Monday Michiru Corner

[rostasi]

That's Monday?

Surprisingly so, yes! It's inside the Maiden Japan booklet.

[PHILLYQ]

Oh man! She's principled! Gotta love her (more) for that!

Used to like her mom's work, but she pissed me off big time

when I read her very unkind and generalised comments

about Sun Ra and his band.

Rostasi,

What did Toshiko say about Sun Ra?

[chris olivarez]

Thanks for the heads up.

[chris olivarez]

She's cute.

She certainly is. We have a mutual friend and back in the early 90's I saw her quite regularly in a little Brazilian bar in Tokyo. Fun times

If you ever see her again ask her if a US distribution deal is in the pipline?

[JSngry]

The only American distribution outlet so far, and just for the newest stuff:

http://www.artistshare.com/artist_project_...tID=20&langID=1

Edited 15 Apr 2006 by JSngry

[rostasi]

What did Toshiko say about Sun Ra?

I don't remember the exact statements, but it was enough to make me stop buying her stuff after Road Time.

I'm trying to remember even how or where I came across her comments -

maybe back in my Down Beat reading days...or a radio interview...

but, anyway, it was along the lines of Sun Ra being an embarrassment to jazz

...can't play...he and his band were a sham...that kind of thing, you know?

It was much more than just not caring for his music,

but a lengthy all-out assault of many words.

Out of curiosity, I may check some things like past issues of Down Beat (I think in the mid-70's), et al.

Rod

[JSngry]

Just got into Optimista, and if there's been a more purely delirious album of Brazillian/Latin/Jazz-Pop made in the last 20 or so years, I've yet to hear it.

Monday Michiru is rocking my world.

[jazzbo]

Man, must be great stuff!

Hopefully I can get home soon, unseal an envelope, and get my world rocked!

Meanwhile I'm enjoying a live Andy Bey radio performance!

[Free For All]

Just received Optimista myself- now I have that and 4 Seasons. I'm going to digest those two for awhile. I listened to 4 Seasons on my road trip a few days ago and really enjoyed it. Besides her engaging singing I'm really digging the arrangements. Her husband Alex Sipiagin makes some great contributions. My first impression (before knowing it was him) was "here's a cat who is into Woody Shaw!". Later on he had a Milesean moment that was also impressive.

Her voice (IMHO) is reminiscent of Flora Purim at times, Chaka Khan at times, Esther Satterfield (remember her?) at times. The tunes are (once again, IMHO) also at times reminiscent of the early RTF stuff.

It's sure fun to get excited about something new!

[JSngry]

Yeah, Sipiagin definitely seems like an arranger to be reckoned with. I'd love to hear him do some more arrangements for some other projects, maybe even other singers. But I don't know of too many singers who could hang with his charts. He makes some significant contributions to Routes as well, as both player and arranger.

He and Monday make a helluva team. Between her songs (never mind the production & arrangements, they're great songs, period) and his arrangements (never missed when they're not there, but when they are, they stand out immediately, in the best way), this is a team that is making some significant music.

But ultimately, it's Monday's show. The woman has skills, if you know what I mean, and she's got a spirit. She's indeed "reminiscent" of a lot ot things, but I really dig how she ultimately adds her own twists and upgrades and ends up sounding not at all "retro". Whatever she starts with, she ends up turning it into her own.

Case in point - 1994's Maiden Japan, from her club/acid-jazz/whateveryou callit days.

Probably more electronic/techno/etc than most here would feel comfortable with, but it's still an incredibly musical album. This ain't no "diva" being propped up by artifice and cast as a idealized "object", this is a woman with something serious to say saying it in her own way and on her own terms. Ain't no bullshit going on here.

America, wake the hell up!

Edited 19 Apr 2006 by JSngry

[Soul Stream]

I haven't heard the record, or even heard of it until now. That said, I often wonder how much of the female singer's looks play into how well a male enjoys the music. Many times after a gushing musical review on this site of a woman's music, the dude reviewing it often ends with the tag..."Oh yeah, and she's SUPER hot!" No offense Jim, just curious.

