Takeshi "Tak" Shindo (November 11, 1922[1] – April 17, 2002) was a Japanese American musician, composer and arranger. He was one of the prominent artists in the exotica music genre during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Shindo also founded a dance band in 1947 and was a frequent lecturer and writer on Japanese music. He first gained prominence for his work on the 1957 motion picture "Sayonara," served as the musical director for the television series "Gunsmoke," and composed theme music for "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "Wagon Train." He is most remembered for the exotica albums he released from 1958 to 1962, including "Mganga! The Primitive Sounds of Tak Shindo" (1958), "Brass and Bamboo" (1959) and "Accent on Bamboo" (1960). He also released several albums in Japan during the mid-1960s that blended American and Japanese musical traditions. In 1980, he made a documentary film, "Encounter with the Past," about the Manzanar relocation camp where he was relocated in 1942 as part of the Japanese American internment policy. 　　Shindo was born in 1922 in Sacramento, California. He moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1927. He enrolled at Los Angeles State College in 1941, but he was relocated to the Manzanar Relocation Center in early 1942 as part of the Japanese American internment policy that was adopted after the outbreak of war between the United States and Japan. Shindo spent more than two years at Manzanar. While at Manzanar, he worked as a reporter for the Manzanar Free Press and developed his interest in music. Music professor W. Anthony Sheppard, who published an article on Shindo and his music in 2005, concluded that, had it not been for his internment at Manzanar, Shindo would most likely have become an electrical engineer. Sheppard observed: 　　"While he had some musical experience, he had just begun college before Pearl Harbor and had no thoughts of pursuing music as a career. ... Shindo performed in one of the camp orchestras and took advantage of the camp's musical education program. Most significantly for his later career, he also took correspondence courses in orchestration. 　　Shindo enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1944 and served as a Japanese language instructor in the Military Intelligence Service at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. While at Fort Snelling, he also continued his correspondence courses in music and became an arranger for the Nisei Eager Beavers band. 　　Following the war, Shindo studied music at Los Angeles State College and studied jazz composition at the American Operatic Laboratory school. He also formed a dance band in 1947, which he continued to operate for more than 25 years. In a 1947 interview, Shindo discussed the multi-ethnic composition of his band: "As long as a player can produce good music, that's all I'm interested in. My band is supposed to be Japanese-American. But besides the four Nisei on it, I have Jewish, Negro, Russian, Irish, and Mexican-American boys on it. And we have a swell time together." 　　Shindo received his bachelor's degree in 1951 from Los Angeles City College and subsequently studied under film composer Miklós Rózsa at the University of Southern California. Early in his career, Shindo worked on several television series, including service as the musical director for "Gunsmoke" and "Suspense."He also composed theme music for "The Ed Sullivan Show," "Wagon Train," and "Adventure."