TALKING TAIKO: A celebration of Yuri Kageyama's "The New and Selected Yuri: Writing From Peeling Till Now" (Ishmael Reed Publishing Co., 2011)Poetry with Music by Eric Kamau Gravatt (jazz drummer for McCoy Tyner, Weather Report, Wayne Shorter), Isaku Kageyama (taiko drummer for Amanojaku, Hybrid Soul, Toshinori Kondo), Makoto Horiuchi (musical director, guitar), Hiroyuki Shido (bass) and Greg Pearson (keyboards). Special guests Ishmael Reed, Tennessee Reed and Carla Blank. “They’ve called Yuri ‘cute’ often during her life. She’s cute all right. Like a tornado is cute. Like a hurricane is cute. This Yuricane,” Reed says. “Her poems critique Japanese as well as American society. The Chikan. The arrogance of the Gaijin, who, even when guests in a country, insist that everybody be like them. Some are erotic. You might find allusions to Richard Wright, Michelangelo, John Coltrane. Music is not only entertainment but like something that one injects, something that invades the nervous system.”