Cioccolata -- Sandwichman

 

OK, I am well aware that there can be a huge difference between the statements "I like cooking!" and "I'm good at cooking!". For the record, I declare the former but I don't really say the latter too loudly. What I can iterate is that my cooking is good for me. As this photo from 2017 will show you, I did like making sandwiches including that one with Wonder Bread encapsulating a couple of slices of fried pork tenderloin. During my life in Japan, I was more adventurous, though, as I created stuff like Kimchi Chicken sandwiches and sandwiches filled to bursting with pork and onions cooked in soy sauce, mirin and sake.

All that mouthwatering cooking preamble is for the fact that I wanted to introduce this band. Some minutes ago, I wrote up an article for Miho Yonemitsu's（米光美保）sunny "Orange"（オレンジ）and noticed that singer and sake brewer Caoli Cano（かの香織）had helped create that 1998 single for Yonemitsu. Then I took another look at my lone Cano KKP article in which I wrote about her past association as the vocalist for the band Cioccolata which had its run in the sun between 1982 and 1986.

Cioccolata, which is Italian for chocolate (yum!), was a band that I mentioned in that Cano article as having merged contemporary pop music and Italian opera. Well, that did get my attention. Looking deeper into the source J-Wiki article for Cioccolata is that Cano and her band combined the genres of New Wave, jazz, funk, opera and canzone among other influences for their creations. I certainly wanted to know what came out of that blender.

Well, I could find out on YouTube. From their 1983 debut album "Cioccolata special", I found "Sandwichman", and yeah, it did come out of that blender. I'm not sure whether any sandwiches were made in the song but as Cano sexily puts out her Italian, my ears bring in this mix of eclectic pop, horn-driven jazz, funk and avant-garde stuff. A few other artists came flitting through my mind such as Kome Kome Club（米米ＣＬＵＢ）and Chakra as I listened to "Sandwichman". Apparently, Cioccolata performed often at what has been called Japan's first club located in Harajuku, Tokyo: Pithecanthropus erectus（ピテカントロプス・エレクトス）which sounds like one rather unusual venue.

Alongside Cano in the band, there was another member who has also gone onto some measure of fame himself and that is keyboardist Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）who would later join the band VIZION with Kenjiro Sakiya（崎谷健次郎）and then also head on into the composing and arranging field. In the late 1990s, he came up with the soundtrack for the Fuji-TV comedy-drama "Odoru Dai Sosasen"（踊る大捜査線）.