Fukamachi and Wada together in Digit Cafe 2005 and Super Duo Live 2022

 

Just when you think you've escaped the Jun Fukamachi addiction, you get sucked back in.  Oddly enough these came up when I begged my wife to find some of his music on the abhorrent spotify streaming service which I would never get a subscription for (because it pays artists infinitesimal royalties).

Way back when I tried to post most of his 'earlier' stuff then we found the later stuff was almost universally great too.   This came out much more recently, but note that Wada played with Fukamachi in the latter's fusion band Keep, discogged here.  I think I put up that stuff way back too?

Fukamachi passed away in 2010, so amazingly the 2005 Digit Cafe (not databased on discogs) was recorded / released when he was almost 60 years old! hard to believe he was still so proficient and virtuoso, but sad that he passed only 5 years later which seems way too young.

Unfortunately it isn't clear who the composers were on these 2, but I'm guessing it's mostly the keyboardist.  The 2 CDs have almost the same tracks but a few are different, with Digit Cafe being nice for me because studio and the Super Duo Live, info here, disappointing for me, for the same exact reason.

The title track is I think classic Fukamachi:

While the dissonant arpeggios of Accomplice, this time the live version, are out of the ballpark, as usual for anything JF related:

There is one drawback, at least for me, probably not for everyone, the improvs are way way too long and make each track almost annoying, a tendency which obviously was taken to an extreme on the live.

Back to Jun Fukamachi with 1998's Midnight Dive (with lossless)

 

Discogs information here.

I guess you can never miss with this guy, as a whole this album features composition which in places is just as good as the wonderful Daisy Chain.

L'ombre de Neptune:

More Jun Fukamachi, unbelievably, with the OST Fire Bird from 1978

It's always hard to believe there's more 1970s Fukamachi to rip though by now I should stop expressing surprise.  This performance, unfortunately, is by the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra with compositions by Jun, lacking his signature synthesizer brilliance and ambiance.  In that sense it resembles the modern music composed passages in the Woman with the Red Hat, that one of course was tempered by the fact it also had the classic 70s instrumental library/soundtrack European sound.

On the second track surprisingly a synthesizer shows up in the middle passage and is duly integrated:





However for most people the unrelenting classic orchestral sound with loud tympani instead of percussion and ever-squeaky string section unrelieved by the warm human touch of guitar and/or keyboards is a bit much.  Perhaps the descent from the ivory tower university classical stratosphere can be most appreciated in track A4:





But I'm so grateful to hear fresh examples of this brilliant, brilliant man.

Back with Jun Fukamachi's OST Mishione from 1980 and probably the last from him here

Oh boy do I love Jun Fukamachi.

This past spring and summer I listened to all his records again over and over and explored every hidden crevice and nuance in his works.  So it was important to me to collect all the tangential materials from this period, such as the early lyrical albums I posted, and more importantly the undigitized elements, such as this album, that were always far away in hard to reach places (like Japan).  The sound sample from the discogs database page for this record, in particular, sounded really attractive, you can hear it for yourself here.

Unfortunately, because the tracks are side-long for both a and b, I still haven't yet identified where that theme song type passage appears on the record, and that is partly due to my lack of patience made much worse by advancing age and loss of the ability to multitask.  The movie itself you can watch, and enjoy, if you are able to understand Japanese on-- where do you think? youtube.  But this must be one of the few times where a movie cannot be found, even in synopsis form, on imdb.

Listening to Fukamachi in detail, so to speak, only convinced me what an unrecognized genius he was, especially in this period of the early 80s when Daisy Chain and Woman with Red Hat came out, and on to Alien (which I included in one of those big packages earlier).  He was at least as inventive a composer and magnificent as keyboardist in the progressive fusion genre as the better known German Joachim Kuhn and Dutch Jasper Van't Hof and that sure ain't fair.  In particular, unlike the North American artists of a similar caliber like Herbie Hancock or Chick Corea, he had that flair for very emotional expression, dramatic musical movements, and symphonic-style (classical) composition (and you can find all these components in the soundtrack to Mishione) which as I've said repeatedly are usually European hallmarks.

