I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
It's been a while since I've posted anything by the bohemian jazz outfit Ego-Wrappin'. Can't quite believe that a quarter-century has passed since I first heard their stomping "Psychoanalysis"（サイコアナラシス）led by the booming voice of Yoshie Nakano（中納良恵）.
To be frank, I'm not sure what Nakano and her songwriting/musician partner Masaki Mori（森雅樹）have been up to in the past several years. Their J-Wiki article seems to be several years behind the times. However, last month Ego-Wrappin' released a 12-inch single titled "Riviera" which is quite different from the jazz that I got to know them for. But then again, I have heard Nakano and the band try other genres such as ska for their collaboration with the Determinations.
Ego-Wrappin's also provided some examples of avant-pop although I forget the name of any of those songs. However, "Riviera" may be one of those inhabiting this particular genre. Certainly, the music video adds to that feeling as we see the adventure of a sentient water faucet through a forest. Looking through Nakano's lyrics, I'm not quite sure what the message is aside from the observation that there is some travel going along the titular existential Riviera. The slow groovy rhythm underlying this river can be quite mesmerizing on a beatnik level. Snap them fingers!
Happy Saturday and at least here in Toronto, the weather is perfect for Halloween...all rainy and dreary, but at least tomorrow on the 31st, it should be clear for the trick or treaters. I checked out the live camera for Shibuya on YouTube and it appears that the crowds did return with many in cosplay mode but my impression is that the Halloween vibe is still not quite as high as it was before the pandemic.
I haven't been a keen purveyor of the "Lupin III" franchise but I do know about the romance between Lupin and femme fatale Fujiko（不二子）. Although I've heard that the pair eventually had their kids, I've always thought that there was a Charlie Brown and Lucy Van Pelt and the football relationship underlaying that relationship albeit there was a whole lot less malice between Lupin and Fujiko. The former would always go to "kick the football" so to speak only for the latter to pull it back at the last moment through some teasing flirtatious moment to end things until the next time.
Earlier this year, I wrote up on "Love Squall"（ラヴ・スコール）which was one ending theme for the second anime run for "Lupin III" which had an epic three years of comedy, intrigue and adventure between October 1977 and October 1980. Today, I give you the first ending theme, "Lupin the 3rd Ai no Theme" (The Love Theme for Lupin the 3rd).
Initially an instrumental created by Yuji Ohno（大野雄二）through his You & Explosion Band（ユー&エクスプロージョン・バンド）, the smooth-as-Bailey's Irish Cream featured that disco/soft rock flute and the main instruments of harmonica and bluesy guitar, a combination that pretty much screams 1970s detective voiceover with the private eye nursing a tumbler (and maybe a black eye) at his favourite watering hole. I haven't forgotten the silky strings, though, which always lent a touch of class. Not sure whether variations of this instrumental were used during any interactions between Lupin and the love of his life.
About six months into the run of that second season so early 1978, the ending theme was switched into a vocalized version of "Ai no Theme" with seiyuu/singer Ichiro Mizuki（水木一郎）handling the tenderhearted delivery thanks to Kazuya Senke's（千家和也）lyrics. I noticed that the arrangement changed a bit with the harmonica taken out and the bluesy guitar put back a bit more into the background.
I'm sure that with the jazziness and class of Lupin's love theme, it's been covered many times in the years following. In fact, I did find one cover by bohemian band Ego-Wrappin and the Gossip of Jaxx via a March 2010 tribute compilation to "Lupin III" titled "Club Jazz Digs Lupin The Third", and yep, listening to the band and the steamy vocals of Yoshie Nakano（中納良恵）, I thought that the perfect setting would be a smoke-filled underground jazz club in the heart of Shinjuku...namely Shinjuku DUG. There's something more introspective and distant in this arrangement, though.
Kinda wonder if a couple of folks did dress up like Lupin and Fujiko in Tokyo tonight.
"Obake no Q-Taro"（オバケのＱ太郎...Q-Taro The Ghost） was an old anime that my brother and I caught when we spent that summer in 1972 on my grandfather's farm in Wakayama Prefecture. We couldn't quite understand at the time what type of creature Q-chan was but we later realized that the squeaky-voiced character was indeed a ghost. Plus, he and his good buddy O-Jiro entertained us greatly.
