A sketch of SoSaLa by Nasser Khonsari @ Bossa Bistro + Lounge (Washington DC), August 11, 2013.
The early years
Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi (aka SoSaLa) was born to Iranian parents in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1953. However, following the sudden death of his business partner, Sohrab’s father had to close down their joint business and, on the advice of a family member and when Sohrab was just three months of age, the Saadat Ladjevardi family moved to live in Hamburg, Germany. There Sohrab’s father established an export trade company called Iran Hamburg. Growing up in Germany, Sohrab’s early lessons on piano ended abruptly, when his teacher found she couldn’t abide his style of playing.
Sohrab’s musical journey through 1968-74 involved Sohrab playing the drums at his home, leading to the neighbors complaining about his passionately loud rhythms. At the same time, he took flamenco guitar lessons and jammed with friends on the drums, however none of this early dabbling hinted at the direction his musical life would take upon his discovery of the saxophone – which eventually would culminate in the formation in 2010, in New York City, of his Free Jazz/ World/Jam band, SoSaLa.
As well as playing music, through childhood and adolescence Sohrab was very active in various sports, being involved at school in soccer, volleyball, table tennis and swimming. Sohrab also became a member of the local amateur soccer club, SC Victoria Hamburg and for a while toyed with the idea of becoming a professional soccer player – until his father put a stop to this pursuit.
Then in 1970/71 and by now a teenager, Sohrab started attending the Martial Arts school ALSTER DOJO where he practiced Yoga, Judo and Kendo. Sohrab had no inkling at first, but this school was to be critical in his choice of life path, for in 1975 Yasushi Okumura (5th Dan) who taught Kendo there, invited Sohrab to continue his Kendo studies under his guidance in Osaka, Japan. In the meantime, Sohrab was becoming increasingly interested in Japanese culture including literature (Yukio Mishima and Yasunari Kawabata), film (including the James Bond film You Only Live Twice and Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurais), and music (composer Toru Takemitsu and Shakuhachi player Hozan Yamamoto). All of this inspired Sohrab to make the decision to visit Japan once he had graduated from high school.
The Japan Years
So, at the age of 22, in January of 1975 Sohrab boarded a plane to Tokyo, with a one-way ticket and 1000 Marks in his pocket, and a plan to study Martial Arts. At the time this was considered by most people to be an unusual and even “crazy” move.
Indeed, Sohrab’s departure from his hometown, Hamburg, was very tough for him. Except for his Kendo mentor Feliks Hoff, his cousin Kambiz and his best school friend Peter Schluns, everyone else including his parents, brother and especially his friends opposed the trip. Why Japan, they asked? His father in particular couldn’t accept the notion that his son wanted to become a samurai. His ambition had been to see his eldest son study Economics in the United States of America and eventually succeed him in his business as a CEO, in Tehran.
The flight to Tokyo took 26 hours. Taking the South route, Sohrab arrived in Osaka two days later local time. He stayed at his teacher Yasushi Okumura’s house for two weeks, with no understanding of the language and no taste for the food. This radically different culture left him confused and homesick at times, however he challenged himself to find his place in this world. But the first thing Sohrab had to change was his name, so his teacher chose a variant of Sohrab’s original name, renaming him Sohi Sadato. ‘Sadato’ written in Kanji (Chinesecharacters) means ‘a faithful man,’ and, appropriately, is a samurai name.
While studying Kendo (the Japanese martial art of sword-fighting) and Judo – eventually settling on the former as his preferred martial arts style – Sadato made his living from teaching German, English and Farsi as a private teacher and at language and nursing schools. In addition to this, he took on German and English voiceover work for advertising companies.
Speaking of his Kendo career, during what eventually stretched to thirty-four years living and working in Japan, Sadato eventually became a master in Kendo, and was the first non-Japanese to pass all 6 Dan exams in Japan. Sadato studied under two well-known Kendo masters: Masao Sakudo Sensei (between 1976 and 1982) in Osaka; then Hironobu Sato Sensei (between 1984 and 2008) in Tokyo. Only after reaching a high level of skill through long years of study of Kendo did Sadato start to think about applying his Kendo-related philosophy and hard work to music.
