Kaori Kuno -- Amayadori（雨やどり）

 

As we start the first full week of fall, I found out from our local Weather Network station that Toronto had gone through 11 straight days without any precipitation which is apparently the longest streak for this year. I figured that we were rather dry for a fair bit but all that was nullified this morning when it looked rather damp out there. Things are looking even wetter for Tuesday and Wednesday.

I've written about singer-songwriter and saxophonist Kaori Kuno（久野かおり）a number of times on the blog in the past as an artist who enjoys the lighter side of pop. I managed to find a song by her titled "Amayadori" (Shelter from the Rain) which was the first track on her 1996 album "Anata wo Mitsumete"（あなたを見つめて...Looking For You）. All these years, I've only known her from her voice and noble visage on the CD albums I've bought of her, so it was with some surprise that she actually had a music video of "Amayadori". She doesn't wield her saxophone here but it's a pleasant song about a couple trying to make amends within the atmosphere of searching for solace from a rainstorm. There's also some nice Latin guitar interwoven with the synthesizer melody.

Kaori Kuno -- Tender Love

 

Welcome to the final month of 2023 and at least in my neck of the woods, it's come in rather dreary and wet. Not particularly Xmas-y but at least the temperatures are high enough that I can get away going out and not having to pull on the longjohns. 

It is also Urban Contemporary Friday here on KKP so why not get the ball rolling with an atypical instrumental via singer-songwriter and saxophonist Kaori Kuno（久野かおり）. "Tender Love" is the final track on her 1992 album "Concord" and I recall mentioning this album several months earlier when I posted the most recent Kuno article for another track "Elevator Lover".

Mind you, it's not a total instrumental since there are those tender chorus voices by Joey Johnson and Wornell Jones soulfully oozing out the title but otherwise, it's Kuno on the sax tootling some of that soothing City Pop or light pop arrangement while Fumio Nishiyama provides the jazzier sequences on his guitar. Hironori Kouki is listed in the explanation underneath the video as the synthesizer operator, and I'm always going to be a sucker of that particular type of keyboard playing from the late 1980s going into the early 1990s. 

Kaori Kuno -- Elevator Lover

 

Up to this point, I've only had the two Kaoru Kuno（久野かおり）albums, "Breath" and "Rose", from the early 1990s. The feeling back then was that the songs by this singer-songwriter and saxophonist were so languid and chamomile tea-friendly that I was ready to classify them as Fashion Music.

But then in recent years, I've discovered that before and after those albums, Kuno was capable of doing the upbeat material. My last article on her was the peppy "Just Only Tonight" from 1989, for example. And for today, I have "Elevator Lover" from her 1992 "Concord" album. 

"Elevator Lover", huh? Hey, I'm not sure what's involved in this one but I'm not going to judge. Anyways, this is another rather rollicking song, written and composed by Kuno, armed with synth-horns and a melody and rhythm that has me thinking about the natsuskashii 1990s brand of City Pop or straight-ahead pop.

Kaori Kuno -- Just Only Tonight

 

Just from my last article on singer/songwriter and musician, Kaori Kuno（久野かおり）, and the topic of this song, I really have to see if I can get my hands on any of her earliest albums before the 1990s came along. 

Case in point is "Just Only Tonight", a track from her 1989 "Sincere" album. My last article on her was featuring "Adam & Eve 1989", a Matt Bianco-like sophisti-pop tune. With "Just Only Tonight", which was written and composed by Kuno, it's more of a mixture of straight-up upbeat pop and late 1980s/early 1990s City Pop, and the overall arrangement reminds me of the material of Junichi Inagaki（稲垣潤一）. It's quite the speedy song as well as if folks in the tune were painting the town red at whirlwind speed. Considering that it was still the Bubble Era (perhaps), I shouldn't be surprised. By the way, keyboardist Tadashi Nanba（難波正司）from T-Square arranged the song.

Kaori Kuno -- Adam & Eve 1989

 

I shouldn't generalize about the sound of any particular musical artist, but whenever I think of singer, songwriter and saxophonist Kaori Kuno（久野かおり）, I usually think of songs like "Thank You For You" which is so very mellow and relaxing. The CDs that I have of hers, "Breath" (3rd album) and "Rose" (4th album) seem to be in that vein of coffee-sipping tranquility.

So you can imagine my surprise on hearing her "Adam & Eve 1989" which originally saw the light of day or people's ears on her debut album "Luna" back in 1988. Launching with some peppy sophisti-pop flavour, "Adam & Eve 1989" fulfills that image that I've always had of City Pop in the late 1980s with the Bubble Era of caviar and champagne. The night is still young and rich, and so are the people. As well, I've picked up on the interweaving of urban contemporary and jazz in the way that reminds me of the music of Matt Bianco, especially when that boozy saxophone enters the picture.

Written and composed by Kuno and arranged by Jun Sato（佐藤準）, Tower Records decided to put out a single version of "Adam & Eve 1989" paired with "Love in the Mist" last year.

Kaori Kuno -- Love in the Mist

 

As I've mentioned in the past, I'm a sucker for certain instruments from certain periods of time when it comes to Japanese popular music. There's the wailing electric guitar for City Pop in the early 1980s and the Fender Rhodes for all seasons.

