Jero Sings for Los Angeles

In honor of the thirtieth anniversary of the Japanese American Culture & Community Center, the organization invited first African-American enka artist Jero to perform. The event took place at the Japan America Theater in Los Angeles on March 31st. The venue was a beautiful seated theater with an amazing painted picture of a traditional Japanese phoenix on the curtain. At about 7:30 p.m. the theater slowly started to fill up. With an audience of mostly older people and families, the theater was soon packed and looked like it was most likely sold out.

At 8:00 p.m. the lights dimmed, completely silencing the audience. A representative came out and spoke about the anniversary of JACCC and introduced Jero. As the curtain was lifted, Jero stood there as the audience started to scream and clap their hands. Jero took a bow and began to sing. As his powerful voice filled the venue, the audience started to clap along to the catchy song. The clapping slowed down and eventually stopped. People just sat there entranced by the steady flow of the music. In no time the first two songs ended and Jero started to speak in Japanese and English.

Jero was really friendly when speaking to the audience. He also had a good sense of humor, making the crowd laugh lightly. He then told us his first two songs of the night had been Yozora and Shishuunki. Jero then described enka as “Japanese Blues.” With the lighting and his backup band consisting of keyboards, two guitarists and a sax player, it had really seemed that way. He started the next song Hisame, which was from his first Covers album. To go along with this song, the digital background behind the backup band gave a beautiful visual of snowflakes falling along the snow covered trees. This slower song portrayed a loneliness as told by Jero’s colder voice. The following song Yukigune had the same cold feeling.

This was followed by another MC, in which he spoke about his performance in Washington DC. He then introduced a cover of Sakamoto Fuyumi’s Mata kimi ni koi shiteru as the next song and told the audience, “This song is actually very popular in Japan right now.” It started out with a beautiful pink lighting and cherry blossoms in the background. With these effects and Jero’s soothing yet upbeat voice, the whole feeling of the song was about love. However, the song took a more mellow turn and the pink lights turned blue. The next song after that was a cover of famous enka singer Hibari Misora.

Another MC took place then, starting out with Jero asking where everyone was from. People came from as far away as the east coast and even from out of the country. Jero had a great sense of humor and knew how to talk to the audience. During the questioning of where everyone was from, an audience member screamed out “Jero! I know your brother!” Jero replied with, “Oh yeah? I know him too.” The audience loved his humor and hung onto to every word.

After the next two songs, Jero goes into his first single, Umiyuki. This got the audience’s attention and they cheered enthusiastically when he announced this song. Although it was a bit different from the rest of the songs sung so far, it still had the steady emotion if a little more pop. After this highly anticipated song the show went into an intermission for twenty minutes.

Signaling the end of the intermission, the lights dimmed once more and the audience silenced. The curtain rose and Jero stood there in a new outfit. The outfit consisted of a sequined lined black and white formal suit as well as his signature hat with sequins. After speaking a little about how much he loved his outfit, he went into Eisa. This song was his second single in his musical career, and seemed to be the most upbeat song of the night as he got the audience into it by getting them to clap their hands. He seemed more active in this song, moving his whole body to the music instead of the usual hand motions. The next few songs were covers by other well-known enka artists such as Itsuki Hiroshi. These cover songs ended up being the gloomiest and slowest songs of the night. The saxophone greatly added to the atmosphere as Jero stood in place singing into the microphone.

For the next MC, he announced, “Maybe one day I’ll sing in English.” After a long pause he added, “When I’m 65. So when I mess up everyone will just say ‘Oh it’s okay he’s old!’” The audience, which was an older crowd, laughed with him. The next subject he went into was his third single, the theme song for the anime “Crayon Shin Chan.” He spoke about having a guest appearance on the anime and how much work it was. This third single, Yancha Michi, was the next song he sung.

It was getting later into the night and Jero announced the next song was about an affair. The audience gasped. The song had its ups and downs as it progressed. The piano was a beautiful touch to this song as he sang with a moving voice. The next song was called Harebutai, which was written for and named after his mother. His mother had a hard time growing up in Japan and since Jero’s success in Japan, she had finally been able to move beyond her past. The song was more like the older enka than his other songs. However, it still seemed like the song took influence from older American blues or jazz as well.

The last song of the night was Jero’s Umiyuki once again. However this was a remix from the original. Jero sang it happily with tears in his eyes. Confetti came down as he moved more than he moved all night. It ended on a happy note as the smiling Jero bowed deeply to the audience, who cheered, clapped and rose to give him a standing ovation. He told the audience to give a hand for the band. The audience clapped louder and Jero said he hopes to see everyone again soon.