P.S. on Tokyo House Party: Mood Kayo

 

A few days ago, I came up with some suggestions for those folks who were curious about what the traditional Japanese music genre of enka was all about with the male and female singers. Well, tonight, I offer the curious another genre in the Tokyo House Party series: Mood Kayo...the bar/nightclub genre as I identified it on the show back on February 27th.

According to J-Wiki, Mood Kayo supposedly originated from the late 1950s from musical interactions among native entertainers and members of the Occupation forces (mainly American forces), gradually moving to the nightclubs in the entertainment districts of the big cities such as Ginza and Akasaka in Tokyo. The dance music with its Latin, jazz and Hawaiian influences was observed to have generated a certain mood in those establishments thus the music gaining its genre name.

Mood Kayo was often but not always characterized by male groups with a lead vocalist and perhaps a backing chorus of three or four men. But there were also solo artists consisting of both men and women, notably with some pretty smoky voices. Moreover, another trait of the genre was that song titles frequently pinpointed a certain geographically famous area such as the aforementioned Ginza and Akasaka.

Of course, as I've said all along for this series, there are plenty of other examples from this genre that I couldn't get on here, and that includes a number of enka singers who have also dabbled into Mood Kayo from time to time.

from Amazon.jp

Sachiko Nishida（西田佐知子）-- Tokyo Blues （東京ブルース）and Akasaka no Yoru wa Fukete （赤坂の夜は更けて）

from Amazon.jp

Los Indios（ロス・インディオス）-- Como Esta Akasaka ?（コモエスタ赤坂）and Wakarete mo Suki na Hito （別れても好きな人）

from YouTube

Akira Kurosawa & Los Primos  (黒沢明とロス・プリモス）-- Love You, Tokyo (ラブユー東京）and Tasogare no Ginza (たそがれの銀座)

from Rakuten.co.jp

Frank Nagai （フランク永井）-- Tokyo Nightclub （東京ナイトクラブ）and Tokyo Gozen San-ji （東京午前三時）

From Amazon.jp

Mina Aoe（青江三奈）-- Isezakicho Blues （伊勢崎町ブルース）and Koukotsu no Blues （恍惚のブルース）

From YouTube

Hiroshi Uchiyamada and The Cool Five（内山田洋とクール・ファイブ）-- Nagasaki wa Kyou mo Ame Datta （長崎は今日も雨だった）and Soshite, Kobe （そして、神戸）