Then in 1976 at the age of 26, the experience of a free jazz live Yosuke Yamashita Trio concert convinced Sadato to join a local band, following which he was surprised and delighted to be invited to play by some local free jazz musicians, such as Toshihiro Taniike (dr) and Shosuke Kawabata (as and ss), initially as a vocalist then later as a saxophonist – even though he was not sax trained. Six months later Sadato left this band to start a solo career, playing his first solo professional gig at a jazz coffee shop called COL (named after John Coltrane), in Ibaragi City, Osaka Prefecture.
The year 1979 saw the outbreak of the Iranian Revolution. That year, following a chance introduction to a friend’s relative, Sadato started to rehearse and perform with him. They called themselves the Sadato-Ino Group. They rehearsed a great deal but disbanded after their first successful gig at a local jazz club, as Ino couldn’t see a future for the format.
But it was in 1981 that Sadato formed his first band as leader: SADATO GROUP. Touring with this band across Europe, an especially notable performance was at the Montreux Jazz Festival. A single (SADATO GROUP Kafesho + Gohon Gahon) released at that time found great popularity in the Osaka indie music scene.
In 1984 Sadato moved home again, this time to Tokyo. There were two reasons for this upheaval. The first was, sadly, a rupture between Sadato and his Kendo master in Osaka; also,Tokyo was the leading Kendo city in Japan. The second reason was to develop his music career. Tokyo, as the centerof entertainment and music in Japan, with its labels and publishers, was the best place for a professional musician and band leader to grow.
Sadato has always maintained that without Kendo he wouldn’t have made this move, to become the musician he was at that time, as it was the Kendo training that prepared him for his future as a sax player and bandleader. Sadato explains: “My playing style is like my martial arts style: I fight/react in the moment.”
With similarly-minded Tokyo musicians, in 1985 Sadato formed ALEF (meaning the letter ‘A’ in Persian) and in 1988, SADATO. Sadato toured with his eponymous band through Europe, the United States and Hong Kong and was soon releasing records on his own label KAMPAI RECORDS and on German labels, as well as featuring on various compilations. Sadato was one of the first indie artists in Japan to release on CD instead of vinyl.
Sadato’s standing in the Japanese indie scene continued to grow. He performed and collaborated with Butoh Dance groups, Kyogen dancers, Taiko groups, Japanese classical musicians, indie documentary film makers and well-known local musicians such as Toshinori Kondo, Motoharu Yoshizawa, Mototeru Takagi, Machizo Machida, Soft Ballet, and others. During this period he also became friends with many international musicians, such as Ornette Coleman, Salif Keita, Karl Berger, Yann Tiersen, Elvin Jones, Don Cherry, John Zorn, Elliot Sharp, Blixa Bargeld, Bill Laswell, Arto Lindsay, Horace Silver, Fugazi, Gallon Drunk, Peter Kowald, Derek Bailey, Chris Cutler, YAMO (ex-Kraftwerk), Youssou N’Dour, Doudou N‘Diaye Rose, TM Stevens, Henry Kaiser, CHIHA, The Blech and many others.
When not touring Europe and the United States, or recording with his band SADATO, for several years Sadato worked as an import and distribution manager for the Tokyo indie music importer, label and publisher ART UNION. This provided him with an invaluable education about the music industry.
With the contacts he had by now, both overseas and in Japan, it was time to go into the music business on his own, andfrom 1993 through 2008 Sadato achieved notable success as CEO of the Tokyo indie music company, POP BIZ LTD (PBL). PBL had a revolutionary business model for Japan and was the first Japanese company to import and distribute European indie CDs and vinyl records ‘exclusively’ to major stores nationwide, such as TOWER RECORDS, HMV, VIRGIN, Disk Union, CISCO, WAVE, and many others. In 1994 POP BIZ Ltd. established its own house label, POP BIZ Rec.
