Junko Sumi “Gingin, Giragira”
"Gingin, Giragira"
(DIW) 2002
Since I didn’t go to elementary school in Japan I’m not completely qualified to review this recording, but as a jazz lover, it’s easy to review. This is a beautiful set of songs sung by Junko Sumi with passion, integrity and love of a beautiful melody. She has recorded songs from her youth, I mean, really her youth, from age three onwards through junior high school, and transformed them into lovely jazz vocal pieces. She takes a simple song about rain and turns it into an earthy blues. She has the pianist run several bars of “Round Midnight” underneath a traditional song about the ruins of a castle and the moon. When the fat bass line opens up a Japanese nursery rhyme, it feels like a moment of genuine universal insight. All music circles around to other music. All songs seem to breathe from the same air of joy.
She’s picked her superb band from several eclectic edgy jazz bands, and they pull together like a good school group to give each other support. The backing is simple and direct, but deeply aware of how to add complex changes, instrumentation and harmonies. The harmonica, violin, tabla and African percussion work wonderfully. The vocals are strong, husky and emotional. The band is tight, bouncy, and plays in all the right proportions. This feels like a school project that really works and goes far beyond the teacher’s instructions. Especially impressive is Sumi’s English lyrics that are lovely and clear beside the Japanese originals.
One wonders what Sumi’s old music teachers would think of Sumi’s versions of the Education Ministry’s requirements. The Education Ministry of course took many of these songs out of the music curriculum, only to be replaced by pop songs. This release doesn’t feel like any political argument on education, though, but the irony of playing those songs in big-city, jazz style is potent. Sumi has far surpassed the limitations of ministry politics to create a beautiful musical statement.
The irony in all this for a foreign jazz writer is how complicated she makes simple songs, and how simple she makes complex arrangements. The irony for Japanese will be to hear how important these songs are inside Japanese culture. I’ve had a great time asking my Japanese friends and colleagues to sing the tunes. They can, but sometimes they don’t even know the titles, since they sang the songs as children and know the song perfectly, but just never learned the title. The release is also a wonderful example of how musical children can be, even after they grow up. It’s a genuine labor of love that beautifully blends the purity of Japanese children’s songs with the subtlety and power of jazz.