Friday, September 11, 2020

Yuriko Nakamura -- Twilight Winds(トワイライト・ウィンズ)


Yes, I think that I will have a glass of that Cabernet Sauvignon with my Prime Rib Au Jus tonight.


That's the fantasy that popped up in my head as I was listening to pianist/composer Yuriko Nakamura's(中村由利子)"Twilight Winds". A nice soothing melodic appetizer, it was one of the ending themes in the 1990s for the extremely long-running Tokyo-FM radio series "Jet Stream" that began all the way back in 1967 and still runs today under its current host, singer-songwriter and actor Masaharu Fukuyama(福山雅治). "Jet Stream" is a midnight program of easy listening music (what better way to head over to Slumberland?), and so why not have that ending theme to finish things off for a long day?

Yes, I realize that the program finishes at just five minutes to 1 am but listening to the bossa-tinged "Twilight Winds", I can't help but feel that it would also be just the song to accompany dinner in either a well-heeled restaurant or First Class in an airplane (I did say at the top of my previous paragraph that this was a fantasy).


Nakamura hails from Yokohama and attended Ferris Women's Junior College to study piano, and made her debut in 1987 with the album "Kaze no Kagami"(風の鏡...Wind and Reflections). She's become known for composing New Age music and has been in demand for movies, commercials and animation. Both "Twilight Winds" and the opening theme for "Jet Stream" were her compositions which are available on her 1995 album "Yume no Toki e"(夢の時へ...To Time of Dream).

"Twilight Winds" was the theme used during the 5-year stint (1995-2000) of the second host for "Jet Stream", actor/narrator Eiichi Onoda(小野田英一). From listening to the above video of an excerpt of him hosting the show, it sounds like Onoda really got into his job ("JET STREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!"). Nighty-night!🌛

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