Naomi Maki -- Tokyo Jenne（Tokyoジェンヌ）

 

The above is a photo of a building in Shirokanedai（白金台）, Tokyo. You might say that it's a pretty ritzy neighbourhood. I was there...legally, surprisingly enough...to join a couple of my students for lunch at a French restaurant one day. The area is so refined and expensive that the housewives who reside in Shirokanedai and Shirokane（白金）have been called Shiroganeze（シロガネーゼ）in the familiar way that a native of Milan is called Milanese. I guess, in a way, it's similar to how teen girls in the 1990s wanted to be known as Amurer（アムラー）after their inspiration, music superstar Namie Amuro（安室奈美恵）.

Thus it is here that I can introduce the title "Tokyo Jenne" as sung and composed by Naomi Maki（マキ奈尾美）. The English title has been wisely translated as "Tokyo Parisienne" to show off the title character living the life of a fashionable young lady around town and playing the romance game. Shades of the book "Nantonaku Crystal"（なんとなくクリスタル...Somehow, Crystal） came to mind as I was listening to Yasuo Tsukakoshi's*（塚越靖雄）lyrics. 

I first wrote about Maki last fall via her "Aquarius", the track mate to "Tokyo Jenne" on her one-and-only 1986 album "Time, Time After Time". As was the case with "Aquarius", Maki's melody is sophisticated pop in the big city, a good match with the life and times of the Tokyo Parisienne. Enjoy tea in Omotesando, have that French dinner in Ginza, sip cocktails in Akasaka, dance the night away in Roppongi and then sleep it off alone or otherwise in Shirokanedai. As "Tokyo Jenne" might imply, it's never a boring time at night in the megalopolis.

*The lyricist's first and last names have various readings so if anyone can confirm or refute my interpretation of his kanji, please let me know.

No Shirokaneze were harmed in the taking
of these photographs.

Naomi Maki -- Aquarius

 

I always enjoy encountering a singer whom I've never heard of before with a good song, especially when the genre involved is City Pop.

Recently, that person is Naomi Maki（マキ奈尾美）who, according to one website of hers, is a singer-songwriter, abstract painter, jazz pianist and instructor. As far as I can tell, she has only released one album for commercial fame and fortune, and that was back in 1986 (YouTube and one other site state 1987 but her own website says 1986 and who am I to argue with that?). That album is titled "Time, Time After Time".

One track is "Aquarius" which was composed by Maki and written by Erika（えり花）according to an entry on Light Mellow BU's own review of "Time, Time After Time". The song is a very slick City Pop number with some of that sophisticated pop flavour that would imbue a lot of the genre in the latter half of the 80s. Certainly, that image of caviar and champagne in Bubble Era Japan comes to mind when I listen to "Aquarius". Heck, I'm sure that there was probably a fancy bar somewhere in Tokyo with that name; there was a sky-high Toronto bar known as Aquarius that some of us frequented back in my university days. The YouTube uploader for the above video, nana's, has the impression that "Time, Time After Time" is an OK but not spectacular album (the video, and maybe even nana's, was taken down; it has been replaced by the video from fuyu aranko) . Still, I'd be interested in finding out more about the other tracks.

After looking at both Maki's and BU's sites, I've found out that the singer apparently got married to a diplomat which has resulted in her living in New York, London, Seoul and Moscow. She's also learned about her fair share of other types of music including classical Italian music and songs from England of the 15th and 16th centuries.