Crest Four Singers -- Sun Shade（サン・シェイド）

I swear that as much as Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers ought to be getting awards from the Japanese recording industry for their influence on the City Pop/J-AOR genres, the same can be said for the famed American vocal group The Manhattan Transfer on their contemporaries in Japan. Whenever I hear Circus'（サーカス）"Mr. Summertime"（Mr. サマータイム）or Hi-Fi Set's（ハイ・ファイ・セット） jazzy cover of Neil Sedaka's "The Diary" or my recent discovery of SOAP's "Roommate"（ルームメイト）, I hear The Transfer's songs coming over the car stereo again.

Well, through New J Channel a few minutes ago, I found out about another jazz vocal unit from around the same time by the name of Crest Four Singers（クレスト・フォー・シンガーズ）. According to Toshikazu Kanazawa's（金澤寿和）blog "Light Mellow on the Web", this group started up back in the 1970s and initially began life as a quartet led by Tsunehiro/Norihiro Uchida（内田典宏）. Back then, they had also been more into singing folk/Mood Kayo. But with the addition of the lone woman in the group, Kazumi Kaai（かあいかずみ）, Crest Four Singers went into that jazzier direction.

Two albums were released: "Crest Four Singers" in 1978 and then "Swing Age" in 1980. One track from the latter release is "Sun Shade" (the music starts from around 42 seconds), a classy and light swing tune that could crown any high-class afternoon tea party in the 1940s. I especially like the way everyone sings out the title in fine harmony. Kazuko Kobayashi（小林和子）wrote the lyrics while Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）came up with the music. He and Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）arranged "Sun Shade" with Keitaro Miho（三保敬太郎）, a jazz pianist who had also started up the Group Sounds band The White Kicks with Akira Terao（寺尾聰）.

Just from looking at the video above, apparently "Sun Shade" was also the B-side to one of Crest Four Singers' singles "Santana e no Michi"（サンタナへの道...Road to Santana）from the same year.