Ah, yes. The gigantic Don Quixote in Asakusa...filled with all sorts of goodies ranging from souvenir Kit Kats to sexual aids. It's quite the facility, looking more like a Las Vegas gambling casino.
I guess when Las Vegas pops up in my mind, I sometimes think of jazz, probably because of the band that played behind the Rat Pack back in the day. But usually, I envisage cities like New York, Chicago and New Orleans. This time for this article, the Big Apple is definitely in my head when I listen to Kazuko Ishibashi's（石橋和子）"Gin no Cigarette Case" (Silver Cigarette Case).
A track from Ishibashi's 1981 debut album "Nice to Meet You", it was written and composed by the singer-songwriter and arranged by Jun Sato（佐藤準）as this torchy jazz piece in contrast with the first song that I profiled from "Nice to Meet You", the bouncy City Pop "I-Yo-"（イーヨー）. Ishibashi seems to be just at home in this older genre as she is in the relatively more recent urban contemporary genre, and as I listen to "Gin no Cigarette Case", I think of some NBC radio announcer from a century ago at the top of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel crooning the introduction for Ishibashi before she appears behind the huge microphone with her breathy vocals.
The effect of old-time jazz is almost complete aside from an electric piano and perhaps a synthesizer to finish things off.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Feel free to provide any comments (pro or con). Just be civil about it.