Satoshi Ikeda & Keiko Kimura -- November

 

Let's see...the YouTube video has the title as "Novembre" while Ameblo has it listed as "November" and the JASRAC database even has it down by its Japanese translation of "Juu-ichi Gatsu"（十一月）. Well, shall we split the difference and go with "November"?

Regardless, "November" is a track on Satoshi Ikeda's（池田聡）October 1992 album, "Shijou no Ai"（至上の愛...A Love Supreme）. I've already covered one other track there, "Itsuka"（いつか）which is an interesting mix of City Pop and Shibuya-kei. But with this duet between Ikeda and another City Pop singer Keiko Kimura（木村恵子）of "Denwa Shinai de"（電話しないで）fame, despite Yasuharu Konishi's（小西康晴）presence on lyrics, I think that "November" is fully into jazz of the 1950s instead of the Shibuya-kei scene (well, there is that electric piano/organ near the end) of which Konishi is an architect. Hiroshi "Monsieur" Kamayatsu（かまやつひろし）was the composer here, and the whole effect is of a tenderly delivered song in an intimate setting such as the old Dug jazz club in East Shinjuku (yup, brick wall interior and all).

I was actually doing maintenance on the 1992 file when I saw that the video for "Itsuka" had been taken down for the usual reasons, so as I found a replacement on Nicovideo, I stumbled upon "November" to my delight. By the way, I do like that cover for "Shijou no Ai" with that silhouetted Chet Baker-like figure with trumpet standing in front of those West Shinjuku skyscrapers. Very cool.