The shakuhachi, Japan's end-blown bamboo flute, is gaining international popularity and few play it better than American-born John Kaizan Neptune.
Neptune studied the shakuhachi at the University of Hawaii in the early 1970s, before moving to Kyoto, where he became a master of the Tozan school in 1977. Here he received the name Kaizan (Sea Mountain). His exploration of the shakuhachi's potential is vast: He uses it to play jazz fusion, Western classical music, Japanese folk music, traditional hogaku pieces from numerous schools, improvisation and many of his own compositions.
The prolific Neptune has produced 18 albums in the last 21 years, including "Bamboo," which garnered him the Outstanding Album of the Year Award for 1980 from the Monbusho's Cultural Affairs Agency, the first awarded to a non-Japanese, and the first awarded for a jazz album.