Waiting at Castle Frank Station one night for good KKP friend Larry to show up for dinner at the izakaya Kingyo, I was leafing through my copy of "Obscure City Pop CD's 1986-2006" that my other KKP friend JTM had kindly sent me for my birthday last year...not that easy while wearing gloves. Back in October, I posted a track from one of those obscure discs, "Vivienne", by the special duo Blue Eyes of Fortune.
Anyways, as I was poring through "Obscure City Pop", I did find this entry for a lady by the name of Chiaki Ogasawara（小笠原千秋）. Basically, the only information regarding her that I could find anywhere was the blurb that accompanied her debut album in my book. She's a jazz chanteuse from Hokkaido, and in 1987, she released "Luxurious Pockets".
The first track, "Key to My Heart", may be indicative of what "Obscure City Pop" reviewer Hata-san says about the album in that for a jazz singer's debut album, "Luxurious Pockets" isn't really her covering jazz standards in the standard way (have a listen to her take on "Route 66" at 13:18). Many of the tracks are original creations with "Key to My Heart" written by Ogasawara herself and Takashi Oi（大井貴司）coming up with a melody and arrangement that is far more fusion in style. In fact, I'd probably say that it's a tasty sangria of City Pop, J-AOR and jazz which feels tropically refreshing. The keyboard work is quite happily nostalgic for me as it represents a certain style of music that I've heard from people like Akiko Kobayashi（小林明子）and Miki Imai（今井美樹）at the time. As I've hinted, the above video posted by Xearching for Sounds is of the entire album.
According to Discogs, Ogasawara released at least six albums up to 1999.
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