Special Jam Company with Shun Sakai -- Dancing Waves

From listening to the "Light Mellow ~ City" album, I encountered a nice collaboration between a singer Shun Sakai（酒井俊）and a fusion band Special Jam Company centered around alto saxophonist Genji Sawai（沢井原児）and keyboardist Yasuo Ogata（緒方泰男）. This unit was formed due to a session one night involving singer-songwriter Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）at a live house called Jirokichi in one of the outer hubs of Tokyo, Koenji. As for Sakai, she has specialized in blues and jazz and made her debut in 1976 with a stint at a Roppongi club called Misty.

Now, the track from "City" by Special Jam Company and Sakai, "Indian Summer"（インディアン・サマー）isn't anywhere on YouTube, but I was able to find its trackmate, "Dancing Waves" from their 1979 album "City Vibration" (nice shoutout to the Holiday Inn, by the way). With jazz guitarist Junshi Yamagishi（山岸潤史）and Sandii on backing vocals, "Dancing Waves" makes for a nice percolating number with a good stretch of jazz instrumental thanks to Sakai's free-as-a-bird vocals, unrelenting samba-esque percussion, light fingers on the piano, and Sawai's honeyed sax solo.

Good heavens! I don't know how long it's been since I've stayed at a Holiday Inn. The first one was probably in Montreal back in 1980 but the last time may have been for a wedding reception in Toronto later that decade. I had no complaints about it but it was never all that much about the amenities for me. As long as the mattress was firm enough and the bedbugs didn't bite, I was cool.