The thing is that the series that we had seen was a sequel to the original TBS black-and-white series that ran from August 1965 to June 1967. Back then, Q-Taro had been played by actress and seiyuu Machiko Soga（曽我町子）, a Tokyo native and a graduate from the Tokyo Announcers' Academy. She also provided the show with a number of songs including the main theme.
However in September 1967, Soga released something quite different in the form of "Nazo no Onna B"(Mystery Lady B). Q-Taro may have been a mischievous sort but Soga has a different sort of mischief with this hip-swiveling swing jazz. She sounds very sultry and naughty in this story of Mr. A nearly being drawn into seductress Lady B's spider web of iniquity, especially with an angry Mr. C lurking nearby. Seiji Hiraoka（平岡精二）was behind the words and music for "Nazo no Onna B" which could fit an exciting episode for Matt Helm, Peter Gunn or Derek Flint.
Soga would continue appearing in anime but also in tokusatsu programs as a villainous character for a number of decades. However, she passed away at the age of 68 in 2006.
The band Ego-Wrappin' provided their own cover on a BEST compilation of their material, "Route 20 Hit The Road" from April 2016 which peaked at No. 9 on Oricon.
Jazz musician and songwriter Hiraoka himself would do a slightly more orchestral cover of his own creation in 1969 as an insert song for the movie "Hanayaka na Mehyo"（華やかな女豹...The Gorgeous Leopardess）. I'd say that this version could be one that Nancy Sinatra could have covered herself.
'Tis Hump Day...stress levels may be at their highest tonight, so allow me to provide a bit of a nice cool down song.
Heck, the term cool down is even included right from the get-go in "Oibore Inu no Serenade"(Old Dog Serenade) by jazzy Ego-Wrappin'. Included as a track in the duo's 3rd full album"Night Food" from July 2002, vocalist/lyricist/composer Yoshie Nakano（中納良恵）and guitarist/composer Masaki Mori（森雅樹）weave a mellow but sexy ballad about what seems to be a walk in the rain, although the atmosphere feels like a more intimate basement jazz club (I'm thinking DUG in East Shinjuku) with brick decor, whisky glasses and cigarette smoke slowly curling up to the ceiling.
"Oibore Inu no Serenade" goes most of its sultry way until the last couple of minutes when Mori and the rest of the musicians go into an intense riff to finish things off.
The music video just has Ego-Wrappin' and a guitar out in the countryside, but the song was apparently titled back then "Oibore Inu no Kuchibue"（老いぼれ犬の口笛...Old Dog Whistle） which is actually used in Nakano's lyrics. Either way, this is another fine number to listen to while relaxing on the sofa with a good stiff drink with plenty of ice. However, I have to admit that I enjoy the music video version even better since it maintains that calming mood all throughout. Indeed, it is night food for the soul.
Speaking of the album, "Night Food" managed to get as high as No. 5 on Oricon, and then took the long way around to become the 60th-ranked album for 2003.
It's been almost a year since I wrote up my last Ego-Wrappin' article so it was good that I listened to their BEST compilation, "Best Wrappin' 1996-2008" to remind me of some of the good stuff that Yoshie Nakano and Masaki Mori（中納良恵・森雅樹）have created.
I listened to Disc 2 labeled "Setsuna Ban"（セツナ盤）which I've taken to be their more soulful and softer side. And so I came across this lovely ballad called "a love song" which was originally on their 2nd mini-album of 5 songs cleverly called "Swing For Joy" from November 1999. Good heavens...is it almost 20 years?!
With words by Yoshie Nakano and music by both Nakano and Masaki Mori, Ego-Wrappin' was backed up here by 9-piece ska band Determinations to produce this really nice mellow ballad. One of the great things about Ego-Wrappin' is that it's not all about swing jazz from a century ago with this duo from Osaka. They can also turn it up a notch in other genres such as ska. As for Determinations, their run on the stage lasted from 1990 to 2004.
Just kinda too bad that it's still pretty cold out there. Wouldn't mind listening to this in warmer, properly spring weather in an al fresco setting.
Pulled out this double-CD for the first time in a while since it's been a while since I've written about jazzy Ego-Wrappin'. I went with CD 2 this time which is labeled as the setsuna (セツナ...heartrending, although I will go with balladry) disc since I was well versed with the duo's active fare like the wild "Psychoanalysis".
