A playlist of songs that intrigued me from Sunday to Saturday. Week of 16 Jan 2022 to 22 Jan 2022.

WILT_2022-03

1. Is It a Crime – Sade
2. The Sweetest Taboo – Sade
3. I.G.Y. – Donald Fagen
4. If I Saw You Again – Pages
5. Livin’ It Up – Billy LaBounty
6. Perfumed Garden (Remix) – The Rah Band
7. Seabird – Alessi Brothers
8. Clouds Across the Mood – The Rah Band
9. You & I – Dabeull, Holybrune
10. L.A. Night – Yasuko Agawa
11. I Thought It Was You – 笠井 紀美子 (Kimiko Kasai), Herbie Hancock
12. Bittersweet – Lianne La Havas
13. Sunlight – 笠井 紀美子 (Kimiko Kasai), Herbie Hancock
14. BLACK JACK (ブラック・ジャック) – 加藤有紀 (Yuki Kato)
15. 人はそれぞれ – 笠井 紀美子 (Kimiko Kasai)
16. Sweet Power of Your Embrace – James Mason
17. レティシア – Akira Inoue

Hyperlink to Spotify playlist: WILT_2022-03

Notes

I started down this path of listening after watching this video A Perfect Bass Line (With Only TWO Notes) by YouTuber, pdbass.

If you want to know what its like to ache for someone longingly, then Sade’s Is It a Crime evokes jazz-noir scenes of a smokey club where a singer dripping with sensuality reaches deep into a memory to conjure a longing, while her band guides her along a path one lamp post at a time, until finally the saxophone blares to life as we jump cut manically between memory, illusion, and reality.

From Sade, I checked out Donald Fagen’s album, Nightfly, also at the recommendation of pdbass, and that’s where Anthony Jackson’s superb playing on I.G.Y. can be heard.

Along the way, I decided to rely on Spotify’s radio function for recommendations and that’s where tracks like Perfume Garden, Seabird, and many more stood out for their musicality and innovation.

I am really into some of the chord voicings found on Clouds Across the Mood, coupled with outlandish syncopations, synth parts, and sample-laden adlibs that add a fun, self-referencing 70’s sci-fi flavour to this upbeat song.

The bass line on Sunlight is so full of energy, and the way Kimiko Kasai scats at the end alongside Hancock’s keyboard playing is simply jaw-dropping.

Somewhere along Friday afternoon, the playlist shifted toward city pop again because that was what was being recommended to me. I suppose we can see the co-development and similarity between Japan and America in this time period as Japan became increasingly influenced by western pop and jazz, and at the same time, masterful American session musicians were also starting to perform and record in Japan.

Through this playlist, it is quite apparent to me that this style of music that was prominent in the late 70’s and throughout the 80’s, that while developed in different musical scenes, there was a lot of cross-pollination of ideas and techniques, and they were also able to develop their own distinct flavours that can still be enjoyed in the present day.