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.
Showing posts with label Kazumi Watanabe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kazumi Watanabe. Show all posts
I mentioned this at the end of my very first Kazumi Watanabe（渡辺香津美）article back in 2020, but his supreme 1980 album "To Chi Ka" had been named after his beloved Hokkaido breed dog Tochika. Just thought that I ought to show you what these adorable dogs look like above.
However, the animal of note for this song by the jazz guitarist is an imaginary one, the unicorn. And "Unicorn" which is in the middle of "To Chi Ka" sounds like a funky fusion gallop downtown by Watanabe. That unicorn must have had one fun trip in New York City while Kazumi was playing up a storm and everyone else was grooving away.
Never really got to know singer-songwriter Bryan Ferry all that well back in the day, especially during his time with Roxy Music. During the 1980s, he got hits with "Slave to Love" and "Don't Stop the Dance" which I heard and saw on fairly heavy rotation via radio and television. The music videos showed him as a slightly louche gentleman of charm and leisure.
So it was only recently that I heard about his May 1977 single, "Tokyo Joe". The song is a disco rock tune that seems to fit the description that I've made for him, and despite the geographical position noted in the title, "Tokyo Joe" is something that probably made for a fine musical accompaniment for the debauchery at New York City's Studio 54 back in those days. For that matter, the song could have been covered by someone like David Bowie.
Bowie probably didn't. However, the intriguing Japanese trio of Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）, Kazumi Watanabe（渡辺香津美）and Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）did in 1979 when they released their own version of "Tokyo Joe" as a single. Just imagine...two-thirds of Yellow Magic Orchestra and a famed jazz fusion guitarist arranging and performing "Tokyo Joe" as a slightly more amped-up disco technopop cover. Indeed, let's wang chung tonight! Not sure how the single did but it was placed onto a 1982 New Wave compilation titled "Tokyo-Paris-London-New York, Dancing Night".
Now, to give truth in advertising, officially, the song is provided under only Sakamoto and Watanabe but Takahashi is also providing his vocals here so I am including the late drummer in the byline.
Over the Holidays, former "Kayo Kyoku Plus" writer and good friend JTM and I exchanged City Pop books for Christmas, and he was kind enough to give me a 2020 revised edition of "Disc Collection: Japanese City Pop". This is based upon the original "Japanese City Pop" bible (2002) which I picked up in the late 2000s at Tower Records Shinjuku. The 2020 edition has quite a few more photos and 200 additional albums on top of the 500 in the original.
An album that is a part of the new 200 is "Hi-phonics, Hi-phonics", a February 1979 compilation commemorating the 15th anniversary of a Nippon Broadcasting System radio program known at the time as "Hitachi Music Inn Hi-phonic"（日立ミュージック・イン・ハイフォニック）which first started up in 1963. The Hi-phonic didn't refer to the sound quality of the program but was actually a name of a Hitachi transistor radio. But getting back to "Hi-phonics, Hi-phonics", a number of musicians (touted as "The Hi-phonic Big 15") got into the production including Yellow Magic Orchestra'sRyuichi Sakamoto & Haruomi Hosono（坂本龍一・細野晴臣）, singer Nanako Sato（佐藤奈々子）and guitarist Kazumi Watanabe（渡辺香津美）, so my feeling is that the focus was on cool ol' City Pop.
With just six tracks, I gather that "Hi-phonics, Hi-phonics" was more of a mini-album but I won't gripe about that. Instead, I'd like to bring your attention to Track 5, "Dragoon" which is an instrumental tour-de-force composed by Sakamoto. For anyone who loves the feeling of all of those urban contemporary genres in one song, look no more. "Dragoon" has it all: elegant pop, City Pop, jazz, technopop and rock. Underneath the video on YouTube, you can see the folks who were helping out in the performance including trombonist Shigeharu Mukai (向井滋春), Sakamoto and Watanabe with their solos. It's basically a potpourri of kakkoii music. That must have been some birthday album for "Hitachi Music Inn Hi-phonic". Incidentally, drink down some "Jamaica Ginger" by Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）on the album.
Speaking of the radio program, it had its first run between 1963 and 1986 weeknights for half an hour, initially between 10 and 10:30, later going from 12 to 12:30. It had a brief comeback in 2000.
