Tak Shindo

Tak Shindo
Shindo at the Manzanar Relocation Center, c. 1943
Background information
Born	(1922-11-11)November 11, 1922 Sacramento, California
Died	April 17, 2002(2002-04-17) (aged 79) San Dimas, California
Genres	Exotica, ultra lounge, Japanese folk
Occupation(s)	Musician, composer and arranger
Instruments	Koto
Years active	1957–1967
Labels	Capitol, Mercury, Edison International, Imperial, Nippon Victor

Takeshi "Tak" Shindo (November 11, 1922 – April 17, 2002) was a Japanese American musician, composer and arranger. He was one of the prominent artists in the exotica music genre during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Shindo also founded a dance band in 1947 and was a frequent lecturer and writer on Japanese music. He first gained prominence for his work on the 1957 motion picture "Sayonara," served as the musical director for the television series "Gunsmoke," and composed theme music for "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "Wagon Train." He is most remembered for the exotica albums he released from 1958 to 1962, including "Mganga! The Primitive Sounds of Tak Shindo" (1958), "Brass and Bamboo" (1959) and "Accent on Bamboo" (1960). He also released several albums in Japan during the mid-1960s that blended American and Japanese musical traditions. In 1980, he made a documentary film, "Encounter with the Past," about the Manzanar relocation camp where he was relocated in 1942 as part of the Japanese American internment policy.

Shindo was born in 1922 in Sacramento, California. He moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1927. He enrolled at Los Angeles State College in 1941, but he was relocated to the Manzanar Relocation Center in early 1942 as part of the Japanese American internment policy that was adopted after the outbreak of war between the United States and Japan. Shindo spent more than two years at Manzanar. While at Manzanar, he worked as a reporter for the Manzanar Free Press and developed his interest in music. Music professor W. Anthony Sheppard, who published an article on Shindo and his music in 2005, concluded that, had it not been for his internment at Manzanar, Shindo would most likely have become an electrical engineer. Sheppard observed:

"While he had some musical experience, he had just begun college before Pearl Harbor and had no thoughts of pursuing music as a career. ... Shindo performed in one of the camp orchestras and took advantage of the camp's musical education program. Most significantly for his later career, he also took correspondence courses in orchestration."