“Nostalgia to Now”: A Show Stopper
“Nostalgia to Now”: A Show Stopper
By Barbara Hiura
By Barbara Hiura
If you weren’t out hanging with the Wesley Jazz Ensemble and Friends on May 4, you missed a thrilling and a darn good time at Wesley’s Mission Fundraising event. Jazz oldies but goodies were on tap and so perfect for our Wesley audience who could almost do a sing-a-long if not dance to the music. This was a real live toe-tapping show-stopper with almost 200 in attendance. What a way to raise support for our Missions Ministry.
Along with two huge sets of jazz magic with music the like of Ray Charles, Santana, Duke Ellington, The Righteous Brothers, Elvis, Whitney Houston, Louis Armstrong, Isaac Hayes and our very own Ichiro Bakoshi (you should’ve been there to hear his original piece), there were solo and group artists to make this a worthy evening of entertainment.
And….there was line-dancing…so get up off of your “thing” and move it and shake it. Becky Soffioto led the audience to dancing four different “simple” line-dances to the huge variety of songs. Trent Ueunten as Michael Jackson sang “Beat It” and later got out and led the audience in a rousing rendition of YMCA. We had the Wesley Blues Brothers aka Mark Teagle and Dave Land sing and dance to “Sweet Home Chicago,” and the Wesley Sisters (Terri Koike, Bev Acuna, Soffioto, Barbara Hiura, Shizujo Adachi and Joanne Miyahara do a satire piece from Sister Act called “I Will Follow Him.”
I’m not done yet…there were solos from band members (they do more than just play instruments) with Shizuko doing “Besame Mucho” in Japanese, Ted Hasegawa putting his trumpet down to sing “My Girl,” Wendy Horikoshi put out “San Jose Japantown Blue”, her hubby Peter provided vocals for “Diggin’ On James Brown,” and our renowned emcee Jeff Leap went all out with “Route 66” and “They All Laughed.”
So yes, this was a very full evening of music, laughter and dancing. And of course, there were a variety snacks and cakes provided by the Missions Committee. Table toppers of succulent plants ala Terri Koike were given away at the end of the evening. We thank everyone for the success of this event. The Wesley jazz Band, of course, led by Wayne Adachi, and the Missions Committee who did the Fellowship Hall set-up and take down and the hostessing.
Along with two huge sets of jazz magic with music the like of Ray Charles, Santana, Duke Ellington, The Righteous Brothers, Elvis, Whitney Houston, Louis Armstrong, Isaac Hayes and our very own Ichiro Bakoshi (you should’ve been there to hear his original piece), there were solo and group artists to make this a worthy evening of entertainment.
And….there was line-dancing…so get up off of your “thing” and move it and shake it. Becky Soffioto led the audience to dancing four different “simple” line-dances to the huge variety of songs. Trent Ueunten as Michael Jackson sang “Beat It” and later got out and led the audience in a rousing rendition of YMCA. We had the Wesley Blues Brothers aka Mark Teagle and Dave Land sing and dance to “Sweet Home Chicago,” and the Wesley Sisters (Terri Koike, Bev Acuna, Soffioto, Barbara Hiura, Shizujo Adachi and Joanne Miyahara do a satire piece from Sister Act called “I Will Follow Him.”
I’m not done yet…there were solos from band members (they do more than just play instruments) with Shizuko doing “Besame Mucho” in Japanese, Ted Hasegawa putting his trumpet down to sing “My Girl,” Wendy Horikoshi put out “San Jose Japantown Blue”, her hubby Peter provided vocals for “Diggin’ On James Brown,” and our renowned emcee Jeff Leap went all out with “Route 66” and “They All Laughed.”
So yes, this was a very full evening of music, laughter and dancing. And of course, there were a variety snacks and cakes provided by the Missions Committee. Table toppers of succulent plants ala Terri Koike were given away at the end of the evening. We thank everyone for the success of this event. The Wesley jazz Band, of course, led by Wayne Adachi, and the Missions Committee who did the Fellowship Hall set-up and take down and the hostessing.
Performance extraordinaire by the Wesley Jazz Ensemble
Trent Ueunten as Michael Jackson leads audience doing "YMCA"
The Corsons, Rev. Richard and Roberta, cut a rug with some fancy footwork.
Song and dance by the Wesley Blues Brothers, Mark Teagle (left) and Dave Land.
Ted Hasegawa singing "My Girl."
Wesley Sisters, from left: Joanne Miyahara, Shizuko Adachi, Barbara Hiura, Bev Acuna, Becky Soffioto and Terri Koike, singing "I Will Follow Him."
Becky Soffioto leads line dancing.
Posted in Newsletter 2024-05-23