The last track on the CD was "Calling Me" which, according to J-Wiki, is Ego-Wrappin's very first release as an indies band. It was released as a mini-album of 5 songs including the title track in 1996. I first got to hear the group with "Psychoanalysis" and with some of their later releases, my image of vocalist Yoshie Nakano（中納良恵）and guitarist Masaki Mori（森雅樹）was as a pair leading some major bohemian rockabilly jazz.
"Calling Me" is interesting since it's a more refined pop-jazz piece, perhaps along the lines of Swingout Sister. I don't know what else Nakano and Mori whipped up on that album but it would be fun to peruse to hear what they came up with their early sound. My usual images of them smash-banging in a sweaty nightclub deep in the laneways of Shibuya or its Osakan equivalent have been replaced with them performing in a place higher up at some hotel bar.
That saxophone and piano provide a fine dreamy atmosphere to go along with Nakano's creamy vocals. It's a jazz lullaby to send everyone home happily. Don't drink and drive!
Getting recruited early in 1994 by that behemoth of English language schools, I got on that plane in November of that year to launch Phase II of my life in Japan. This time, I wasn't settled into the mountains but smack dab into a bedroom town of one of the largest cities on Earth. However, just like with that plane flight on the JET Programme, getting into the country once more was quite taxing with the NOVA higher-up dragging me from Narita Airport via the spaghetti-like railway system of Tokyo late at night until he finally got me to my temporary apartment in Shibamata, Katsushika Ward. I was happy that my two roommates who were an Australian couple were very welcoming as I settled in to see "HEY HEY HEY Music Champ"on Fuji-TV with the big comedic duo at the time, Downtown. Then, I caught one of my first commercials with Namie Amuro & Super Monkeys (later to become MAX) promoting "Try Me" which gave me my first glimpse at what teenage Japan was slowly metamorphosing into.
As I mentioned in Part III of my series on "Memories of My Standout Singers", there was a noticeable transition in Japanese popular music under way as the 1980s passed by. Well, in the three short years between gigs in Japan, there were also some changes. The music was indeed diversifying at the end of that decade but as I entered the country in the mid-1990s, a popified version of club and dance music was hitting the charts thanks to the Komuro Boom which occupied J-Pop for the first years of my time in Ichikawa City. Then when that trend started to peter out, a new aidoru wave poured onto the shores near the turn of the century but with the boys and girls appearing to amass under two banners, Johnny's Entertainment for the former and the Hello Project for the latter. At the same time, though, the genre of J-R&B started to form with singers performing hip-hop and soul which had me thinking of the disco component within City Pop back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Here is Part IV, the finale of the series.
1. Namie Amuro（安室奈美恵）
She was merely a teen at the time but I can't recall any singer at her age who managed to not only set the music charts aflame but also spearhead fashion trends in Shibuya, the Mecca of teen culture. Amuro chased her chance and caught it like a Kevin Pillar (a particularly acrobatic Toronto Blue Jay) pop fly, as she became one of the prime accelerants for the Komuro Boom. This may be the only time in history that will actually have Pillar and Amuro in the same paragraph.
2. TRF
Another group of folks in the Komuro Boom years, TRF had already gotten some measure of fame before I arrived but it seems as if this modern song-&-dance unit really started pulling things off from late 1994 into 1995. This was the alphabet group that was on top of the charts years before another bunch of alphabet groups consisting of girls would take over J-Pop. "Boy Meets Girl" was just the start.
3. Sing Like Talking
As I've mentioned, this is the group that I accidentally but fortuitously stumbled upon. Sing Like Talking is one of the few mistakes that I've actually been happy to make in my choices. Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）and his band may have debuted even before my first post-university voyage to Japan, but, hey, better late than never. These are the guys who covered my dear genres of AOR and urban contemporary.
4. SMAP
Actually with these fellows, the music was just part and parcel of the fact that they were everywhere on TV, whether it be commercials, variety shows and dramas. SMAP was the unit that finally introduced me to the huge conglomeration of boy bands that is Johnny's Entertainment which is currently topped by Arashi（嵐）.
5. Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）
Well, if SMAP were there, then I guess the Balance of the Force was provided by Morning Musume. At one point, I had thought that the concept of aidoru was truly dead and buried but with the rise of these girls at the end of the final decade of the 20th century, I was proven wrong. Although AKB48 and their sister groups are now dominant, almost 20 years ago, it was these ladies, and like SMAP, at one point, they and their other sisters under the Hello Project umbrella were everywhere.
6. Misia
Aidorus were back in a new dynamic guise and then I saw singers who were hip-hopping and rapping and funking out the place. A decade earlier, it was all about rocking out with the guitars but coming to 2000, it was R&B. For me, I preferred the more old-school soul and that was provided by songbird Misia among other singers like bird and Monday Michiru. Listening to "Tsutsumikomuyouni"（つつむ込むように）, I got those old chills again from her voice.
7. Ego-Wrappin'
My interest in Shibuya-kei was all belated so I was catching up with Pizzicato Five discs. There was also a brief dalliance in North America with Louis Prima and all sorts of boppy jazz in the 90s which didn't transfer over here to Japan. However, going into the new century, I was literally shaken out of my sofa (and that's not easy to do) when I first heard the Osaka band Ego-Wrappin' perform "Psychoanalysis". Yoshie Nakano and Masaki Mori（中納良恵・森雅樹）may hail from the Kansai area but for some reason I've always thought of them being right at home in the live houses and clubs of Shibuya, Tokyo with their mix of old-time swing jazz and rock attitude.
35 years of evolving Japanese popular music. I can't even imagine what the next 35 will bring. Enka funk? Aidoru jazz? Who knows?
Man, Yoshie Nakano's（中納良恵）voice can be the equivalent of a 1940s comedy-crime caper. The way she can just dive into "Paranoia" and scat all over the place at one moment while going into sultry vamp mode at another moment.
"Paranoia" is another jazz track from the 2nd album by jazz unit Ego-Wrappin',"Michishio no Romance"（満ち汐のロマンス...Tide Flow Romance） from 2001, and the first album that I got by the Osaka-based duo of Nakano and Masaki Mori（森雅樹）. I've always wondered about how some of the tracks have been named weirdly after psychology terms; there is the chaotically fun "Psychoanalysis" which was the very first Ego-Wrappin' song that I covered in the blog, and another song elsewhere by them labeled "Nervous Breakdown". I can only gather that Nakano and Mori were emulating the old tradition of some of the old jazz masters from America giving just-as-weird titles to some of their masterpieces such as "Salt Peanuts" and "Stereophonic".
In any case, when I first listened to "Paranoia" and some of the other tracks by Ego-Wrappin' on "Michishio no Romance", I had thought some of them were covers of somewhat more obscure jazz songs by American artists. However, I was impressed to find out that all of the tracks were written and composed by Mori and Nakano.
And "Paranoia" has that frenetically chuggy beat as if the song was melodically illustrating a traveling jazz band in the 1920s or 1930s moving from city to city, from low-paying gig to low-paying gig all over the Midwest as the members come across their various trials and tribulations on their sputtering bus. There's even some hint of Latin mixed in with some of that ragtime; maybe there's a whole bunch of jazz stuff that I have yet to pick up on. But it's all good to me.
For quite a few years, I was very interested in the different forms of jazz when I was in Japan, so I did pick up a number of albums which included a couple of the songs that I have already mentioned. So to finish off, here is "Salt Peanuts" by Dizzy Gillespie.
And here is the really cool "Stereophonic" by Count Basie. If I want to get pumped up by jazz, this is the song for me.
Back in late June last year, I had been eager to catch my first ever "Kayo Concert" episode since it's theme was of Hibari Misora(美空ひばり) and Ikuzo Yoshi (吉幾三) was one of the guests on the show. Unfortunately, I did not have a particularly good time watching it (I hardly knew any of Madam Misora's songs at that point in time) even with one of my favourite singers on stage in all his husky, slightly scruffy glory. Yoshi sang "Ringo Oiwake" that night, and with it being a slow, quiet and most importantly unfamiliar tune, it failed to grab my attention and I admit that I got bored out of my wits. The only thing I noted was that he may have sung the song because it has got something to do with apples, which seem to be the pride and joy of the prefecture he came from (Aomori). With that impression of "Ringo Oiwake" in mind, I was afraid of touching it again, and I never did in the year that followed.
