Nakanishi, Gene Noboru, 1960-

Jazz musician and restaurateur Gene Nakanishi is a second-generation native-born Las Vegan. In the 1920s, Gene's paternal grandfather worked on the Union Pacific railroad between what is now Zyzzx, California, and Las Vegas. After his oldest child died from lack of available medical care, the elder Nakanishi moved his family to Las Vegas and commuted to his work site. During WWII, when Gene's father was 17, the Nakanishi family was interned at the Heart Mountain War Relocation Center, near Cody, Wyoming. After two years in the camp, Gene's father joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps and was stationed on the East Coast. Gene speaks of his childhood and schooling in Las Vegas, college at Berklee College of Music, graduate school at Harvard, teaching band in CCSD, and the Las Vegas links to Idyllwild music camp. He talks of his maternal grandfather, who was of the Bushido ("warrior") classes and worked with American missionaries near Osaka. His musician mother worked at Kawafuku restaurant in Los Angeles before coming to Las Vegas and starting Osaka Bistro in Las Vegas in 1969.