Samurai (Japanese heavy prog or eclectic prog)

Samurai is a seventies progressive rock band. Members of this band moved from Japan to England and they added several english musicians as well to create full line-up. They recorded 2 albums: "Samurai"(also known as "Green Tea")(1970) and "Kappa"(1971). They played interesting mix of heavy prog a la Deep Purple with lots of Japanese folk infuences (like using traditional asian instruments) + late 60' psychedelia.
Their leader was Miki Curtis (it's Japanese guy, only name is british...) who seems to be quite popular pop singer in the 60' in Japan and nowadays he's an actor.

line-up:

Miki Curtis (vocals, flute), Joe Dunnet (guitar), Hiro Izumi (guitar, koto), John Redfern (Hammond organ), Tetsu Yamauchi (bass), Mike Walker (vocals, piano), Yuji [Yujin] Harada (drums), Graham Smith (harmonica)

the only sampel I found:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtVxb_CCc9g ("King Riff and Snow Flakes", 22 minutes psych-jam composiiton fro mtheir second album "Kappa").


more info:

www.last.fm/music/Samurai

http://www.japrocksampler.com/artists/japrock/samurai/

http://rateyourmusic.com/artist/samurai_f3

http://www.japrocksampler.com/artists/groupsounds/curtis_and_the_samurais_miki/

http://www.rockadrome.com/superstore/product_info.php?products_id=1367

http://www.vintageprog.com/sss.htm

Thank you for additional info Gentle Giant :-).

P.S. If Teams need more audio I can provide via PM.