Quincy Jones -- The Dude

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It was all the way back in 2014 when I wrote up a "Kayo Kyoku Plus" article on the very first single record of a Western pop song that I had ever bought and that was "Ai no Corrida" as originally sung by Charles "Dune" May. As I mentioned in that article, I first heard the disco or post-disco classic through a cover version done by a whole bunch of young 80s aidoru in one of the special segments of the 1981 Kohaku Utagassen on NHK. The single version was also a hit in Japan.

"Ai no Corrida" hit me with such good vibes that I soon ran over to the local Sam the Record Man shop to search for this unusually titled tune, and it was a surprise and delight that I could find the 45" single even in that tiny branch. The single version though was only a few seconds north of three minutes. I wouldn't find out for several years that the album version from Quincy Jones' "The Dude" has more than double the goodness. I stated this in the "Ai no Corrida" article as well, but the Jones version was also a cover for the Chaz Jankel original from the previous year.

Yup, "The Dude"...released in March 1981. It's an album that I wouldn't buy for several years since I was frankly intimidated by that cover. In fact, I finally bought it in Japan in the late 1990s, nearly 20 years after it had been first put onto record shelves. And since then, I've been happily catching up on what I'd missed by playing it in heavy rotation.

But let me get the accolades for "The Dude" out of the way. To lift a quote from the Wikipedia article for the album: "The Dude was nominated for twelve Grammy Awards (including Album of the Year) and won three at the 24th Grammy Awards: for Best Instrumental Arrangement; Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal; and Best Instrumental Arrangement (Accompanying Vocalists). It also earned Ingram three Grammy nominations for Best New Artist, Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (for "Just Once") and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance (for "One Hundred Ways"), which he won."

I also read somewhere that "The Dude" was the Michael Jackson album that Michael Jackson had never recorded. It's just that cool and special. So, without further ado, let me go through this classic album version of Reminiscings of Youth this week.

Second up on "The Dude" is the title track itself. And Jones himself is The Dude here with his kakkoii rap. Created by Jones, Rod Temperton and Patti Austin, one couldn't have a cooler power song for a patriarch of the neighbourhood. The backing vocals by Austin and others (including a certain one-gloved wonder...I believe I did cite him earlier), Ernie Watt's sax, James Ingram's heraldic vocals and those Jerry Hey horns come together magnificently to craft a potential theme tune that would come as a reassuring message to some and a warning to others. 

One of the reasons that I've been happy with "The Dude" is that there is a good amount of variety in the types of music. Case in point, Track 3 is the late James Ingram's "Just Once", a pleasant soul-pop ballad that I had only known for years as a song that would frequently get played on AM radio before buying the source album. Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil were responsible for this second single (September 1981) to come out of "The Dude". I also remember it for its performance by Ingram on an episode of "SCTV" in which the singer was also more than happy to goof it up with the rest of the comedians. David Foster was on the keyboards here.

Smooth and velvety is how I would describe "Betcha Wouldn't Hurt Me" as performed by Patti Austin and created by the Stevie Wonder. This is the type of song that I wouldn't mind hearing in a car while heading down to paint the town red.

Austin was in front of the mike here, too, for "Somethin' Special", a truly special and slightly smoky urban cool tune which hits me like aural bacon. Rod Temperton took care of words and music here and I think that is Watts once more on the saxophone.

"Razzamatazz" is once more fronted by Austin and this is the track to hear when we are in the midst of painting the town red. Rod Temperton was also responsible for this disco flashback and another highlight is also hearing all of those background vocals percolating through the tune from all directions.

"One Hundred Ways" was the third and final single from "The Dude" which came out in December 1981. Sung by Ingram, the song was created by Kathy Wakefield, Ben Wright and Tony Coleman, and it's really a whimsical and heartfelt recipe on how to keep the heart lights glowing fiercely. Not surprisingly, this was also getting a lot of play on the radio, perhaps especially on Valentine's Day.

The penultimate track "Velas" by Ivan Lins and Vitor Martins is the lone jazz instrumental track on the album. It was the first time that I realized how soulful a harmonica can be since up until that point, I'd assumed that the instrument was used just in cowboy movies. I have to therefore give my compliments to the legendary Toots Thielemans for opening my eyes (he also provided the whistles). His work along with the creamy keyboard work by Greg Phillinganes and Johnny Mandel's silky strings add to a very romantic nightscape.

And we finally come to "Turn on the Action", another look back at disco and good ol' R&B by Rod Temperton and Patti Austin. As soon as I saw that title, I figured that I was going to get something from the old 1970s dancehalls. 

I couldn't come anywhere near mentioning all of the players involved in "The Dude" here, so have a look at the personnel on Wikipedia. On America's Billboard 200, the album reached No. 9 while hitting No. 1 on the R&B and jazz charts. For the year, "The Dude" reached No. 25 on the 200 overall. Also, take a look at the article on the "EBONY" website.

With "The Dude" having its release in March 1981, what else was being put out there in Japan in that month? 

Naoko Kawai -- Juu-Nana Sai （１７才）

Masahiko Kondo -- Yokohama Cheek （ヨコハマ・チーク）

Eiichi Ohtaki -- A Long Vacation

Quincy Jones/Chaz Jankel -- Ai no Corrida （愛のコリーダ）

Well, it's getting to another end of the year, and as has been the case with "Kayo Kyoku Plus" at this time, we'll all be thinking about Author's Picks and going a little more outside of the box before January 1 2015. I'm personally juggling around a few ideas for Top 5 or Top 10 lists right now but preceding that, I want to add something to the ever-growing KKP brew that's a little out of the ordinary but which I think has a good personal story, and after all, that has always been one of the goals of this blog.

