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 Tokyo Ensemble Lab. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tokyo Ensemble Lab. Show all posts
Well, the third Monday in July just passed in Japan which means that the citizens there have celebrated another long weekend ending with "Umi no Hi" or Marine Day (or Sea Day or Ocean Day). If I'm going with the Wikipedia assessment, July 20th had been slated for Marine Day from 1996 but then to join the kick for long weekends in the country, the holiday was simply placed onto the third Monday in July every year.
I have commemorated the holiday now and then with individual songs having to do with the deep blue sea, but this time, I've decided to provide a quintet of sea-related tunes.
Despite the holiday and all that, Japan has been getting flooded and roasted depending on the area so I am hoping that folks are taking care of themselves and each other.
Incidentally, I went to some site and got the name of the blog done up in Vaporwave mode just for some fun.
It all seems so poignant now when I first wrote about this spectacular band called Tokyo Ensemble Lab on the first day of summer several months ago, specifically for the fusion festival that is "Lady Ocean". My final statement for the article was that I may be doing some shopping around for the originating album "Breath From The Season".
Guess what? It's almost the first day of winter and I finally got "Breath From The Season", the 1988 inaugural album by Tokyo Ensemble Lab. Produced by Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）and band leader/trumpeter Shin Kazuhara（数原晋）, the album does fulfill the predictions that I had for it...that it would be a container of music holding the swing jazz of "Nica's Dream" and the fabulous fusion of "Lady Ocean".
Track 2 is "Junky Express ~ Geraleen". Before I go on though, I should inform you that Tokyo Ensemble Lab apparently adopted the Kadomatsu tradition of adding female monikers to each track. "Lady Ocean" was tagged with "Yuko" while "Nica's Dream" was given the name of "Mako". It almost figures like the Secret Service giving members of the President's family their code names.
Anyways, "Junky Express" is a fun Latin jazz jam with a soupcon of synthpop added. I hear it as a prototype for the whole Electro Swing thing that popped up earlier this decade. Also, being a fan of these guys, I got reminded of some of the Manhattan Transfer's forays into Latin jazz.
"Nobody Can Do It ~ Aishuu no Nini"（哀愁のニニ...Grief-Stricken at 22[?]）has been tagged with "Kaoru". By the sounds of it, Kaoru must be a statuesque, beautiful, and most likely, a lonely lady in the big city. Kazuhara composed the track and is the lead trumpeter. The song weaves between that noble high-in-the-sky trumpet solo and some downtown action in what must be some dramatic story for the lass.
Then, there is "Blue Skies ~ Kana". Yep, it is indeed the Irving Berlin classic but it's book-ended by the Lab's own big band riffs. However, the familiar melody of "Blue Skies" does fly in on the trombones though mixed in with a bit of "In The Mood", and the whole thing again has that Electro Swing feeling and even some Matt Bianco. It's basically one fun jam session for Kazuhara and the guys.
My last song for this article is "Morning After Lady ~ Shizuyo", a soulful number written by James B. Pentaudi with Kadomatsu coming up with the music. It's a power ballad performed by LeMel Humes that has me reminiscing about my radio and university days. Nice to hear this arrangement again after so long, and it is a fine tune to wake up to...but perhaps the volume can be lowered a bit if you want to do so. :)
After first listening to Tokyo Ensemble Lab's fabulous fusion of "Lady Ocean" from their 1988 album"Breath From The Season", I then listened to one more track from the album, their version of the jazz standard "Nica's Dream". I was frankly flabbergasted.
Tokyo Ensemble Lab, led by trumpeter Shin Kazuhara（数原晋）, couldn't have sounded more different. The fusion of "Lady Ocean" gave way to the swing jazz of "Nica's Dream". And the jazz couldn't have been more percolating! From the hot summer day on the beach to the cool lounge in Aoyama. The experience of listening to these two tracks had me thinking of Tokyo Ensemble Lab as a Japanese instrumental version of the Manhattan Transfer.
"Nica's Dream" is over 7 minutes of a high-energy jazz buffet with all of the instruments getting their chance to shine in the spotlight. If anyone asks me why I like big band swing, I will simply let them listen to this. Although I didn't see any comments from the anime crowd under the YouTube video, I'm pretty sure that comparisons with "Tank!" from "Cowboy Be-Bop" that came out a decade later may be inevitable. Strangely enough, leader Kazuhara, has taken part in his fair share of anime themes through Yuji Ohno's（大野雄二）and Joe Hisaishi's（久石譲）works.
Yes, indeed, welcome to summer! It wasn't too hot here, though...just around 23 degrees for a high today but there are 89 more days to go in the season.
Considering it is the first day of summer, I couldn't have found a better song to start things off, and again, it was all thanks to the usual browsing around YouTube. Just saw this video on the right that was recommended with the name Tokyo Ensemble Lab, and since I've had great success with Tomita Lab（富田ラボ）, I decided to give it a try.
Well, lightning did strike twice. Tokyo Ensemble Lab's lone single"Lady Ocean" is fabulous fusion. It was released in June 1988 and was performed by this group of musicians led by trumpeter Shin Kazuhara（数原晋）. I can't pinpoint specifics since I'm no musicologist but this is the one 80s summer instrumental that just represents the times. It's just so bright and brassy and summery, and probably reflects all those Bubble good times in Japan by the beach. The video could almost be the opening credits for a detective show in Hawaii like "Magnum P.I." or "Hawaii Five-0". And as the actual credits say at the end, Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）, one summery guy himself, handled the music and arrangements. As one fellow put it as a comment, Vaporwave enthusiasts probably swooned.
Tokyo Ensemble Lab had their time in the sun between 1988 and 1992. Along with their single, there were two albums "Breath From The Season"(1988) and "Sidewinder" (1992) of which the former included "Lady Ocean". Incidentally, one of the saxophone players is Makoto Hirahara（平原まこと）who is the father of singer-songwriter Ayaka Hirahara（平原綾香）.
