Described as "(Edgar Meyer + Scott LaFaro)/7 of the Double Bass... or so he wishes..." by himself for his ability to feel at home in both Classical and Jazz
settings, Satoru Tagawa has earned narrow acclaim as "a good bassist" by a select population, who shall remain unnamed for privacy reasons.
Mr. Tagawa is heard regularly as a soloist playing in his room, quite often playing wrong notes, sometimes stopping in the middle of a piece so that he can "play better in tune", whatever that means. It is not rare that he sounds so awful that the sleeping beagle on his bed (April) gets up to sleep elsewhere (especially when he pretends he knows how to play the cello).
Mr. Tagawa was born near Hiroshima, Japan to Japanese parents, making him a purebred Japanese, and thus, better than you. His father, an electrical engineer, had a sort of a mid-life crisis and decided to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, so he can get a sheet of paper that says that he took some classes there. Stuck in a foreign country where he didn't understand the language, Mr. Tagawa decides to start learning the language of music.
As discussed above, being born an Asian, he could already play a Beethoven Piano Sonata out of the womb. Because of the popular saying, "stick with what you know," he decides to play the piano for a few years, until he remembers how to play the Beethoven Sonata that he once knew as a baby (No one knew of this ability at the time, to which he responds, "they didn't ask").
At around this time, he realized that his peers weren't comparing and contrasting Glenn Gould and Daniel Barenboim's recording (on a record) of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No.23, Op.57. Wanting to be accepted, he plays the guitar for a few months, switching to electric bass b/c of the lack of good bass players (for the reasoning behind this phenomenon, refer to the page on Stephen Colbert's book, where he talks about crappy jobs that nobody would want to do that should be given to illegal immigrants) pretending to understand Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, Chili Peppers, etc, winning 1st place at his high school's Battle of the Bands performing a medley of famous songs that he arranged himself for solo electric bass, in the process.
He then switches to the double bass, gets inspired by Edgar Meyer's recordings, plays for Hal Robinson and studies with Gary Karr to get classical chops, gets playing tips from Rufus Reid and Chris Fitzgerald for Jazz, and after 2 years of majoring in music in college, switches to being an engineering student.
Since then, he has performed at the Elmhurst Jazz Festival, Carnegie Hall, and the Midwest Clinic with his college Jazz Band or the Orchestra, as well as gone on a national tour playing for Mel Brook's Musical, "The Producers".
