Cowboy Bebop Original Soundtrack 1

COWBOY BEBOP
ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK 1
Copyright © Sunrise
VICL-60201
21 May 1998
¥ 3,045

—by C. Scott Rider

1. Tank! 3:30

2. Rush 3:34

3. Spokey Dokey 4:04

4. Bad Dog No Biscuits 4:09

5. Cat Blues 2:35

6. Cosmos 1:36

7. Space Lion 7:10

8. Waltz for Zizi 3:29

9. Piano Black 2:47

10. Pot City 2:14

11. Too Good Too Bad 2:34

12. Car 24 2:49

13. The Egg and I 2:42

14. Felt Tip Pen 2:39

15. Rain 3:23

16. Digging My Potato 2:34

17. Memory 1:31

All music arranged and produced by Kanno Youko

Put on your seatbelts and grab your beret; this ride is a wild one. Dig?
From Sunrise studios and producer Minami Masahiko comes the retro-feel COWBOY BEBOP TV series, a sort of LUPIN for the next generation. With Minami at the wheel of the same vehicle that brought us ESCAFLOWNE in 1996, COWBOY BEBOP is certain to be a hit. Sunrise, backed by the enormous capital of the toy company Bandai, has again achieved a remarkable aim with BEBOP ands its high production values.
From the name COWBOY BEBOP alone can be inferred the atmosphere of the show. Aside from being the name of leading character Spike Spiegel's ship, the term "Bebop" describes a jazz music style that presented a radical departure from the traditional swing/foxtrot/big-band sound of the early 1920s through the 1940s. BEBOP is to jazz what the late 1960s-early 1970s progressive sound was to rock and roll. Unlike the rock sound, which tends to pound its rhythms into the listener, BEBOP is very cool and slick, almost sultry in its attempts to woo one's musical soul. If rock is the dog, then jazz is most certainly the cat.
Into this rich and varied history of jazz comes a new paragraph. Opening a new path in her prodigious career, composer Kanno Youko has pulled a jazz cat out of the hat with her formation of the jazz ensemble "Seatbelts" and the tracks recorded for the COWBOY BEBOP SOUNDTRACK.
This album sizzles with the very first trumpet wail. The opening track (and series' opening theme) "Tank!" almost demands respect. Few series have enjoyed a bebop jazz opening theme, but those who have seen the original JONNY QUEST or JETSONS can probably get a feel for the sound. The very chic use of bongos puts "Tank!" over the top, right up there with the opening theme of the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE TV series.
"Rush" starts off innocuously enough with Seatbelts' sax quartet, but just at the edge of fooling one into thinking that this is a big-band number the beat fires up and a wicked trombone solo carries the tune. "Bad Dog No Biscuits," with its growling brass is for that little bit of international spy in all of us. "Cat Blues" is a bit different. This is beatnik jazz, pure as it gets. With its clarinet, flute and bongo trio carrying the tune, one had better watch out, else hey will have grown a goatee by the time its over.
Ry Cooder bluesmen harmonica sound, or "Cosmos" with its sad and soulful muted Miles Davis-like trumpet pay tribute to this great style.
The seventh track, "Space Lion," is a bit of a puzzle, for it is not jazz and yet sits in the middle of an undeniably jazz album. The opening sax solo over a layer of keyboard voicings reminds this reviewer of the German sax player/composer Klaus Doldinger and his band Passport, as well as the keyboard style of composer Giorgio Moroder. (The German film THE NEVERENDING STORY uses music by Doldinger/Passport and Moroder if one needs a reference.) Halfway through the track, however, the music suddenly becomes something right off a Deep Forest album, whose composers are noted for their use of folk and tribal anthems and chants as part of their musical soundscape. At just over seven minutes — the longest track on the disc — it is a very pleasing song.
Kanno experiments with other forms in the jazz genre on BEBOP, from the zydeco-styled "Egg and I" and its African rhythmic feel to the Delta-blues inspired "Felt Tip Pen" and "Digging my Potato". The sole track with vocals, "Rain," is also a bit of a mystery. "Rain" has its basis in rock-opera. The track is rather simple, with Kanno playing pipe-organ and New York band Mr. Henry vocalist Steve Conte belting out sincere even if raspy lyrics.
Overall, seventeen tracks are here to treat the listener, spanning some 53 and a half minutes. For those who are already fans of Kanno's work, this album is doubtless reposing in their collections, but for those who want to see what all the fuss is about, or just a jazz aficionado looking for some new hot licks, here is your disc. Kanno once again demonstrates her remarkable ability to interpret a musical style, and has come up with some tracks that manage to evoke shades of the great jazz cats such as the immortal Charlie Parker or John Coltrane and even a hint of Miles Davis. One for the record shelf, definitely.