’d have to spend almost $50 out of it to cash each check!!!

We just feel so happy to feel warmest friendship!!

We still feel the grounds and house shaking all the time ,we already got used to it, for there’re so many every day, day and night,,, shake it and break it!!

We’ll try to attend Swing Dolphins’ concert on 24th,,,,,but we’d be shocked to visit the site of Tsunami and that awful distraction of Kesennnuma,,,,, and there7s more,,,, it’s all along the eastern coast of Japan for hundreds of miles,,, real wide area covering so many towns. 

Hope it gets better soon for the people, and pray for quick recovery.

Love,   Yoshio and Keiko

This is from New Orleans：

Members and supporters of New Orleans Jazz Celebration, 

We wish to help our friend Yoshio Toyama, known as the Satchmo of Japan, and his Wonderful World of Jazz Foundation in the wake of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that recently hit the island nation. Yoshio, his wife Keiko, and their band the Dixieland Saints, have been an essential part of the Satchmo Club Strut, NOJC's annual fundraiser, almost since it's inception over a decade ago. Yoshio donates his talent to the Strut every year, and also heads a foundation in Japan that collects musical instruments to send to children in Louisiana. Read an article about Yoshio and his foundation from the Japan Times here <http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20041219x2.html> . 

>From the recent article Time to help Yoshio Toyama, a great friend of New Orleans in Japan by Sheila Stroup at The Times-Picayune:  "Toyama and Keiko started the Wonderful World of Jazz Foundation in 1994 after visiting New Orleans and seeing how things had changed since they’d left. The gleaming instruments they remembered in high school marching bands were old and patched together, and kids were carrying guns instead of trumpets. So they started gathering instruments and donations, and every year when they come for Satchmo Summer Fest, they bring gifts to the young people of New Orleans. So far, their foundation has donated nearly 800 musical instruments to New Orleans schoolchildren. When they came to New Orleans in August 2006, they donated $1,000 and three horns to TBC Brass Band to replace the instruments lost in the storm. In the months following Katrina, the Toyamas held fund-raisers and raised more than $80,000 to help professional musicians get their lives back. “It was easy to get help because all the Japanese people worry about the musicians in New Orleans,” Toyama said." (for full text of article, click here) <http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/2011/04/time_to_help_yoshio_toyama_a_g.html> 

Now the school children of Japan need for us to return the favor. Yoshio has communicated that a children's band called the Swing Dolphins lost all of their instruments in the tsunami. There is a special tribute concert being organized to lift the spirits of the people in a school shelter there that survived the tsunami on April 24th (which is actually April 23rd here). The Swing Dolphins will play if they can get instruments in time. The instruments they are looking for are: AltoSax x2, TenorSax x2, BariSax x2, Trumpet x4, Trombone x4, El.Guitar x1, El.Bass x1, Piano(Keyboard) x1, Drums x1.

There is a jam session benefit being organized by band director Wilbert Rawlins of O. Perry Walker high school and other New Orleans musicians on April 12 at 7 p.m. at the Suite Jazz Cafe, 3580 Holiday Drive, in Algiers. The Roots of Music kids will lead off the night. Other performers include Rebirth Brass Band, TBC Brass Band and The O. Perry Walker Jazz Ensemble.. The cost to get in is $5, but generous donations are encouraged. “Everything we raise will go to the Wonderful World of Jazz Foundation, and if you have instruments to donate, even if they need work, we’ll take them, too,” Rawlins said. “We want to help Yoshio and the Japanese people like they’ve helped us.” 
If you cannot attend this event, you may donate money  for WWJF via a secure PayPal donation link we have set up. Please click here to donate. <https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=ZUTLQ3535M4B8>  

------
Sandra Trahan

Program Director- New Orleans Jazz Celebration
Assistant to Jason Patterson- Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro

(504) 309-JAZZ (5299)
www.nojc.org

Instruments our Wonderful World Jazz Foundation have sent to New Orleans in 16 years,1994-2010. Here. <http://wjf-english.up.seesaa.net/image/1520years20instruments20sent20from20WJF.pdf> 

We strated this horns for new Orleans Kids 1994,,,,calling it Horns for Guns.
And we are glad to say,,, now the slogan is all over in New Orleans.
Tipitina’s also , here. <http://www.tipitinas.com/> 

We are so happy many people think about ,Horn for Guns,,,,and think about Little Louis who shot gun, arrested and learned to play trumpet in Boy’s Home and became world’s greatest musician and hymen being.
.