Another instrument and time combination that I appreciate is the electric piano of the late 80s and early 90s as I've often heard it in songs by Akiko Kobayashi（小林明子）and Miki Imai（今井美樹）. It also pops up in singer-saxophonist-songwriter Kaori Kuno's（久野かおり）"Love in the Mist" from her 4th album "Rose" of 1991. From this underrated artist, by my opinion anyways, I've been further appreciating the fact that I did invest my yen into "Rose" and the 1989 "Breath" back in my Gunma days as you can see in the article thumbnail above. It's just very relaxing straightforward pop.

Garnering my feelings about that electric piano from that part of the 20th century, I guess my amity toward the instrument is that it does show off that feeling of the sophisti-pop side of City Pop from the late 1980s but at the same time, it wasn't just stuck in downtown. There is also that bright and breezy openness which that piano brings as if we listeners were suddenly transported to some lovely resort in Guam or Mykonos.

Incidentally, "Love in the Mist" was composed by Kuno and written by Yu Fukuoka（福岡有）. I'm hoping that I got the first name right for the lyricist there. As well, the video for "Love in the Mist" comes from the YouTube channel Island Fantasia whose proprietor, HRLE92, was generous enough to provide an article for the blog on Xmas Day.

Kaori Kuno -- Thank You for You

You might say that this is a reincarnation of this article. Originally, I had written this as the first article for singer/songwriter/saxophonist Kaori Kuno's（久野かおり）representation in "Kayo Kyoku Plus" way back in 2012. The song "Thank You for You" did have a YouTube presence until some months later when due to the usual copyright issues, it was taken down. Not having quite the patience back then that I do now, I re-molded the article so that it would take care of another song whose YouTube video was still there "Rifujin na Koi"（理不尽な恋）which was the opening track on her 3rd album "Breath". After all, I had also included how I got to find this album and what this singer was all about, so it would have been a waste to start totally from scratch.

Well, the video has returned much to my happiness. And "Thank You for You" is the one other song along with "Rifujin na Koi" that I do remember from "Breath" which came out in 1989. In fact, it is my favourite song by her from the same album. For the longest time, I had thought that it was the campaign song for an insurance company (the title would certainly seem appropriate), but as it turned out, it was actually the jingle for the Sendai branch of Mitsukoshi Department Store.

"Rifujin na Koi" feels like a city tune with a hint of drama but "Thank You for You" is definitely even breezier...more of a Sunday afternoon stroll in the park. Plus, it is representative of a number of the works of female singer-songwriters during the late 1980s and early 1990s which tended to straddle between mellow and sophisticated pop.

Glad to see the song back up online and this time if and when it disappears again, I'll just retire the article back to Draft status. Hopefully, though, Apple or Amazon will have at least an excerpt. By the way, I listened to the entirety of "Breath" yesterday and I have a better appreciation of the other tracks. Provided that there is some more online presence of it, I may be able to do an article on the whole album someday.

Kaori Kuno -- White Christmas （ホワイト・クリスマス）

Well, we're less than a couple of weeks from the big day (no...not "The Force Awakens"...that's just a few days away), and I feel that the homestretch for Christmas is approaching if it hasn't already arrived. I've got a couple of parties coming up this week and at least a couple of more presents to purchase before the 25th.

Of course, as it pertains to "Kayo Kyoku Plus", it's also the time that a few J-Xmas songs start popping up, and I found a very mellow one by singer-songwriter-saxophonist Kaori Kuno（久野かおり）titled "White Christmas". Yup, it's that title and like the famous Yuletide ballad by Irving Berlin, Kuno's Xmas tune has that sentimentality baked in like raisins in a fruitcake, but there is more of that contemporary and grounded arrangement which evokes the image of spending the Holidays out at the cottage in the woods. It's the musical equivalent of sipping on a hot chocolate while wrapped in a warm blanket.

Kuno's "White Christmas" was most likely written and composed by her although I couldn't conclusively track down the credits, and it was a track on her debut album "Luna" from 1988.

Kaori Kuno -- Rifujin na Koi （理不尽な恋）

During my CD-buying mania days at the turn of the decade into the 90s, I would often take one Saturday out of the month and take the Bullet Train into Tokyo from the mountains of Gunma Prefecture. I loved my countryside home but I needed to get some city under me once in a while.  So I usually arrived at Ueno Station at around 10 in the morning and waited around until my first stop, Yamano Music in Ginza (which is already listed under Sites), opened up an hour later. Then, it would be a day of running around to Shinjuku, Shibuya and Kanda to see how many discs I could grab. Often it would be 8-10 CDs by the time I took the 7 p.m. back to Gunma.

I bought the obvious ones such as Seiko, Akina and Anzen Chitai but I also tried to pick some up sight unseen, so to speak. During one trip, I came across this album with the picture of a young but mature-looking beauty on the cover. Her name was Kaori Kuno（久野かおり）and the album title was "Breath". I also saw what looked like the top of a saxophone peeking out from under her face on the cover, so, intrigued by a sax-playing female J-Pop artist, I decided to make the investment of 3,000 yen.

To be honest, up to this day, although I still have "Breath", I remember just a couple of songs from that album. "Rifujin na Koi "（An Unreasonable Love）was Track No. 1, and it's a breezy, relaxing and urbane tune with Kuno's soft vocals, and her work on the soprano sax. Written and composed by Kuno herself, some of the other performers have helped out Miki Imai（今井美樹） during that time, which explains the easygoing sound.

Kuno is another one of those unsung heroines that didn't really pass the threshold for superstardom, but has been able to gather a very devoted group of fans over the years. Although she doesn't have anything written about her on J-Wiki, she has her own site thankfully.