Anyways, with this I think we can finally close the big musical book on the brilliant Jun Fukamachi's discography.  At least for now.

1946-2010, RIP Jun Fukamachi.

More Jun Fukamachi and probably the last one, this time for real: the rare 1982 Soundtrack to "Die Frau Mit Dem Roten Hut"

Sadly with this album I will have to close the book on the wonderful discography of Jun, who has given me, and hopefully you, so much pleasure in the last few months discovering his lost works.

From our wonderful resource the imdb,

In 1923 a Japanese comes to Munich and immediately falls in love with a street artist with a red hat, without knowing her past is. She turns to the Japanese, for the first time she thinks she has found her really great love- exotic strangers attract her. They say a lot, but they do not understand each other - but they can show their love. Nevertheless, the relationship is doomed to failure from the beginning. Disappointment, death and loss.

Not enough info in the synopsis to tell us the quality.

Clearly B1 競輪選手の死 whatever it's called introduces some really progressive composing:





The closing theme is just lovely--
Remember those days when soundtracks could have genuinely great music on a par with the best albums, not filled with has-been hits, facile radio pop songs, or generic symphonic orchestral garbage?

More Jun and possibly the last to post here: Paris Story, with Takashi Sato in 1985

Old as I am, I miss so much the kind of true art featured on this cover that was such a wonderful added feature of records from back in the day.  Many times I've mentioned how due to the constraints of the small size of CD covers and the plastic jewel cases, so much less amenable to creativity today's album covers are-- they have to be. (Then again, you could also make the case that the sixties and seventies were a golden age of creativity like the renaissance.)  I love the kind of scratchy impressionism the artist used to depict the cafe scene, like a Matisse interpreted by a somewhat depressed graffiti artist (e.g. Basquiat).  (So I went searching through the paperwork and found the artist's name: Yuzo Saeki, an early 20th century fauvist artist.  Beautiful stuff.)

This album features an instrumental (duh-?) program of compositions by Takashi Sato, a singer songwriter, played with orchestral accompaniment by Jun.  To be honest, some wordless vocals by both human males and females here.  The second track is exemplary:





Btw note the presence of Roland Romanelli, shockingly I might add, as arranger in the credits. He is responsible for some really great French library material, mostly in the electronic keyboards dept., you might recall him on these pages from some April Orchestras, numbers 38 (brilliant, with Jannick Top), and 43 (a more generic and forgettable one, if I recall).  I believe he has added a French soundtrack-like dimension to this record, reflecting the title of the album, which really pushes it over the edge for me.  You'll notice that for example on a track called Mr Blues which sounds like it came from one of those French movies in which, you know, all the actresses take all their clothes off at least once before the end credits.  Sometimes several times, each time going further, until not even a beret is left on.

Enjoy it!  And let's give thanks for the genius of Jun, whose albums have been just a never-ending series of riches and delights.

More Jun with jazz vocalist Martha Miyake in 1977

Here, unfortunately, Jun is in the background and Miyake, who sounds quite similar to my old favourite Sugano from these pages takes the stage with a bunch of cover versions.  The best rendition is the old classic (made famous perhaps by Nancy Wilson), "Guess who I saw today":





A classic song with a great story...  today on the radio it has been replaced by "I'm in love with your body-- Come on, be my baby, come on-- Come on, be my baby, come on."

More Jun with Queen Emeralda's Fantasy, from 1983

Another composer appears on two tracks, one Seiji Yokoyama.  On discogs, the following explanatory note:

Image album with new synthesizer music and rearrangements inspired by Queen Emeraldas.
released with obi and insert.

Then, pursuing the Emeraldas link, the following on wiki:

Queen Emeraldas (Japanese: クィーン・エメラルダス Hepburn: Kuīn Emerarudasu) is a manga written and illustrated by Leiji Matsumoto, which was later adapted into a four-episode anime OVA of the same name. Queen Emeraldas is the story of the pirate spaceship, Queen Emeraldas, which is captained by the mysterious and beautiful Emeraldas, a strong and powerful privateer. Sometimes, character Emereldas is referred to as Pirate Queen Emeraldas.

