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.
Happy Mother's Day to everyone out there! Took my folks out for breakfast at our usual friendly diner. As usual, I won't be needing lunch as a result.
I've decided to get things started off with a bit of aural Orange Mimosa via the good folks at orange pekoe. Their "Sweet Movie" comes from their 2nd studio album"Modern Lights" which was released in July 2003. Fully in thrall to their jazz, vocalist Tomoko Nagashima（ナガシマトモコ）goes into her Andrews Sisters' boogie-woogie route here and provides some sunny Sunday music. Below is the Sunata T Experience Remix of "Sweet Movie" which incorporates more funk and dance beats. As well, you can check out its track mate on the album, "Gokurakucho ~ Bird of Paradise"（極楽鳥）.
From the photo library of Wikimedia Commons, I present you with Walter Siegmund's orange honeysuckle. I've always heard of this flower, but I've never actually seen it. Well, my life is complete now.
At the same time, I offer "Honeysuckle" by the wonderful band orange pekoe. Their 4th single from July 2002, it was written by vocalist Tomoko Nakajima（ナガシマトモコ）and composed by guitarist and arranger Kazuma Fujimoto（藤本一馬）as this enthusiastic samba jazz number. It does rev up that feeling to race down to the beach or some summery park, so it's great for Friday when folks are most likely itching to get out of the rat race for the weekend. The song was also placed onto the band's 2nd album"Modern Lights" from July 2003.
Hope you are enjoying your Sunday today. To be honest, it's looking a little threatening out there in the GTA; the weather forecasters have been predicting some showers followed by sun. But wherever you are, may good fortune shine on you, meteorologically or otherwise.
Perhaps some orange pekoe (the brand of tea and/or the Japanese duo) might help some of you going through the post-Sunday breakfast stupor get back up and running. I don't have the tea but the duo is helping out just fine with "Love Life", a track from their May 2002 debut album"Organic Plastic Music". Written by vocalist Tomoko Nakajima（ナガシマトモコ）and composed by guitarist Kazuma Fujimoto（藤本一馬）, there's some infusion of samba and happy bass-led jazz which seems to have come out from some French bar circa 1960s.
It's always a good thing when I hear a song for the first time and a riff in it sticks in your head for all of dinner and dessert later on in the evening.
The song this time around is orange pekoe's 7th single"Song Bird" from May 2004, and the earworm phrase is vocalist Tomoko Nakajima's（ナガシマトモコ）little scat in the refrain. Everything surrounding that phrase is also quite golden, too. Nakajima provided the vocals while her partner Kazuma Fujimoto（藤本一馬）came up with the peppy melody filled with Nakajima, wire-brush drumming and jazzy guitar-strumming. It's the type of song that's good when some nasty weather comes along, and that is indeed what happened an hour or so ago when even my city of Toronto had a tornado watch for a while. Brings some needed sunshine through the clouds.
"Song Bird" only got as high as No. 72 which I think is a bit of a shame for a casual jazz bird like myself, but the album which also contains the song, "Poetic Ore ~ Invisible Beautiful Realism"（ポエティック・オー）did hit No. 10 after its release in July of that year. Wouldn't mind some of that jazz/pop sound coming to the fore in mainstream Japanese pop music. For some of that Big Band feeling, try out orange pekoe's"Gokurakucho ~ Bird of Paradise"（極楽鳥）.
The songs by orange pekoe that I've posted in the past have been categorized as both jazz and Shibuya-kei, and that's only two of the genres that identify this band from Hyogo Prefecture. Kazuma Fujimoto and Tomoko Nakajima（藤本一馬・ナガシマトモコ）have also brought Latin, Indie Pop and the general J-Pop to the fore, but this particular single is absolutely pure joyous jazz.
Being an old swing fan, I really like orange pekoe's 6th single"Gokurakucho" from May 2003. It's the type of song that would get me thinking of those days back in Japan when I really got into the swing (pun intended) of things when it came to jazz. I've always appreciated modern takes on the old stuff (yes, I'm fully aware that the single came out 15 years ago). And "Gokurakucho" is one of those numbers that probably could get the folks back in the day to snap their fingers and hit the dance floor.