(Unfortunately the video has been taken down.)
Yoshi did a good job.
However, in the recent months my interest in the song was revived, thanks to this year's jazzed up rendition of hit during the Misora Memorial episode that made me give "Ringo Oiwake" a second chance, and it being one of my Grandpa's favourite tunes - I only learnt of that a couple of weeks ago. Though it was the latter that pushed me to give the original another go, and this time, I actually liked it. I was not expecting that.
The funky, jazzy version by Ego-Wrappin'.
Listening to "Ringo Oiwake" (again), I must say that I enjoyed the richness of Misora's voice as she crooned forlornly, especially as she dragged the word "Ringo", and its solemn, rhythmic music gives the song an air of melancholy to it. According to J-Canuck'sarticle on this song, during the spoken part, our heroine, while at first ecstatic about the beauty brought to her by the flowers in spring, she is later reminded by the falling petals of her deceased mother. So as the song plays out, you can just imagine her sitting alone in an apple orchard amongst the trees in full bloom admiring them sadly. Just tugs on your heartstrings, doesn't it? "Ringo Oiwake" also struck me as somewhat Minyo-like, more so during the parts of the song when the music stops and Misora carries on singing, and of course when she goes, "Eeeeh".
"Ringo Oiwake" was released in 1952 and was Madam Misora's 5th best selling single (I can now understand why), selling a total of around 1.3 million copies. It was used as the theme song to "Ringo-en no Shojo" (リンゴ園の少女) that starred Misora, and there's even a plaque to commemorate the song in an apple orchard in the city of Hirosaki, Aomori. But surprisingly, she only sang it once on the Kohaku in 1979 during a special appearance medley. Writing the lyrics to "Ringo Oiwake" was Fujio Ozawa (小沢不二夫), and Masao Yoneyama (米山正夫) was responsible for the music.
Right, I mentioned that "Ringo Oiwake" was one of grandad's favourite songs. Well, to be specific, he liked the Mandarin cover. It's called "Ping Guo Hua" (蘋果花... Apple flower), and the lyrics have Chinese singer Yang Yan (楊燕) singing about the one that got away rather than reminiscing about a deceased family member.
amazon.co.jp
I wonder what gramps would think if he knew that I too enjoy the stuff he used to listen to.
Like a little anarchic fun with your Friday night brandy, sir?
Been a while, Ego-Wrappin'. Good to see you back on the blog. I think not attending...nah, that sounds too polite...not jumping into the mosh pit of an Ego-Wrappin' concert was another missed opportunity for me. As I've mentioned before for the duo of Yoshie Nakano and Masaki Mori（中納良恵・森雅樹）, these guys might be from Osaka but they could just be perfectly at home at some underground live house in some alley in Shibuya, Tokyo. Their uptempo stuff is just the thing to bop to while forgetting the week's work.
"Go Action" is another song I remember back in the 2000s. It is Ego-Wrappin's 3rd single from July 2008, and as is always the case with their songs, Nakano and Mori took care of music while the former handled the lyrics. I cannot really place where the song would go in the wide spectrum of popular music; there is a lot of ska but I can also hear hints of jazz and rock but Nakano seems to deliver her words like a flyweight boxer with a combination of punches and jabs or a post-punk rockabilly with the cheerful attitude of k.d. lang...now wouldn't that be a cover version? And the singer was just having too much fun in the official music video pulling out some hip-hop hand movies....and doing The Robot?!
Judging from what I've seen in the performance video above, yep, I should have gone to one of their concerts. I think even a stiff like me would have been encouraged to do some slam dancing...although there would've been blood for sure (but that's OK, I'm a Type O, the universal donor). "Go Action" managed to get as high as No. 19 on Oricon, and it was even used in a commercial for Axe Body Spray (would love to see the actual ad), but I just see the song as a great theme for that romp through Shibuya.
When I took a look at the J-Wiki page for "Go Action", I noticed that the coupling tune was "Girls Just Want To Have Fun". And I just thought whether it could actually be the one by Cyndi Lauper. Sure enough, it was. Nakano apparently just wanted to have fun with this one as well and she and Mori provide their own Ego-Wrappin' spin on the 80s classic.
