LOCAL>> Cornelius Boots – Solo Shakuhachi Concert Live on YouTube

Cornelius Boots solo concert from San Geronimo Valley on 4/5/20:

Enter the Bamboo: The Mystery & Mastery of Jinashi Shakuhachi by Cornelius Boots

Program includes new nature music, avant blues, Coltrane and honkyoku, traditional Zen nature hymns.

A dynamic presentation of jinashi (natural) and bass size Zen bamboo flutes, forged from deep training and experience in traditional repertoire, modern music and spiritual cultivation facets of this rare instrument originating in Japanese Buddhism.

Ranging from virtuosic and energetic to meditative and subtle, this 100% breath-powered concert will feature robust solo, duo and group performances on a range of flute sizes.

Shakuhachi—the root-end bamboo, vertical flute of Zen Buddhism—is like a talisman from feudal Japan. Legends of spies, monks and samurai abound in its colorful origins, yet its basic 5-hole, no-mouthpiece design strongly echoes an even more distant time of prehistoric bone flutes.

Oddly, it is this same stripped-down, no-frills design that allows the shakuhachi’s dynamic adaptation into modern and forward-leaning music. Jinashi (100% bamboo) shakuhachi and low-pitched, wide-bore variants (taimu, hocchiku, kyotaku) add more depth, texture, mystery and nature-connection than the highly lacquered, brighter court music flutes that became more common as “shakuhachi” in the 20th century.