GANGA ZUMBA – SUMMER SESSION UM+ – LIVE at SHIBUYA-AX (a J!-ENT Music DVD Review)

September 28, 2008 by Dennis Amith 

“THE BOOM’s lead vocalist Miyazawa Kazufumi known for his passion for world music and from his travels through Europe and South America has gathered talented musicians from various countries and created a band to reflect his world music passion, the band known as GANGA ZUMBA and their first major concert DVD is full of excitement, energy and fans won’t be disappointed by it!”

DVD INFORMATION:

DVD TITLE: GANGA ZUMBA

DURATION: Approx. 102 minutes

DVD INFORMATION: 16:9, Region 2, Rel. March 26, 2008

CATALOG #: VFBV-00022

COMPANY: FIVE D PLUS

OFFICIAL WEBSITE

DVD TRACK LISTINGS:

1. Rainbow Warriors
2. HABATAKE!
3. ちむぐり唄者
4. SAMBA CAOS
5. すばらしい日々
6. Cangurus em Recife
7. 美しい島
8. 楽園
9. Toquio
10. Mambolero
11. BAILA CON GANGA ZUMBA
12. BRASILEIERO EM TOQUIO
13. WONDERFUL WORLD
14. Jardim Das Delicias
15. Bridge
16. DISCOTIQUE
17. Why?

Kazufumi Miyazawa will always be remembered for bringing Okinawan music to the forefront along with his band members from The Boom but during the Boom years, Miyazawa would experiment with world music.

In 1998, he released his first solo album “AFRO-SICK” which was released in Brazil.  Between 2002-2005, Miyazawa known for his solo act as “MIYAZAWA SICK” toured through South America and Europe and encountering musicians around the world.

Eventually in 2006, he and these musicians from various parts of the world would create the band GANGA ZUMBA.  The name is derived from one of the first leaders of Quilombo dos Palmares, now known as Alagoas, Brazil.

The band released their first mini-album “HABATAKE!” and the album featured a song used for the 2006 FIFA WORLD CUP.

Because of the various musicians involved in th eband, the group has featured music style that compliments Spanish, Latin and Brazilian music.

Watching this concert was very exciting and Miyazawa and fellow musicians and background singer really go all out and they feed off the crowd’s energy.

I was pretty much amazed at the performances and I have to admit that it took sometime to get used to vocalist  Kazufumi Miyazawa with longer hair (my last time seeing him was probably in 2006 with the BOOM).   His vocals were spot on and the musicians were really awesome to watch as they were really into their music playing and the background vocalist was also jamming onstage and fully of energy.

The band members were just as awesome.  Violin & Erhu player Reiko Tsuchiya was pleasant to watch, as were Tsuyoshi Miyagawa on drums, Marcos Suzano on percussion, Kenji “HOOK” Imafuku on percussion, tatsu on bass, Hiroshi Takano on guitars, Fernando Moura on keyboards, Luis Valle on trumpet and Claudia Oshiro on background and also main vocals.  From playing with the band or their designated solos, they all did an awesome job!

Overall an electric performance by everyone in the group and 17 tracks of awesome music!

The DVD insert is a standard bi-fold with photos from the concert in the interior pages and production credits and DVD cover on the outside.

I have to admit that I was not entirely familiar with GANGA ZUMBA with the exception of THE BOOM’s Miyazawa as the lead vocalist.

Overall, I really enjoyed hearing Miyazawa’s world music influence reflected in his music and bringing together a variety of talent from various countries.  That’s pretty cool!

The group are performing in Japanese and in Spanish and even when the trumpet player Luis Valle would come out and sing or rap in Spanish, the crowd was really into it and I felt that Reiko Tsuchiya played amazingly on violin/erhu as well!

All in all, this DVD was a surprised.  Each song, I enjoyed and again, there is so much energy during this concert, that it’s worth watching.  I was very impressed by the concert especially for the fact that it was my first real taste of GANGA ZUMBA and watching them perform together.  They are a cohesive group and look forward to hearing more from them.