I was watching the news earlier tonight and it reported that Rio's famous Carnival has returned to the spotlight after a few years away due to the pandemic. Although even for this year, there was a delay of perhaps a couple of months or several weeks, it sure appears that Carnival has roared back! Good news for all there and I hope that my friend and fellow contributor on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", Marcos V. and his family who reside in Brazil are enjoying everything that the annual event has to offer once more. By the way, the above video comes from YouTube channel Rami Travel.
Speaking of Marcos, I recall that over the past few months, we've had a bit of a running conversation about how the Brazilian samba has been treated in kayo kyoku. During our latest tete-a-tete through Time Five's "Carnival", we both agreed that the vocal group's song was more along the lines of a samba melody when compared to some other samba kayo that is samba in title only.
In tribute to the return of Carnival, I was looking for yet another kayo kyoku that would indeed fit the samba paradigm, and I did find one. Happily, it belongs to Junko Ohashi（大橋純子）whom I haven't written about in some time, so it's nice to have her back on the blog. Now, her "Samba Soleil", which was her 19th single from June 1982 following her hit, "Silhouette Romance"（シルエット・ロマンス）, contains the joyous samba flavour in the refrain only but the surrounding music provided by her husband Ken Sato（佐藤健）is still plenty fun to listen to with that tropical spirit and a sensation of Mancini-esque sophisticated intrigue and suspense (heck, I was shifting in my seat as this was playing, and I wasn't even drinking coffee at the time). Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）was the lyricist here.
Hi, J-Canuck.
ReplyDeleteI'm very happy that the samba school parades could happen this year, even if later than usual. Yesterday, I was even kind of emotive while watching some moments of the main parade live on television. Everything was as beautiful, colorful and ingenious as always. And today it's also happening, right now.
As for "Samba Soleil", I liked it even more than I thought I would. It's a delightful rollercoaster of samba, salsa and theatrical, full of drama, circus-esque music that comes together in a very nice way. Very, very good, and Junko's strong vocals are the icing on the cake.
Hi, Marcos. Good to hear from you and it's great that Carnival is back up and running. I'm sure that for all Brazilians, this can be one step back to normalcy.
Delete"Samba Soleil" may not have become the follow-up hit to "Silhouette Romance" but since it is Ohashi behind the mike, it still has that wonderful vibrancy and joy.
Hello, Brian. Good to hear that your Google issues have been ironed out. Yes, there's nothing like a good samba to catch onto one's mind.
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