Jun Fukamachi -- On The Move

 

In the past, if anyone at a BBQ party asked me about how many hot dogs I wanted, I answered "Yes!" or "How many do you have?". Nowadays, I answer "Two". When I was living in Japan all those years, one of the things that I missed dearly was the good ol' hot dog. I mean, local establishments such as Doutor did sell the franks but they weren't the same as the ones by Maple Leaf and Schneiders. 

Midway through my time in the Tokyo area, the famous American hot dog franchise, Nathan's, tried to make a go of it with a few shops, and I was one happy customer for a while. However, they didn't succeed for some reason although when one shop in the Shinagawa area actually had waiters taking folks to tables to serve just hog dogs, I think that there was some misunderstanding about the whole ethos surrounding them. But having said that, hamburgers on the other hand simply captured the hearts and stomachs of the Japanese foodies who apparently wanted more than McDonalds and Burger King. Go figure! In any case, I've been enjoying my regular hot dogs again for the past decade since coming home for good.

Now, why all that preamble on my love affair with the hot dog? Well, it's one of the big images on the cover of the late keyboardist-arranger Jun Fukamachi's（深町純）August 1978 album "On The Move". When Rocket Brown and I had our conversation last weekend, Fukamachi came up amidst the talk and we talked a bit on the album which seems to have incorporated a lot of American or New York City pop culture symbols onto the cover. Rocket did mention that he had spent some time in the Big Apple studying his craft and recording this album.

The title track which starts the album off is akin to a travelogue into New York City beginning with a plane landing at one of the major airports there, and it soon picks up an active funky groove as listeners seem to get that tour through what was once called The World's Most Dangerous City (maybe that was just "Saturday Night Live"). I haven't listened to Fukamachi's material enough to make a solid observation but from listening to "On The Move" and then a later song "It's You", it sounds like he enjoyed creating a day in the life within his individual songs. With all of those samples of people talking and yelling and that police siren, Fukamachi was bringing in his observations of how amazing and raucous life was like in NYC back then. People were and probably still are on the move there. He sure did love his planes, though.

Next to Fukamachi's melody, Emi Fukuzawa（福沢エミ）provided some lyrics for the backing vocals. There were also some heavy hitters in the studio helping out such as Steve Gadd on drums, Will Lee on bass, and the Brecker Brothers on trumpet and tenor saxophone. Fukamachi himself was manning the Yamaha CP-30 and the synthesizer. It's too bad that I've yet to find any video featuring a concert version of "On The Move".