If I'm not mistaken, this is a photo midway between the tony neighbourhood of Azabu-Juban and Roppongi, and I'm looking up the slope heading towards Roppongi Hills with the massive Mori Building in the background. My old Sanwa Bank branch was at the bottom of the hill. Now, I lived all the way out east in Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture but when I joined up with the English-language conversation school, NOVA, the powers-that-be decided that if I had any financial matters to discuss in English, I had to go to the Azabu-Juban branch since there was at least one staffer who could speak English there. Not that I minded too much since the area was a pleasant one to walk through.
Well, it's time to bring the focus of the usual Friday fusion onto guitarist Kazumi Watanabe（渡辺香津美）and his 1979 album"Kylyn". Both Watanabe and Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）co-produced this album and it has a goodly amount of the big-wig studio musicians helping out including Sakamoto, fellow keyboardist and singer Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）and drummer Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）.
On "Kylyn", I'd like to show off the mesmerizing "Sonic Boom" which is Track 2. Sakamoto is on the acoustic piano, Rei Ohara（小原礼）is on bass, Mikio Masuda（益田幹夫）is on Fender Rhodes, the late "Ponta" Murakami（村上秀一）handles the drums, and Toshiyuki Honda（本多俊之）is on the alto sax while Yasuaki Shimizu（清水靖晃）takes care of business on the tenor sax among other highlights in the studio. For the most part, "Sonic Boom" is more of the prelude to the atmospheric event before things do get more explosive near the end; there's some give and take at the beginning between some spaciness and down-on-the-ground funkiness before the funk takes over thanks to Watanabe. It's quite the jam session and you might say that everyone in the recording booth is "KYLYN" it here.
Last Tuesday, I posted an article, "My Favourite Works by Ryuichi Sakamoto"（坂本龍一）, which went over some of the songs that he composed for other artists outside of his solo material and his creations for Yellow Magic Orchestra. Of course, those are songs that I've known and cherished for years. Today, though, I wanted to bring a Part II of sorts regarding the Sakamoto oeuvre: those melodic creations of his that I had yet to get acquainted with, and there are many of them, since knowing about his magic, I wanted to find out if they were also catchy finds.
Phew -- Urahara（うらはら） (1980)
OK, I'll admit it...this isn't exactly catchy to me but I can't quite avert my ears from it either. At first glance, I had assumed that Phew was the name of the band but it is actually the stage name of the Osaka-born female vocalist who had started with the avant-punk band Aunt Sally. According to her J-Wiki profile, she's into punk, New Wave and electronic music, and was first inspired to go down this musical path on hearing The Sex Pistols through an NHK broadcast while she was in high school.
Phew has released a number of albums and one single as a soloist with that single being her 1980 "Finale/Urahara" (Contrary). Sakamoto not only produced the single but also helped out in this B-side of "Urahara" by manning the drums, piano, synthesizers and even providing some of the vocal effects behind Phew's straight-ahead atonal vocals. It almost sounds like we've entered the middle of a secret rite in a university dorm basement. It's quite the singular experience but there are some familiar Sakamoto YMO sounds in the intro to remind us that he was behind it all.
Kazumi Watanabe -- Water Ways Flow Backward Again (1979)
Sakamoto was also involved in the production and instruments for jazz guitarist Kazumi Watanabe's（渡辺香津美）"KYLYN" album in June 1979. In fact for Track 3, "Water Ways Flow Backward Again", both he and Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）were on the keyboards (The Professor on the Fender Rhodes, Yano on piano) as the three of them weave a tune that alternates between mellow and slightly chaotic at times, almost like the journey of a long river from mountain to delta. Yano actually composed the song.
Tsukasa Ito -- Koi wa Roon Roon（恋はルンルン） (1982)
Examples of 80s aidoru tunes with that technopop twist are nothing new here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", but I made this new discovery with Tsukasa Ito's（伊藤つかさ）"Koi wa Roon Roon" (Love is Euphoric) from her March 1982 2nd album "Sayonara, Konnichiwa"（さよなら こんにちは...Hello, Goodbye）. The Professor was behind the composition with Takashi Nakahata（仲畑貴志）behind the lyrics as Ito bounces around with his familiar synthesized stylings. Technological and innocent at the same time.
I would never have imagined the big names of Queen of Kayo Kyoku Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）, the prolific sibling songwriting team of Etsuko and Takao Kisugi（来生えつこ・来生たかお）and arranger Sakamoto all working together to create "Waratte yo Moonlight" (Why Don't You Give Us A Smile, Moonlight?),a May 1983 single for Misora. It's a mid-tempo amiable and jazzy shuffle in the same vein as Donald Fagen's"Walk Between Raindrops". The crazy thing is that Sakamoto doesn't quite meld together the jazz and techno in the same way as Kazuhiro Nishimatsu（西松一博）did in his "Bouekifu Monogatari"（貿易風物語）to create this old-fashioned 1920s/1930s sound in Mos Eisley, Tatooine. Actually, he lets jazz lead most of the way with the techno as the backup until when, at around the 3-minute mark, the synthesizer glides on in for a smooth cameo. Meanwhile, Misora embraces this unusual amalgam like one of her older hits.