Just had to put up the original Lauper video up there for comparison's and nostalgia's sake. It was one of my favourite videos back in the heyday of music video television, and looking at the eclectic fashion sense of both Lauper and Nakano, I rather wonder if the two are soul sisters of a sort.
A couple of nights ago, I wrote an article on a theme song for an old detective show titled "Bad City"by the band SHOGUN. As soon as I finished that, I found out that Ego-Wrappin' had come up with a theme song for a present-day hardboiled private eye program. In fact, "Neon Sign Stomp" got released as part of a mini-album (though the band is calling it their official 5th single) titled "Bright Time" last month.
"Neon Sign Stomp" was created by the band for the late-night TV Tokyo drama "Reverse Edge - Okawabata Tanteisha" (リバースエッジ 大川端探偵社...Okawabata Detective Agency...ongoing as of this writing). Yoshie Nakano and Masaki Mori （中納良恵・森雅樹）have sometimes gone off on a weird tangent from their jazz but I was happy to see in the video that they were back to their bohemian swing roots. Mori still has the Django guitar chops and Nakano still has that expressive vocal style that's perfect for those beatnik cafe surroundings instead of a huge stadium. Speaking of the video, there's plenty of that gritty downtown atmosphere with the band performing in the actual offices of the detective agency while the cast from the show are doing their own thing. And the quirkiness is there, too, with a disco mirror ball and Nakano in the fright hair and sporting that red light (maybe she's referring to the geography where Joe Odagiri's character, Muraki, prowls). By the way, the new song here isn't the first detective show theme that Ego-Wrappin' has done. They also came up with "Kuchibashi ni Cherry"（くちばしにチェリー）for the show "Shiritsu Tantei Hama Mike"（私立探偵濱マイク）back in 2002....hard to believe that the band has been around for over 15 years.
I've liked the different forms of jazz whether it be Big Band, 50s Bop or Dixieland. Ego-Wrappin's stuff always reminded me of those traveling jazz bands that zipped among the small towns and big cities in America back in the 20s and 30s. There was nothing slick nor sophisticated about those guys....but they could cook up some fine sweaty jazz at whatever dilapidated hall they played in. Nakano, Mori and their group bring some of that nearly-century-old desperate energy through the vocals and instruments, and that's also true with "Neon Sign Stomp". The song just galomps along like that not-so-young fellow racing among the old-style neon to look for a friendly watering hole.
Not sure how "Bright Time" has done on the charts but I wouldn't think either Ego-Wrappin' or their fans (including me) would care that much. Like the detectives they musically describe, they'll do whatever they like without having to worry about who listens to them.
Another cool and swingy number from Yoshie Nakano （中納良恵）and Masaki Mori （森雅樹）of Ego-Wrappin', "Ashinaga no Salvador"(Long-Legged Salvador) is one of those tunes to suck back a cigar while swirling that glass of brandy in a comfy armchair. This is a track from their 3rd full album of "Night Food" (July 2002) and I enjoy the muted horns along with the relaxed evening guitar.
I came across this one via their music video which unfortunately isn't on YouTube (well, now it is) or any of the other sites but it had Nakano and Mori slowly traversing the desert at dusk which makes for an appropriate scene for the song. It sounds perfect for that time of day. The other thing I was interested in about the song was the first half of the title "Ashinaga". I've often seen or heard that word in various aspects of Japanese pop culture whether it be through certain characters on TV or in other song lyrics, but the Japanese did have a thing for height way back when (as did I when I was a kid....luckily, those growth spurts kicked in). Then all those fast food chains landed in the country and people aren't so self-conscious about it anymore.
Ego-Wrappin's"Cassavetes" is definitely one unique bird just for the title alone. I don't know whether Yoshie Nakano and Masaki Mori（中納良恵・森雅樹） were fans of one of the pioneers of American indie films, the late John Cassavetes, but I think the song has a style all its own perhaps in the way that the film maker followed his own path.
I remember "Cassavetes" getting all of the hoopla on the music stations with its avant-gardish video starring lyricist and composer Nakano (Mori also worked on the melody) as a Japanese actress who just seemed to end up in some 60s European film. The song launches with a dramatic thump-thump and some urgent mysterious jazz as if it were part of a score for some film noir before Nakano starts singing these rather beatnik words with a delivery as jumpy as the flight of the Millennium Falcon through the asteroid field in "The Empire Strikes Back". Then, somewhere in the middle, there is a brief musical interlude for a bit of café and a waltz in some countryside coffeehouse. As I said, it is one unique bird. I think the one thing missing in "Cassavetes" is the finger-snapping, but I believe the bongo drums are in there. It fits the Ego-Wrappin' bohemian style to a proverbial 'T'.
