"July 1 will be our debut performance in the United States. People will recognize us from our international tours," Kazu says. "We love that we're debuting during Florida Supercon."
A native of Colombia, Kazu, a lifelong advertising creative art director, created Cowboy Bebop Live in 2015 as an homage to the compositions of Japanese pianist and composer Yoko Kanno who created the music for the wildly popular anime.
Voice actor Genaro Vasquez, the Latin American Spanish-language voice of Cowboy Bebop's lead character, Spike Spiegel, will be at the show signing autographs and taking pictures with fans. Anime Miami Tattoo artist William Quiceno (@williamqtattoos) will also attend, creating a live painting of a scene from the series. At the end of the show, the artwork will be auctioned off, with proceeds benefiting a local charity.
"We are the official big band of Cowboy Bebop and feature 22 musicians on stage performing Kanno's music," Kazu adds.
Cowboy Bebop's opening number, "Tank!" performed by Yoko Kanno and Seatbelts, is still one of the most recognizable songs to come out of Japanese anime to this day. The series itself was an instant success when it premiered on September 2, 2001, on Adult Swim. (The show originally debuted in Japan in 1998.) Lauded by fans and critics alike, Cowboy Bebop is a neo-noir, sci-fi action anime that combines elements of pulp and Western. The English dub also has the rare distinction of being one of the few dubbed animes that might be better than the original Japanese voice cast.
Even with high praises attached to Cowboy Bebop, Kazu found inspiration for the tribute concert from the unlikeliest of places: Colombia's burgeoning jazz scene. He stumbled upon it during his frequent travels between Bogotá and Cali.
"I was working in advertising agencies while living in Bogotá and traveling to my hometown of Cali. It was during those trips I began going to the live jazz clubs where my lifelong friends, who are now professional musicians, were playing," Kazu explains.
Colombian native Christian Kazu is the mastermind behind the Cowboy Bebop Live Tribute.
Christian Kazu photo
"The band performing there and the luxurious music they're playing you only find in big cities like Chicago and New York — seeing this in Cali is unusual," he adds.
Hearing the Cali musicians play "Cubauzá," an homage to Cuban-born trumpeter Mario Bauza, the interpretation blew him away, and he noted the similarity to the Cowboy Bebop song "Rush."
This ultimately sparked the idea for the Cowboy Bebop tribute, with Kazu seeing it as an opportunity to showcase the amazing musicians from his home country and their immense talent.
Kazu quickly got to work on the project, contacting his saxophonist friend, who was well-known in Cali. The pair started throwing ideas around and shaping the Cowboy Bebop project. The only stumbling block they encountered was finding Kannon's sheet music for the anime's score. Eventually, Kazu found a book with Kanno's scores — however, it took eight months to arrive from Japan.
"By the time the book arrived, I had several friends already involved, and when we decided to begin writing the music from scratch, which took six months," Kazu adds.
Ultimately, that music became the score for Cowboy Bebop Live.
In 2019, Kazu secured a venue, the Teatro Municipal Enrique Buenaventura in Cali, and, on April 3, debuted the show to a packed house.
"We filled the venue. Even on a night when it was pouring, people still came out. We received a standing ovation," he says.
That led to them booking Bogotá's largest theater, Teatro Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, with a 1,600-person capacity, in June 2019. That show also sold out, and it was now drawing international attention. Kazu began receiving calls to bring the show outside of Colombia. "That's when we started planning the Latin American tour," he adds.
He went on to book shows in Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Chile, Ecuador, and even at Colombia's largest music festival, Rock al Parque. However, then 2020 rolled around, and the world stopped.
However, amid the pandemic, the band was asked to perform during an online festival, so a live session was recorded and livestreamed on January 6, 2021. "It was a sensation," Kazu says. "More than 3,000 people watched it on Facebook Live and YouTube."
Meanwhile, Kazu decided to move to the U.S., where he connected with Diana Lote, the executive producer of Common Thread Entertainment. Together they booked the Cowboy Bebop Live Tribute at the Miami Beach Bandshell, which will coincide with Florida Supercon at the nearby Miami Beach Convention Center.
"The performance at the Miami Beach Bandshell will be our U.S. debut. It will feature the 22 musicians on stage while images from the series are streamed in the background. We then plan to take the show on the road to other [comic book conventions] through 2024," Kazu explains.
During the U.S., Kazu hopes to connect with Kanno.
"When I spoke to Yoko about the performance in Colombia, we had every intention of bringing her to perform with us, but that didn't materialize. So we're working on bringing her for one of the next shows," Kazu says.
Cowboy Bebop Live Tribute. 9 p.m. Saturday, July 1, at Miami Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; 786-453-2897; miamibeachbandshell.com. Tickets cost $66.95 via dice.fm.
