In Tokyo, Shara made her name in the jazz world; in 1992 she joined Himiko, an all-female wadako (Japanese drum) group, and toured Japan. She moved to New Orleans in 1998, graduated from Delgado with a jazz studies major, and took lessons in funk, New Orleans R&B, and New Orleans-style drumming from Jeffrey “Jelly Bean” Alexander. Her mentors read like a New Orleans hall of fame: James Rivers, Marva Wright, Kermit Ruffins — who let her sit in after she approached him between sets — Johnny Vidacovich, Louis Ford, Cyril Neville, and more.
A master of Japanese taiko drumming, Shara is equally at home in modern jazz, funk, R&B, blues, traditional jazz, and second-line snare. While researching the Drumsville exhibition at the New Orleans Jazz Museum, she discovered taiko drums were part of the early evolution of the modern drum set — Baby Dodds even played a taiko-style set — inspiring her distinctive taiko-based kit, which she plays across jazz styles and in her own compositions.
She leads the New Orleans Jazz Letters (on French Quarter Fest bills in 2022, 2023, and 2026), the all-Japanese women’s blues and funk band Pink Magnolias, and the MaDeTo taiko ensemble, and plays Snug Harbor’s Jazz Foundation of America happy-hour series. She is one of the few female drummers featured in the Jazz Museum’s Drumsville! exhibit and in Robert Cataliotti’s companion book Drumsville! The Evolution of the New Orleans Beat (LSU Press, 2022).
