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.
To be honest, I thought that I was pretty much done with the Gosanke（御三家）file with last month's personally imagined Gosanke Girl Bands. However, researching material for Sayuri Aso's（麻生小百合）1982"Candy Jazz" album the other day, I found out that Aso, Tomoko Aran（亜蘭知子）and Naomi Akimoto（秋本奈緒美）had been known as Being Jazz 3A（ビーイングジャズ3A）or The Jazz 3As of Being on account of the first letter of their three family names and the fact that all three chanteuses were under the employ of the Being entertainment conglomerate at the time. Heck, Aran was one of the founders! As for the jazz part, I think Aso was the only representative part of that genre, strictly speaking (ah, but I hadn't heard Akimoto's "Silent Communication" yet), but I gather that whoever had come up with the moniker for the three was probably throwing a lot of genres into the jazz blender which is what City Pop was doing as well.
This could go down as one of the more intriguing albums that I've covered since Sayuri Aso's（麻生小百合）1982 debut album"Candy Jazz" was produced at Toshiba EMI/Eastworld which was actually under the purview of the entertainment conglomerate Being Inc. at the time. Yes, that Being...the company whose clients have been Zard and B'z with that particular pop/rock sound in the 1990s and beyond.
Sayuri Aso was born Yoshiko Ohniwa（大庭淑子）in Shizuoka Prefecture and in terms of her musical education, she began with piano at the age of 3 and later became infatuated with The Eagles. At the invitation of her senpai, she became the vocalist for a rock band and as a session artist. When she was scouted, she was promoted as a jazz singer and made her debut with "Candy Jazz" in September 1982.
(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)
Let me give you a small sampling of the album which seems to be a mix of original songs and covers of some old standards. The latter is given representation by the first track, "Teacher's Pet" originally by Joe Lubin and then given Japanese lyrics by Yukari Sato（砂東由香利）. My first impression is that the jazz has some of that technological embellishment which has me reminded of Harumi Ohzora（大空はるみ）and her own 1983 techno jazz album "VIVA".
Aso's rendition of that old chestnut "Misty" by Erroll Garner and Johnny Burke is probably my favourite track so far since it's got the swing band orchestra backing her up including a warm and honeyed sax solo. I feel like I'm at the top of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel already. Mirai or Miku Minegishi（峰岸未来）provided the Japanese lyrics here.
The penultimate track is "More Expression" and it's one of the original songs on "Candy Jazz". The jazz is still in there but it's also joined by a City Pop shuffle and a searing rock guitar solo. Written by Tomoko Aran（亜蘭知子）and composed by Masanori Sasaji（笹路正徳）, it stuffs a lot of action in its less-than-three minutes time.
Speaking of Aran, she was actually one of the founders of Being Inc. along with fellow singer-songwriter Tetsuro Oda（織田哲郎）and others. Yu Aku（阿久悠）and Daiko Nagato（長戸大幸）were also involved with some hefty investments by them as well. As for Aso, she would release two more albums in 1983, "Strawberry Jam" and "Pink". Through the J-Wiki article for the singer, I found out that she, Aran and Naomi Akimoto（秋本奈緒美）had been known as the Jazz 3As of Being. It looks like I might extend the Gosanke file on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" by one more piece.