So it's a shame this queen wasn't able to inspire Jun more in the progressive direction, at least for us, as the Tale of the Heiki was in 1978.

The most heartbreakingly gorgeous track is probably the closer by Jun:






Note, however, the similarity in sound to the Daisy Chain masterpiece from earlier...

Back to Jun Fukamachi with his first two SSW albums (1971-1972)

The two first albums from this fusioneer star traveller were in fact within the singer-songwriter genre along the lines of solo McCartney (minus guitar) or Elton John (minus the country and blues), or, most similarly, the earlier Ken Narita masterpiece I posted not that long ago.  Though I shall then be brutally honest and declare that Fukamachi as rock/pop singer was simply not as strong altogether, surprisingly, perhaps explaining why he changed lanes into high speed fusion in the mid-70s.

So you can quickly get an impression on your own here's the second track from the 1971 album, notice the acoustic piano plus vocals style, enhanced by some nice fuzzy guitar colors:





Listening to this again it just amazes me what a profound influence Paul McCartney had on pop music.  Note the echoey vocals (a la Wyatt on Soft Machine) in the middle too. The whole album follows along the same lines really, with occasional discrepancies of more bluesy or symphonic (added strings) compositions, some slight jazz touches here and there, definitely no fusion to be found.  Nothing too stand-out-ish though.

The second album sadly continues in the same medi-mediocre vein. On track a2, the standard, very disappointing downgoing A minor chord progression (the Stairway to Heaven / While my Guitar Gently Weeps progression) aided by a nicely arranged string section, is mitigated by a very emotional chorus sung quite beautifully in the centre of this short piece:

Again, move along folks, there's no fusion to be seen here. Not that I mind well-written pop rock, there's been tons of excellent Japanese songwriting in this blog before (Tranzam, the School Band) as I'm sure you'll all agree.

Notice that it wasn't until 1975 that the fusion Saturn V exploded off the launch pad, leading to an almost unbroken decade of masterpieces from "Introducing Jun Fukamachi" to 1985's "Alien" progressive masterpiece.

Someone asked to have those big packages of semi-compleat material shot up into the cybersphere again and I'll do that so you can get everything I have in three, except these 2 albums, and except some more of the missing Fukamachi albums from that glory period which will be coming here very shortly...

Jun Fukamachi plays on the completely unknown cassette Daisy Chain, from 1983, recommended

A famous keyboardist who was also quite prolific in the era, and a lost and unknown cassette... is it like having heaven on a stick? On several tracks you will notice he achieves an impressive Jasper van t'hof-like complex meld of fusion and synthesizer melodiousness in perfect harmony.  He seems to be playing on multiple keyboards (overdubbed) with the occasional guitar accompaniment, occasionally solo, and on some tracks including rhythm section, but the result is quite enticingly full and appreciably fusion. 

As far as I can tell this wasn't released to LP, nor does it appear in the list of his releases.  What luck to have it unearthed by our wonderful musical miners...





Will these old wonders never cease?

I'll include all the other Fukamachi albums that I have on file, there are I think 20 in total, three separate files to download for limited time only. 

Albums are the following: 1975 Rokyu, 1975 Introducing, 1976 Spiral Steps, 1976 Fukamachi at Steinway (possibly incomplete), 1977 Triangle session, 1977 Sgt. Peppers, 1977 Sea of Dirac, 1977 Second Phase, 1978 Tokyo Fusion Night, 1978 On the Move, 1978 New York all stars live, 1978 Dream of Heike, 1978 Evening Star, 1980 Quark, 1982 Synth Fantasy, 1982 Solo Vol. 1, 1982 The Keep - DG, 1983 The Keep - Rockin, 1985 Alien, 1986 Nicole.

Pay attention to the 1978 Dream album, it's masterful, and probably his best work.