Japanese jazz fusion takes over the city pop boom
What comes after the city pop boom turns out to be the jazz fusion music of Japan. As music lovers around the world are now rediscovering the Japanese music born in the 70s and 80s more than ever, groundbreaking compilations have come into the scene. These compilations are a joint project among five major companies, and five CDs compiled from all their available resources are released at the same time. They are titled with Crossover City.
All are planned, selected, and contextualized by Hitoshi Kurimoto, a music writer known as the author of The Basics of City Pop Can Be Found in These 100 Albums! Some of the songs are familiar to those who enjoyed them when they were new. And some have been physically dead and yet never streamed until this revival. Together with these popular and rare tracks, you will fully enjoy the essence of once-thriving J-Fusion. The cover art is designed by Stereo Tennis known for their artworks evoking pop culture in the 80s.
Each title of five compilations is titled by five record companies. Crossover City: Asayake from Sony Records includes Cassiopea’s signature song, “Asayake” and major songs of The Square (T-Square), Himiko Kikuchi, and Katsumi Horii are also included.
Bon Voyage from King Records displays popular tracks of such artists as Toshiyuki Honda, Katsutoshi Morizono, Yoshiaki Masuo, with additions of rare tracks of Hang Raiji, chosen from the label Electric Bird of King Records.
Mint Breeze is from Universal Records, impressed by the remarkable selections from Izumi Kobayashi, Masayoshi Takanaka, Masaru Imada, to Goro Noguchi.
The one from Victor Entertainment is titled as Misty Morning and shows distinguished qualities of such fusion music by Terumasa Hino, Sadao Watanabe, Yuji Ohno’s You & Explosion Band, and Kangaroo, known only to serious music lovers.
Nippon Columbia presents the compilation with the title of Park Avenue and collects riveting numbers of such exactly Japanese fusion artists as Katsumi Watanabe, Chikara Ueda & The Power Station, and Chika Asamoto.
These five compilations vary with distinguished line-ups of artists, and convey the amazing quality of music, which brings a happy atmosphere of the time when the music was born. Along with that feeling and chances to meet up with the best music, I am sure you will be the captive of the J-Fusion more than anyone, without noticing.
