Shin Kazuhara -- Samba de LOVES YOU

Hopefully, wherever you are, you have been coping with the scourge of COVID-19 as best you possibly can. I had been expecting that PM Trudeau was going to announce a lockdown of the major cities in Canada but he didn't, although the borders will be closed off to almost all non-Canadians as of Wednesday. Went to the supermarkets around my area; I've been more strategic about what to expect and what to get. I couldn't find ground beef so I got ground chicken instead and actually bought Indian naan instead of hot dog buns which were sold out in the main supermarket. I was able to get that rare thing called toilet paper and some soap later in the afternoon.

Anyways, at about this time yesterday, my anime buddy and I caught "Hibike! Euphonium ~ Chikai no Finale"（響け！ユーフォニアム～誓いのフィナーレ～...Sound! Euphonium ~ Our Promise: A Brand New Day）on Blu-Ray, the latest in the "Hibike! Euphonium" franchise of series and films about a high school band always trying to grab for that brass ring while having to deal with various issues among the members. Basically, the focus is on the main character of Kumiko Oumae who's now in the position of shepherding the new first-year students, including a polite young girl who actually has a dark streak inside of her, and in another universe, could end up as the next Catwoman if Batman actually existed in Japan. All in all, it was a good flick and not overly melodramatic as was the case with the second TV season.

As has become a "Hibike! Euphonium" tradition, the band has often come up with their own snazzy version of an oldie-but-goodie, and in "Chikai no Finale", I got to know a new tune that had originally been composed by trumpeter Shin Kazuhara（数原晋）called "Samba de LOVES YOU". In a cute little pun on "Somebody Loves You", the former leader of Tokyo Ensemble Lab has woven a fun Latin number that seems to have become a go-to piece for a lot of student orchestras from what I've seen on YouTube.

Fortunately, I could find the actual scene there for the performance of "Samba de LOVES YOU" by Kitauji High School in marching band form and it was actually performed above by the Osaka Shion Wind Orchestra as conducted by Toshio Majima（真島俊夫）.

Plus I could find it from the soundtrack at 12:19. Samba, everybody, samba!

I'd thought with all of those different renditions by student orchestras that Kazuhara had actually created "Samba de LOVES YOU" specifically for high school bands. But in point of fact, the song's origins are from a 1997 Kazuhara album titled "Trumpet Major". Regrettably, I couldn't find the full version of that original on YouTube so you'll have to settle for the brief smidgen at Amazon; just scroll down the screen to reach the playlist. You will want a tropical cocktail even after listening to those 45 seconds. In any case, the samba can now join a fusion tune and a technopop classic as something that has been given the Kitauji treatment.

SPOILER BELOW!

In a sweet coda for the movie, it looks like Oumae, the nervous high school freshman who had some major second thoughts about joining the band all the way back in Season 1, is now a confident senior who's in charge of the club. There will definitely have to be a final movie or a season now!