Yukihiro Takahashi -- Saravah Saravah!

I figured that after getting a number of albums by the technopop pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra and gradually knowing about the past material by members bassist Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）, keyboardist Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）and drummer Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）, I ought to make it a small project to get some of their solo work as well. And after listening to and writing about a couple of tracks, "La Rosa" and "Sunset", from Takahashi's June 1978 first solo effort, "Saravah!", I decided to make that my first acquisition.

However, my acquisition is the 40th anniversary version of the original album "Saravah Saravah!" released in March 2009. According to the J-Wiki article, the vocal parts were given a bit of a new polish in this new release. As for the arrangement, Takahashi's bandmates from YMO, Hosono and Sakamoto, were right in the performing booth with the latter providing arrangement on almost all of the instruments while Takahashi took care of the rhythm. There were also plenty of special guests helping out on "Saravah!" as an album that Takahashi wanted to base on French pop music.

The first track on "Saravah!" gave me a bit of a giggle. "Volare!" may have been an Italian pop song released in 1958, but for a lot of folks growing up in my generation, it was also the commercial song for the Plymouth Volare in the 1970s. Apparently, despite the bravado and the famous tune, it wasn't the most stable of vehicles.

Takahashi, the fellow behind the technopop classic "Rydeen" and often the lead vocal for any of YMO's sung songs, also gives good brio with "Volare!". His version of the Franco Migliacci & Domenico Modugno original has that sunny pop of the Riviera and there's something about that arrangement that had me thinking of that lounge music fad of the 1990s. Singer-songwriter Rajie also lent her voice as background chorus; Takahashi had also produced her first album, "Heart to Heart", the previous year.

The wonderful thing about "Saravah!" was how it was not just about Takahashi covering old standards. He also created his own songs and they fit hand-in-glove with the classics such as "Volare!". For example, there is the title track written and composed by Takahashi himself which comes across as if it could have been created a few decades prior. There's nothing like a crisp trumpet and shimmering strings to bring that feeling of the exotic good life of years past. The late singer-songwriter Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）, who also provided the music for "La Rosa" mentioned above, was on acoustic guitar while Nobu Saito（齋藤ノブ）provided the percussion.

Another observation of the title track was that although the album itself was titled after French composer-singer Pierre Barouh's record label, Takahashi's lyrics talk of that sweet sorrow of parting while anticipating a reunion in the future, so I'm wondering whether the YMO drummer was actually going for a homonym of saraba（さらば）or farewell in Japanese.

"C'est si bon" is a cover of the 1947 French pop song created by Andre Hornez and Henri Betti with Japanese lyrics by Junichi Nakahara（中原淳一）. Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）was contributing on electric guitar for this one whose arrangement actually had me remembering not French music but some of the soundtracks that were used on those Italian comedies that the local multicultural channel past midnight on Saturdays when I was a kid. Yeah, the ones that I wasn't supposed to watch...kept the audio real low, too.😈

"Elastic Dummy" is truly a fascinating animal...a gryphon, to be exact. A 5-minute instrumental by Sakamoto, it starts off incredibly with a groove foretelling some of the soulful stuff to be sung in Japanese pop music in the early 2000s, then there are Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）and Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）scatting away to a Latin disco beat. Right after that, Sakamoto really turns on the disco to the extent that memories of "The Hustle" and "Disco Inferno" were raging away. There are even hints of Japanese cop drama soundtrack, too. Couldn't help but shimmy away in my chair.

Yamashita and Yoshida also back up Takahashi when he sings "Back Street Midnight Queen", with Chris Mosdell co-writing the lyrics with Takahashi. It's the one track that hits me as being the truly pure City Pop number on "Saravah!".

"Mood Indigo" is a cover of the Duke Ellington, Barney Bigard and Irving Mills jazz song from 1930. And it sounds like Takahashi had been one of the first pop musicians to bring together technopop and jazz. Once again, that Tatooine double sunset is coming to mind as I hear this snazzy version.

The final track "Present", written and composed by Takahashi as a tribute to that special someone, has that wistful final track feeling with that soul of City Pop balladry, Rajie's backup, and even a perky Sakamoto keyboard that could belong to a YMO song. It's got a bit of everything.

And "Saravah!" has a little bit of everything overall. I actually tried to look the album up in my guide "Japanese City Pop" but it wasn't there. Perhaps it shouldn't be because of the various mix of genres. For me, that's not a bad thing at all since I was given a showcase of not only Takahashi and his YMO buddies outside of what I had gotten accustomed to hearing with them together, but I was also provided an album that brought together some of the big names when it came to New Music and general Japanese pops back in the 1970s.

I can definitely recommend "Saravah!" for folks who are just coming into Japanese pop music as something revelatory. It wasn't all about enka and cute teenybopper singers, and even for YMO fans like myself, Takahashi, Sakamoto and Hosono weren't all about the analog synthesizers. They had plenty of other types of music in their wheelhouse for the past and future.