Anli Sugano -- Akujo Street（悪女ストリート）

(from 10:44)

I have to confess that the cover for jazz singer Anli Sugano's（アンリ菅野）1978 debut album "Anli ~ Ichi"（アンリ～いち...One） is terrifying, Try to imagine purchasing that, placing it on the bedroom floor, and then having it stare at you while you go to sleep (or try to).

"Akujo Street" (Wicked Woman Street) is one of the tracks and it isn't even a jazz number. It's actually more of a rock-infused City Pop tune as it describes the story of a woman in the metropolis who has been given the titular label and has probably become so infamous that even the street she works/lives on is named after her. And she likes the notoriety. I do like the beat of "Akujo Street" because it perhaps illustrates the strut the akujo possesses as she holds court on her turf while other folks give her a lot of leeway. I can only think the tough streets of Kabukicho in Tokyo when it comes to this song. Norihiko Sugi and Toshiyuki Kimori（杉紀彦・木森敏之）were behind words and music respectively.

I did find a lovely video with Sugano performing a jazz number, "Take the A Train". Born in 1948 in Tokyo, she was born into a musical family with her father being a jazz vocalist and her mother a pianist. Attending Musashino Art University, Sugano was learning oil painting when she also entered a study circle on modern jazz and ended up starting a career in jazz singing. After studying languages and dancing among other subjects in the United States, she made her professional debut in 1978 and released a number of jazz albums and performed in a number of venues including New York City's Blue Note. She even had a stint as a co-host of an NHK program "That's Music" for a couple of years in the late 1980s. Sadly, though, Sugano would pass away in 2000 from cancer at the age of 51.