Satoshi Sano -- Bongole Soup

 

Soup is good. I love me all kinds of soup. Whether it's plain ol' miso soup or tonjiru in Japan, and then chicken noodle or minestrone over here in Canada, it's all good. I used to make my fair share of tonjiru and minestrone while I was living in Ichikawa, and wouldn't mind having the chance to do it here as well. Ah, by the way, the above is from Babish Culinary Universe, one channel that I've been subscribed to for some years now.

However, having said all that about soups, I had to admit that I had never heard of bongole soup. It certainly sounds hearty and at first thought, the nation of Italy came to mind with a lot of pasta and meat in there. But for whatever reason, I couldn't track this savory concoction down. And yet, this is the title of the first track in trombonist Satoshi Sano's（佐野聡）first solo album "Quiet Visions" from April 2001.

Of course, Sano's trombone is at the fore for this Latin-spiced jazz piece that has all of the tropical and hearty goodness of a locally-made soup. "Bongole Soup" sounds fresh and breezy although when I first listened to it, I had assumed that the album was from the 1970s, so you can imagine my surprise when I realized that it had no connection with the 20th century.

As for Sano, I was able to glean from his website that he had actually started learning the violin at the age of 4 in 1970 before learning the hand flute a couple of years later from a classmate, something that he would continue for several years until he turned 13. At that point, when he joined the brass band, he went onto the trombone, the instrument that he would settle upon. In 1997, he and his group Bacchus would release "Funk a la Mode" before releasing "Quiet Visions" which was produced by Masaki Matsubara（松原正樹）.

Now as for the mystery behind bongole soup, I punched in the katakana of the word（ボンゴレ）into Jisho.org, and found out that it could actually be vongole which is pasta served with clams. So, I did find an Italian dish called Zuppa di vongole which is clam soup. That is something that I would like to try!