Unfortunately, in 1999 Sadato took the difficult decision to disband SADATO, as his work at PBL didn’t permit him to play and record as he wanted to. He just didn’t have the time and energy required. However, as soon as he got some extra “air” he founded and played sporadically with the TEHRAN BROTHERS (2004-2005) and the Tehran-Dakar Brothers (2005-2008).
Always searching,in 2004 Sadato founded the world-rootsmusic print magazine, Doo Bee Doo Bee Doo, and in 2005 he organized and ran an international World Music festival in the old city of Tokyo, DOO BEE FES.
Unfortunately, due to the negative impact of the Internet on selling music in general, together with its impact on changing the music business paradigm, the sale of CDs which was PBL’s main revenue source decreased rapidly. Sadato and his wife found themselves worrying about their future.
The move to the USA
But fortune smiled when in 2006 Sadato’s wife won in the Green Card Lottery which enabled the couple to move to the USA to live and work there permanently. So,in 2008 Sohrab shut down PBL, Kampai Records and POP BIZ Records; and the couple moved to the USA, choosing to settle in New York city. On only the second day after they arrived in NY, Sadato launched his music career there, playing as a street musician on the streets and in the subway by day, attending jam sessions and playing as a sideman in various bands and music projects by night.
Then, in 2009 he restarted his Tokyo band The Tehran-Dakar Brothers. Also, that year he both composed music for indie films and launched DooBeeDooBeeDoo NY, an on-line music magazine which in concept continued in the same vein as DOO BEE DOO BEE DOO. It was during this period that Sadato determined to become a music activist, supporting local social and political issues, especially the Green Movement in NY.
In 2010 Sadato formed a new band, SoSaLa, the band namederived from his own full name, Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi. The band’s debut CD Nu World Trash was released the following year. During this period, his mentor and friend Ornette Coleman provided him with invaluable assistance and guidance. That year he changed his artist name to that of his band: SoSaLa.
As regards his activism, in 2011 SoSaLa supported the Occupy Wall Street Movement in Manhattan at Liberty Plaza and Zuccotti Park and in 2012 he joined the musicians’ union Local 802. He became involved in the Justice For Jazz Artists Campaign which was co-led by the Jazz legends Bob Cranshaw and Jimmy Owens.
In 2013 SoSaLa became a US citizen. Also during that year, he was invited by Illinois State University, Normal, IL to speak about his activism. Influenced by the musicians union’s ideology and from his own experience as a struggling musician in New York, he decided to create a platform for freelance musicians to organize and tackle their problems as a group. This plan was realized in 2015 when he founded a non-profit association for freelance musicians called Musicians For Musicians (MFM). SoSaLa’s wife was co-founder and she also joined the Board. In the same year he also established his music company DooBeeDoo Biz, LLC. and indie label DooBeeDoo Records.
Widening his engagement in music activism, in 2016 SoSaLa joined the Freelancers Union. In support of the Freelance Isn’t Free Act, endorsed by MFM SoSaLa gave testimony before the New York City Council Committee on Consumer Affairs In Relation to Establishing Protections for Freelance Workers.
And so, to the future…
As of the beginning of 2016 until the present time (2024), in addition to running MFM, SoSaLa continues to perform and record, both as leader of SoSaLa band and also as a solo artist.
In 2020 SoSaLa released his SoSaLa Nu World Trashed, a reworking and refreshing of his 2011 album Nu World Trash. Mindful of his considerable but unreleased recordings, on May 5th 2023 he released on CD and digital, tracks recorded and mixed in New York in 1993: SoSaLa 1993. This album will be released internationally and digitally on July 7th 2023. It will come with a music video of one of the tracks, “Omar Khayyam in NY.” Going forward SoSaLa plans to release the many so far unreleased recordings from his Japan years.
