Mayumi Shara adds Taiko drumming to New Orleans’ rhythms

Photo by HaJime

By Jann Darsie

Notes From Ella is presented via a grant from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation.

Local percussionist Mayumi Shara, a Tokyo native, has spent a lot of time convincing people that she really wanted to be a drummer.

 She even had to convince herself. When she auditioned for a band in high school, she was told they already had a drummer. So, in an effort to get into the band, she started teaching herself to play the guitar. But it wasn’t long before she returned to her original passion: the drums. 

 Shara went to a music shop in Tokyo that had classes and studied drumming with a classical percussionist. “It took three years to learn the fundamentals,” she recalled.

 Another drumming opportunity came up, and she joined a rock band that played covers of groups such as the Rolling Stones and Pat Benatar. When the band pivoted to punk, Shara moved on to an all-female fusion band.

 “Then I began listening to John Coltrane and other jazz greats, and that inspired me to change my artistic direction,” she said. “I stopped playing rock music and practiced swing.”

 She found a jazz band to join, which gave her great training in jazz idioms. Soon she was playing with a number of different bands, establishing herself as a pioneering female jazz drummer in Japan.

 The distinction between a taiko and a Western drum set is that the tacked cowhide head taiko is played with sticks — often thicker than Western ones — producing a deeper, resonant sound. More women are now taking up the sticks, thanks to persistent and talented woman like Shara. Shara was constantly having to prove herself, and heard comments like “I don’t want a woman to play better than me.”

 Once she was playing with top bands in Japan, she decided to move to the United States for more opportunities. She first went to New York City, where she has friends. After listening to a lot of live jazz, she decided to visit New Orleans in 1998.

Photo by HaJime

 “It was totally different!” she exclaimed. “I liked the groove, and realized this is the place where I wanted to be.”

 Although she didn’t know anyone in New Orleans, she had rented a room from a woman who introduced her to piano player Mari Watanabe. “She was so kind to me, and I started meeting people and studying English,” Shara said. She became a regular audience member at Preservation Hall, listening to drummers such as Shannon Powell and Gerald French. 

 It was Kermit Ruffins who helped her break into the local music scene. Shara had approached the trumpeter between sets and asked to sit in. It did not surprise her when he asked if she could actually play. After an emphatic “yes,” Ruffins agreed.

 After the set, he invited her to come back. This got Shara on the road to her success in the New Orleans music scene. She has mastered all styles of jazz, from second-line rhythms to be-bop and modern, also blues, New Orleans funk, etc.

 While exploring her longtime dream of blending traditional taiko drums into a drum set as her own original style, Shara made an unexpected discovery while researching the Drumsville exhibition at the New Orleans Jazz Museum — taiko drums were actually part of the early evolution of the modern drum set.

 “I was deeply moved to find out that Baby Dodds even played a taiko-style set in Satchmo’s band,” she said. That discovery inspired her to develop a distinctive taiko-based drum set, which she now uses not only for New Orleans traditional jazz, but also in modern jazz and her own original compositions.

 Shara learned of the Ella Project from an email blast about a program for musicians, Crescendo, that launched in 2019. These free workshops cover topics that are changing the music industry, including copyright, licensing, collecting royalties, touring, festival gigs and album releases. A composer and band leader as well as a drummer, Shara immediately saw the value in these workshops.

 Although her schedule permitted her to attend only one of the sessions that first year, she met Bri Whetstone, the attorney who developed the program with Lou Hill, and Ella Project co-founder Gene Meneray. This started her relationship with the Ella Project that she described as “generous and valuable.”

 “Gene Meneray has been so helpful, giving me advice over the years,” she said, “and of course I went back to the Crescendo Program to attend all the sessions.”

 The Ella Project also conducts ongoing workshops for musicians, and Shara attends those, too. She realized that to be a successful professional musician, she needed to know the music business in depth.

 Thanks to the Ella Project, she especially feels the need to keep up with all the changing technology as it impacts musicians, such as AI and streaming. “Bri and Lou are really good at this!” Shara said. 

 Shara has learned how to protect the rights to her compositions, and she plans to use the Ella Project for future contracts. 

 A prolific bandleader, Shara leads a jazz band, Mayumi Shara & The N.O. Jazz Letters, and a taiko drum ensemble, MaDeTo. She is currently working on a musical piece expressing the history of New Orleans, which utilizes her unique taiko drum set.

 Shara is one of the few female drummers to be featured in a New Orleans Jazz Museum exhibit and accompanying book entitled Drumsville! The Evolution of the New Orleans Beat. This traces the history of drums and drumming in New Orleans, examining three centuries of the art form. 

 The innovative drummer is also focusing more on her roots. She recently formed two taiko groups in New Orleans, one called Mikazuki Taiko and an all-female taiko group, New Orleans Magnolia Taiko. She plans to start a taiko class with those groups in August.

 On July 11, she will be playing with the Sam Joyner Blues Band at the Blues and Ques Concert in Alexandria. The next night, July 12, she returns to New Orleans with Robert Snow and The Melatauns at BJ's Lounge in the Bywater. 

 More information on Mayumi Shara can be found on her website, on Facebook and on Instagram.