Now, "Ai no Corrida" (The Bullfight of Love), outside of the fact that it was not only a Japanese phrase but also the title of a controversial Nagisa Oshima movie from the 70s, was a great American R&B barnburner of a (post-)disco hit but really had nothing to do with Japanese pop music.

However, the first time I heard this song was neither through Quincy Jones nor the original artist, Chaz Jankel, but through the voices of Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）, Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）, Ikue Sakakibara（榊原郁恵）, Toshihiko Tahara（田原俊彦） and Masahiko Kondo（近藤雅彦）among some of the other young folk that had appeared on the 32nd Annual Kohaku Utagassen back in 1981. I have mentioned here and there and in dribs and drabs how much that Kohaku has been as much of a touchstone for my burgeoning interest in kayo kyoku as was "Sounds of Japan" and my visits to Nippon Video.

(December 24 2017: Thanks to contributor Francium, she was able to track down the 1981 Kohaku Utagassen with the very first rendition of the song I heard at around 54:45 -- http://www.bilibili.com/video/av7679889/)

I already talked a little bit about my story in the article on the Kohaku Utagassen（紅白歌合戦）itself, but allow me to explain further here. The very first televised broadcast of the NHK flagship special for 1981 wasn't aired live on New Year's Eve/New Year's Day here in Toronto but was finally given its debut about a month later in January 1982. It was a Saturday night and usually that meant "Hockey Night In Canada" in our household while munching on roasted dried squid (do remember that our family is pretty traditional Japanese-Canadian here). But when the Kohaku finally came on, we saved the special squid for this one.

For some reason, before the main broadcast started, we were all given a sneak preview of something that happened in the middle of the show. It involved all of those young Japanese singers that I mentioned a few paragraphs ago wearing some pretty day-glo colours in front of a cool flashing neon display. Then they just started dancing away like the folks on "Fame" while this funky groove with a slightly Asian feeling began to permeate the speakers. I just wish YouTube or any site on the Net had that scene from the Kohaku but alas none is currently available so you just have my daft description to go with. But in any case, the song and the performance left quite an impression on me, and partially re-affirmed the obsession with my ancestral home that sprouted inside me several months earlier when I had gone on that graduation trip to Japan. And seeing it again an hour into the actual broadcast was definitely not boring.

That was one heck of a start for the Kohaku in Toronto. That performance along with the appearance of those singers and those songs that I'd gotten crazy about over the previous months cemented the path for my interest in kayo kyoku. And at the time, I'd thought that "Ai no Corrida" was a Japanese tune. From what I remember, the song did pretty well in the country. But I quickly found out that it was actually an American song from Quincy Jones, and pretty soon I just had to head off to the nearby shopping mall. Back then, there was a Sam The Record Man shop there and so I flipped through tons of 45" records at the back. Happily enough, I found it! As soon as I got home, I opened up the RCA stereo, plugged in the 45" cylinder and played the record. That was my first purchase of a Western pop record (although it wasn't my first purchase of a music product....that prize goes to that audiotape of Yellow Magic Orchestra back in Osaka).

That single is somewhere although I know not where at the moment. From what I've read at Wikipedia, Quincy Jones' "Ai no Corrida" did pretty well on the US Billboard Soul charts after its release in 1981, peaking at No. 10. Several years later, I also bought (in Japan) the amazing album that the song spearheaded, "The Dude", and I recollect reading somewhere that it was a Michael Jackson album that Michael Jackson didn't appear on. And yep, it's that good in my opinion.

Chaz Jankel and Kenny Young were the creators of "Ai no Corrida", and indeed, they named the song after the Oshima film. I first heard of Jankel when I saw the cool video for his "Questionnaire" which came out in the same year as "The Dude", and was interested in hearing more by this fellow who was also part of Ian Dury & The Blockheads. So it seemed like a stroke of luck on finding out that he had also been responsible for "Ai no Corrida".

Searching for anything by Jankel, though, turned out to be an on-and-off odyssey that lasted for years and years. It wouldn't be until well into my long stay in Japan that I finally found a CD of his debut self-titled album, "Chaz Jankel" (1980) which contained the original "Ai no Corrida". His version was less disco-ey but still quite funky....and it was almost 10 minutes long! And that was the 2nd-longest track on the album! It's still very fun to listen to, but I'm still going to have to go with the tighter arrangement and the fantastic horns of the Quincy Jones' cover.

Who'da thunk it? My 1981 graduation trip literally set my life path. But that performance by all those young Kohaku kids of "Ai no Corrida" not only encouraged my interest in the show and Japanese music in general, but it probably also got me started into my collection of Western pop records and discs into the 80s.

Before I leave off here, I have to point out a couple of things. The first thing is that I was wondering whether there was any mention about that "Ai no Corrida" performance on the 1981 Kohaku anywhere on the Net. It just so happens that there is a Japanese page which gives a play-by-play account (right to the minute!) of that Kohaku, and the information there helped me write up some of this article (one thing I realized from that page was that the Kohaku back then was "only" 2 hours and 45 minutes long) . The second thing is that almost all of the singers such as Iwasaki and Matsuda that I've stated are linked to the articles which feature the songs that they performed at that Kohaku. I guess I will have to get started soon on that write-up for Toshi-chan's "Kanashimi  2 (TOO) Young"（悲しみ２ヤング）.

And lastly, this is Chaz Jankel's "Questionnaire". I was smitten by the Latin and the funk plus the computer graphics of the time. I hadn't seen the video for so many years until YouTube came along.