Katsuhisa Hattori -- Wadatsumi （海神）

And here I thought that composer/arranger Katsuhisa Hattori（服部克久）was bitten by the easy listening bug just once in the 1980s.

Uh....not so fast. It looks like Hattori still had love for all things smooth jazz in the 1990s as well, if this track from his 1993 album "Daichi to Umi no Uta"（大地と海の詩...Poetry of the Great Land and Sea）is of any indication. "Wadatsumi" (Neptune) is a saxophone-led accompaniment to your lobster dinner by the ocean, and though I think things get a bit repetitious with that particular hook in there, I think because of that nature, it may have been used as background music on a number of Japanese variety shows. It sounds quite familiar to me. I would like to know who was on that sax.

Still curious about Hattori's adventures into this most mellow of Japanese genres. I may look into "Daichi to Umi to Uta" but I think his 1985 "Juicy and Crispy" in the "Ongaku Batake"（音楽畑...Music Field）series still takes precedence.