Osamu Kitajima

Osamu Kitajima is a Japanese composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist who later settled in the Los Angeles area. His music moves between folk, psychedelic and progressive rock, jazz fusion and new age, often built around traditional Japanese instruments. He is best known for Benzaiten (Island Records, 1974), a mostly instrumental album that set koto, biwa and shakuhachi against rock arrangements, with Haruomi Hosono among the players. Kitajima studied classical guitar and piano as a child and played in the 1960s with The Launchers, the band of his cousin Yūzō Kayama.