And strangely enough, it wasn't released as an official single. In fact, there would be a gap of 6 years (2002-2008) between their 2nd and 3rd singles. "Cassavetes" was kept on as a track on Ego-Wrappin's 4th album, "merry merry" which came out in September 2004. It peaked at No. 4 on the Oricon album charts.
After getting wowed by their first video for the crazy "Psychoanalysis"and then buying their first album, "Michishio no Romance"（満ち汐のロマンス...Tide Flow Romance）, I was looking forward to what new stuff the Osaka boho jazz unit Ego-Wrappin' had in mind. From July 2002, I got my answer through another video for their 2nd single, "Kuchibashi ni Cherry"(A Cherry in the Beak). Wacky title by Yoshie Nakano and Masaki Mori（中納良恵・森雅樹）, but then again didn't a lot of the jazz classics also have them ("Salt Peanuts" by Dizzy Gillespie comes to mind)?
As a bit of a tangent, I was never a fan of hard-boiled crime novelist Mickey Spillane, but I did know about his famous fictional detective, Mike Hammer, mostly through the 80s TV movies starring Stacy Keach. Years later, Japanese director/producer Kaizo Hayashi （林海象）put his own spin on the private eye by coming up with the character of Yokohama dick Mike Hama through the movie "Shiritsu Tantei Hama Mike"（私立探偵濱マイク....Mike Hama Private Eye） and then a 2002 TV series starring the same character. The starring actor, Masatoshi Nagase（長瀬正敏）, was a big fan of Ego-Wrappin', so the band whipped up "Kuchibashi ni Cherry".
My musical image of the tough-as-nails Hammer was some trio led by a sax player playing smoky midnight jazz in a downtown hole-in-the-wall that only the locals knew. However, for the slightly dissipated aging punk of Hama, Ego-Wrappin' plays "Kuchibashi ni Cherry" crazy-cool which fits into the band's skill set. Written and composed by Nakano and Mori, vocalist Nakano goes back into "Psychoanalysis" dynamic mode and gets loud but also low and sultry, while guitarist Mori keeps his laid-back style. This isn't a song for that intimate hole-in-the-wall....it's for that open-air beer garden with the day-glo paper lanterns several blocks down.
The official video for the song is also appropriately out there with Nakano shifting images between that of some college student's image of a Japanese masseuse smacking a rice bowl with chopsticks in a tiny room with koinobori overhead, and that of an old-fashioned lead vocal in front of her jazz unit on a set that looks like it was lifted from the El Tropicana. Talk about bringing the cultures together!
"Kuchibashi ni Cherry" peaked at No. 9 on Oricon as a single. It was also a track on Ego-Wrappin's 3rd album, "Night Food"which was also released in July 2002. The album got as high as No. 5 on the charts and became the 60th-ranked album of 2003.
Here is the commercial for the show with Mike bumbling about his apartment.
In Japan, New Year's Eve and Day are very much family-and-friends affairs....cooking up the special stuff like o-sechi ryori and toshikoshi soba on the 31st and then the visits to the temples followed by a few days of noshing, drinking and chatting. Over here, New Year's Eve is the biggest party night of the year followed by New Year's Day which consists of televised parades and college football games, and recovering from massive hangovers before heading straight back to work from the 2nd.
This entry talks about that small band of time between the party countdown before the big turnover and the time that everyone finally decides to sludge their way home. The Osakan unit Ego-Wrappin' released an appealing bluesy number back in November 2001 as their very first single after the release of their 2nd album, "Michishio no Romance"(満ち汐のロマンス....Tide Flow Romance) some months earlier. After hearing the rockabilly craziness of "Psychoanalysis" and the jazz waltz of "Katsute"(both already profiled), Yoshie Nakano and Masaki Mori（中納良恵・森雅樹） came out with something just as listenable and danceable....at the time of 2 a.m. The mellow sax, the languid guitar and the swishes of the brushes on the drum backing up Nakano's slightly raw, whiskey voice made this work for me.
