Akira Kurosawa & Los Primos -- Koi no Ginza（恋の銀座）

 

I always keep forgetting the name of that building in Ginza with the warped appearance, but to make it official, it is known as the DeBeers Building. And yep, it looks like a structure after I've had too many DeBeers at the bar (har de har har).

Well, if it's Ginza that I'm talking about here, then the Mood Kayo group Akira Kurosawa & Los Primos（黒沢明とロス・プリモス）have to come into the picture. I swear that considering how many songs in their repertoire that they've sung about one of the Earth's most expensive patches of real estate, Kurosawa and the guys should have already received keys to the neighbourhood by the governor of Tokyo. "Kayo Kyoku Plus" has already had four Ginza-based kayo attributed to them: "Ame no Ginza"（雨の銀座）, "Tasogare no Ginza" (たそがれの銀座), "Ginza Blues"（銀座ブルース）, and "Itsumade mo Ginza"（いつまでも銀座）. They could at least get gift certificates to some of the stores on the main street such as Yamano Music, Ito-Ya or Mitsukoshi.

Enough ersatz griping from me, however. I'm now adding a fifth Ginza-based Mood Kayo by Los Primos, "Koi no Ginza" (Ginza In Love) which was released in January 1968, only two months after "Ame no Ginza" and a few months before "Tasogare no Ginza". Tetsuro Hoshino and Hiroyuki Nakagawa（星野哲郎・中川博之）were behind words and music respectively.

It's some classic Mood Kayo with the nightclub jazz atmosphere including the bluesy sax, the classy marimba and the somewhat mournful back chorus of Los Primos. The lyrics don't fail the genre format, either, as they relate the story of a couple who have to fight the battle of their irresistible trysting among the evening background of the bars, large and small. Love can be so tastefully and poignantly painful.