Junko Ochi

Live at Sometime November 19, 2002

Junko Ochi--vocals
Manabu Oishi--piano
Yoshihito Eto--drums
Noboru Ando--bass

Junko Ochi packs a whallop. Her notes are ripe with juicy innuendo and burst open with soulfulness. She’s a powerful singer, but delicate and tender as well. She’s also superbly in control, a rare quality in too many singers who drift along without taking charge. From the opening number, “Day by Day” she showed the band a will to make them fit her speed, tone, and phrasing. They took the cue and followed along wonderfully through both sets.

Ochi’s choice of songs and arrangements are especially good. She knows how to pace a set and order the tunes. Moving between standards and pop tunes, European folk melodies and soul, she balanced traditional flavors with modern updates. “It Might as Well Be Spring” established her jazz credentials, while “Fever” let rip with a savvy blues energy. She also dotted the set with slow ballads. “Trust in Me,” was simply lovely. Ochi mesmerized the crowd with python-like cleverness. The second-set opener, “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To,” was given an unusually slow tempo which let her voice sound out clearly and powerfully. She was the center of the evening and everyone in the band and the audience was happy to have it that way.

Her arrangements were especially good, and the band knew just what to add. Oishi’s piano drove Ochi at times in funkier directions, but at others he softened her brash energy, but he always supported and interacted closely and with great taste. Eto and Ando kept the rhythm right. The upbeat versions of Carole King’s “It’s Too Late” and Bobby Caldwell’s “What You Won’t Do For Love” stood out. Ochi’s singing fits into those arrangements with a natural comfort and a warm sense of melody drawn from blues, soul, and R&B, as much as jazz. She keeps it interesting and warm, varied and familiar, all at once.

Ochi is a natural entertainer. Her personality bubbles up with funny between-song patter and a natural sense of story-telling. Her phrasing puts in extra meaning and pulls out extra irony with every song’s story.  She also has a remarkable ability to copy the vocal styles of different performers, from Satchmo to Aretha Franklin. This talent for joking imitation would seem just an amusing trick, but it relates to her careful phrasing and personal style. She knows where she fits with her own vocal style and feels comfortable there, but is also deeply aware of how other singers work. She is hardly stuck in the past, though, but has developed her own natural style of singing. It’s a great one.