"Midnight Deja Vu -- Shikisai no Blues"(Colour Blues) made it all the way to No. 15 on the Oricon charts before becoming the 61st-ranked song of 2001. The single, by the way, is more of a maxi-single. It also contains live versions of "Nervous Breakdown", "Katsute" and a more contemporary ballad, "byrd".
I'd always wondered how Akina Nakamori（中森明菜） would have handled a jazz tune. I mean, I know she did do "Tattoo" as a techno big band swing number back in the late 80s, but how would she have handled a Cool Jazz tune from the 50s as if she were singing with a trio or quartet in a smoke-filled basement club? She's had that low, husky voice for years....would work with jazz. Well, I was given a partial answer with her cover version of "Midnight Deja Vu". This was part of her March 2002 album, "ZEROalbum-Utahime 2"(歌姫２....Diva 2), her 2nd album of covers of various artists such as Ego-Wrappin', Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵） and Saki Kubota（久保田早紀）. The album peaked at No. 10.
Nakamori's take on "Midnight Deja Vu" is still jazz, but it has more of a Henry Mancini or Nelson Riddle polish with the addition of the shimmery string section. I probably wouldn't hear this in a basement jazz club but this might be more in a more refined setting such as a concert hall, perhaps more reminiscent of Linda Ronstadt's dabbling with the old standards in the early 80s. I also like her delivery of the lyrics....nice addition to the album.
This is a concert video of the Ego-Wrappin' original. So, once you've passed the midnight hour into 2013, just chill with that alcohol and give it a play.
I mentioned this song in my first profile for this Osaka jazz/rock duo, Ego-Wrappin'. That profile was for the raucous "Psychoanalysis" in which vocalist Yoshie Nakano（中納良恵） rips through the song like a buzzsaw. It certainly got my attention....went out and bought the album, "Michishio no Romance"（満ち汐のロマンス....Tide Flow Romance) (May 2001).
"Katsute"(かつて。。。Never Before) is the first track on the band's 2nd album, before the craziness of the second track which is "Psychoanalysis". On the other hand, "Katsute" starts out for the first minute with just Satoru Takeshima's lone soprano saxophone playing out in the night before this jazz waltz starts dancing in. Then, Nakano brings out her other voice: sweeter, slightly higher but with a bit of that downtown ragged edge still in retention. There's a violin solo by Hiroo Mutou which reminds me of Stephane Grappelli when he was jamming with gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt back in the 1930s.
Nakano provided the lyrics while she and partner Masaki Mori（森雅樹） composed the song. Since Ego-Wrappin' is a band that also should be seen live, here is a concert version of "Katsute".
This is an Osaka-based band that I found out purely by accident one night while I was couch-potatoing in front of my TV set on one of the Japanese music channels. I had been just drinking down my coffee when I almost got my head blasted off by vocalist Yoshie Nakano's scream of "FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!"
What followed was this raucous anarchic mash of rockabilly and jazz (with some added post-punk) led by Nakano's sonic growly chewing of her own lyrics. I wish I could translate them but after looking at them, I would need to speak to Freud himself (very well-titled song, by the way).
Ego-Wrappin'was formed in 1996 with Yoshie Nakano and Masaki Mori（中納良恵・森雅樹）as the guitarist and co-songwriter of the duo. "Psychoanalysis" was not released as a single but was one of the tracks on their 2nd album, "Michishio no Romance"(満ち汐のロマンス....Tide Flow Romance), released in 2001.
I was definitely interested by Ego-Wrappin' just from this song alone so I bought the album. Nakano can go really deep and trashy with the voice or elegantly jazzy in the album's first track, "Katsute"（かつて....Never Before). Their star was definitely rising in the early 2000s....a few more albums came out afterwards with regular frequency. They definitely appeared to have street cred just from how they looked; the video looks like it was shot in one of the many cramped live houses in the entertainment districts of either Tokyo or Osaka and the band had that look of unproduced bohemian NOSTALGIA! (inside joke there) In fact, I would say that Nakano in the video appeared like a don't-mess-with-me mama-san of a tiny watering hole in Shinjuku. (hey, she's from Osaka...she's tough).
Definitely one of the more original musical units I've come across.