If the usual pattern holds true, then Fujimoto composed the song while Nakajima wrote the lyrics and provided her snazzy vocals. "Gokurakucho" reached No. 25 on Oricon and was also included on orange pekoe's 2nd album "Modern Lights" from July 2003. That peaked at No. 6.
Supposedly there was one of those Supermoon phenomena out there last night. I took a look outside and there was something breaking or trying to break out of the cloud cover but it wasn't exactly Supermoon. It was more along the lines of Fuzzymoon and it didn't seem too big to me. 😏 No matter. There is another Supermoon heading our way next month although the folks are saying that it won't be quite as big.
Earlier this morning, the broadcast satellite wing of NHK (called NHK-BS...oh, how I laughed at that moniker when it was first introduced) had its news program in which the anchors were all gushing about Supermoon making its presence known in a number of places across Japan.
However, beyond the gushing was the background song for the feature which was orange pekoe's"Yawaraka na Yoru" (Gentle Night). Then it was the Twitter feeds crawling from right to left at the bottom of the screen that were gushing. And why not? orange pekoe came up with another gentle beauty of a song.
"Yawaraka na Yoru" is orange pekoe's 2nd single from February 2002 and unlike their debut single of "Taiyo no Kakera"（太陽のかけら）, their second entry stresses a bit more on the jazz side of things...just like Ego-Wrappin'. In fact, the melody by guitarist Kazuma Fujimoto（藤本一馬）reminded me a bit of "Waltz For Debby" by the legendary Bill Evans. Meanwhile, vocalist Tomoko Nakajima's（ナガシマトモコ）lyrics are insistent on de-stressing from the pains in life...just enjoy the evening from the veranda while sipping some milk tea. Nothing better than that during a weeknight...and perhaps the tea was orange pekoe? 😉
All in all, it's one relaxing tune. And it did even better business than "Taiyo no Kakera" by getting as high as No. 36. Both songs are on the duo's debut album"Organic Plastic Music" from May 2002.
While I'm at it, here is "Waltz for Debby". I bought a compilation disc of Bill Evans' material one day at the old Virgin Records megastore in East Shinjuku which was the very first jazz CD that I ever bought.
A few weeks back, I wrote on paris match's "Saturday" which was this sunny and groovy driving tune from the early 2000s. As I stated there, one of my students had suggested the band to me as a cool unit with that mix of bossa and jazz.
Well, another band with an aversion to capital letters from the same time and in the same genre that I've heard is orange pekoe. Unlike paris match, though, I never got an album or single by them, but my recent purchase of "Light Mellow -- Dancing" has a track by them which is incidentally their 1st single from August 2001. "Taiyo no Kakera" (Pieces of a Sun) launches right off the bat with vocalist and lyricist Tomoko Nakajima's（ナガシマトモコ）scatting before this happy jazz riff takes things into the stratosphere. I do love that frenetic bass! Nakajima's guitar-playing partner, Kazuma Fujimoto（藤本一馬）took care of the music and some of the instruments although that old-fashioned bass was handled by Tatsu Kase（加瀬達...hope that's the right reading）. Time to run gleefully along the shore.
Before hearing about this duo, orange pekoe to me was the type of tea that I used to have every morning for breakfast as a kid. Not that my family was a bunch of Anglophiles, mind you, but it was what we all drank for many years and still do from time to time (coffee's usually the thing for us now). The duo orange pekoe was formed when Nakajima and Fujimoto met as grad students at Kwansei Gakuin University in Osaka, and then started doing the rounds at cafes and live houses, before coming out with "Taiyo no Kakera". The single itself managed to peak at No. 95 on the Oricon weeklies but it was also on their debut album, "Organic Plastic Music" which was released in May 2002. It soared up to No. 5 on the album charts and ended the year as the 75th-ranked album.
