Shigeru Suzuki -- Kennedy Airport

 

It's been over 20 years since my last visit to New York City but one thing that I do remember from that trip is having my first Egg Cream at one restaurant in Brooklyn thanks to my friend who was living there at the time. As the Food Insider YouTube channel video above will say, this New York drink has neither eggs nor cream in it, but it does have milk, carbonated water and chocolate syrup. In all honesty, I can't say that I had a Eureka moment on drinking it like I did during my first experience with Calpis as a little boy, but it wasn't a bad drink either. I can go for another one if I ever make it back to the Big Apple someday.

But wow, what a weird and wonderful combination for an Egg Cream. And I also gotta say that maybe that's the same case with guitarist Shigeru Suzuki's（鈴木茂）"Kennedy Airport". The first track from the November 1978 compilation album, "New York", its songs were created in tribute to New York City by folks like Suzuki, Masaki Matsubara（松原正樹）, and Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）. In comparison with that eclectic mix of milk, seltzer and chocolate sauce, Suzuki's "Kennedy Airport" has its own seemingly Manhattan slice-of-life controlled chaos combo of all sorts of people going in, out and through the famous airport represented by 70s-detective funk, funky fusion and a whimsical almost comedic turn-of-musical phrase with some disco strings. Of course, you have Suzuki noodling happily on his guitar and also some lovely saxophone way off in the background. At one point, the percussion even sounds like the frenetic mixing involved in the final stage of completing that Egg Cream. Near the end of the song, the music rather soars happily as if the taxi is finally taking you out of the cacophony from Kennedy onto the highway into Midtown.

I would love to get my own copy of "New York" on CD but it looks like from that link to Amazon.jp, a disc will cost over $100. Perhaps getting the vinyl or an MP3 will take any potential buyers out of nosebleed territory. Speaking of which, how much would an Egg Cream cost these days?