Ryuichi Sakamoto -- Asience (2004)
Now, with this one creation by The Professor, I'm going to have to admit that I fibbed a bit about not being acquainted by these particular songs in this article. I actually have listened to this one since it was used as the commercial song for Asience hair care products by the Kao Corporation. Known simply as "Asience", this industrious and stately pop classical first adorned Zhāng Zǐyí's appearances for the brand. Incidentally, the brand name is a merging of "Asian Essence" which I hadn't known about (I can now cross that off my bucket list).
"Asience" was never released as a single since it is such a short tune at its full length, but it was included in Sakamoto's album"/04" from November 2004. The one immediately below is the original version while the one at the very bottom is his more fanciful and longer take at a little over two minutes. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have this overwhelming need to wash my hair.
Recently, I've been catching some of the scenes from an old ABC sitcom of my memories. "Barney Miller" was a show about the usual funny hijinks inside a New York City police precinct, and I remember some of the big highlights during its original run between 1975 and 1982 such as the episode in which everyone except Barney himself got high on hashish-laced brownies and the time when Detective Harris ended up producing a porn movie for some investigation.
"Barney Miller" was also graced with one of the cooler instrumental theme songs during its run. Perhaps the song by Jack Elliott and Allyn Ferguson wasn't as action-packed as the "Mission: Impossible" theme but I realize that it was a nice fusion number rather reflective of the funky streets of the Big Apple back then, although perhaps it may have been more conventional at the time to place an upbeat and comical march to match the fact that it was based on the cops and comedy. Strangely enough, I read last night on the "TV Tropes" entry for the show under "Instrumental Theme Tune" on the main page that the actor who played Miller, Hal Linden (who's still looking plenty healthy at his advanced age as an octogenarian according to YouTube videos of his recent interviews!), wasn't a huge fan of the bass-heavy theme (maybe he's mellowed over the years), even though it was ranked at No. 27 in "TV Guide" as one of the best TV themes in America according to Wikipedia.
What wonderful timing then to have a listen to "Don't Be Silly", one of the tracks from guitarist Kazumi Watanabe's（渡辺香津美）May 1980 album, "To Chi Ka". I already wrote about one other track from the album "Black Canal", and with "Don't Be Silly", I think it could even be a spiritual cousin across the Pacific of the "Barney Miller" theme with its own silky-smooth guitar/bass/keyboard work. Plus, I'd say that the title would be just the thing that the often-frustrated Captain Miller would usually have to beg his motley crew to do each and every episode.
Wouldn't that be just the thing? Maybe an American TV show on one of the ancient networks or on one of the streaming channels such as Netflix will have a City Pop instrumental as a theme. As a local lottery commercial's catchphrase puts it: We all can dream! But as someone might retort: Don't be silly!
I've been waiting to get this particular track up for a while now and finally I get to do it. But let me get this out of my system...something about that iconography for the album cover has me thinking Pac-man!
Anyways, I've been listening to a number of tracks from guitarist KazumiWatanabe's（渡辺香津美）May 1980 fusion album"To Chi Ka", and they're all great. However the one that has stood out for me is Track 2, "Black Canal" at 6:45 of the above video for the entire album. Reading the Wikipedia article for "To Chi Ka", the album is jam-packed with some of the finest musicians from jazz, rock and the middle ground of fusion including Kenny Kirkland on keyboards, Marcus Miller on bass, and Steve Jordan on percussion.
I won't pretend that I'm in the know for any of these virtuosos, but my immediate reaction on hearing "Black Canal" is that this must have been the melodic equivalent of an All-Star game in one of the major team sports such as baseball or hockey. This was the type of music that I used to listen to on radio at home and in the car even before I realized that I enjoyed it, and "Black Canal" is the amped-up version with Watanabe, Kirkland, et al. immensely embracing their jam sessions. I've read that a lot of the album included plenty of improvisation and it's incredible to hear all of these people in synch with each other.
"To Chi Ka" hit No. 10 on Oricon. According to the J-Wiki article for the album, it was named after Watanabe's Hokkaido dog, Tochika.🐕