[clifford_thornton]

I was gonna say...

(not that I'm not guilty as well, mind you)

Zana is out of control, however. When's she getting a record deal?

[JSngry]

Well, yeah, she's beautiful. Very beautiful in fact.

But her music is great, period. She could look like Sophie Tucker and I'd still be gushing about it.

Look - I've been around, personally and professionally, more than a few beautiful female musicians. Some had skills and looks, and some just had looks. but none of them have had the skills that Monday Michiru has. The closet would be Pat Peterson, who never really decided to go where she could have gone if she had really wanted to go there). If all That Monday Michiru had was good looks and "decent" skills, I'd be saying, "hey, this is some really cool pop music" and let it go at that.

But it's more than that. There's some songwriting skills here that are pretty damn deep. And some producition skills to go with it. Teena Marie kinda comes to mind, but Monday's a helluva lot more developed (musically & spiritually) than Teena Marie ever was. Teena Marie never got past the "super hip white funk chick" thing. Monday's into the fuckin' world, man, and she's not afraid of music - any kind of music.

Yeah, she's a stunningly beautiful woman. But she's also a stunningly beautiful artist. I'm old enough to know the difference.

[Soul Stream]

I'll have to check this out...for SURE. Thanks Jim.

[Soul Stream]

I just got the free download off her site. Can't say I dug what I heard from that cut. Sounded like a lesser version of Maria Muldau to my ear, and a little pitchy in places. Not that that bothers me, but I'm not sure the hippy-time lyrics and "morning-sunrise-come-soccer mom" scat were killing me either. I don't know... not my thing.

[clifford_thornton]

Yeah, she's a stunningly beautiful woman. But she's also a stunningly beautiful artist. I'm old enough to know the difference.

This sorta sounds like something Dusty would carry. I may have to check it out; the Celestrial Communications Orchestra doesn't seem to be getting me too far with the ladies around here.

Still, in their day, Becky Friend and Zusaan Fasteau were pretty smokin,' in both the musical and extra-musical categories... so I hear what yer sayin', sort of!

[JSngry]

I just got the free download off her site. Can't say I dug what I heard from that cut. Sounded like a lesser version of Maria Muldau to my ear, and a little pitchy in places. Not that that bothers me, but I'm not sure the hippy-time lyrics and "morning-sunrise-come-soccer mom" scat were killing me either. I don't know... not my thing.

Yeah, that download doesn't do too much for me either. Why that's the one being offered, I don't know.

But there's a lot more to what she does than that one song...

[clifford_thornton]

"That One Song" is always the conversational kiss-of-death. Better to investigate further, or not at all!

[JSngry]

If all That Monday Michiru had was good looks and "decent" skills, I'd be saying, "hey, this is some really cool pop music" and let it go at that.

I finally found a Monday Michiru album about which I can say that - Delicious Poison. It's a really, really good album of "retro" 70's-style funk a la Rufus, but for me it lacks that magic that the other Michiru sides I've heard have. A few songs hit the zone, and make no mistake it's very good, but on the whole, this album is "pleasant" rather than magic.

And magic those other albums do indeed have. I've particularly been obsessing over a cut on Optimista called "Oasis" that's just freakin' nuts. It's sorta like what Zawinul & Shorter might've come up with in WR's prime if they had been 20 years younger (but with the same skills) and had been interested in creating pop music (I can hear the snickering from Whiethall already ). The chords are ultra hip, with some totally out-of-left field shifts in key centers; the melody's irresistible, totally "pop", which means that it sticks in your mind and tickles it relentlessly, yet it is a melody, emminently singable/hummable; the arrangement is fully sophiticated, with horn parts that only somebody with a jazzmind would think to create on a pop song; and the groove is strong - it doesn't beat you into submission, it seduces you by bypassing any and all "centers of resistance" and going straight to your nerve centers. It's a truly giddy experience, this song is, a source of one of the more undefinable musical pleasure I've had in quite a while.

So yeah, Monday Michiru ain't flawless, nor am I so blinded by her beauty that I can't tell the merely pleasant from the truly great. But lordylordylordy, when she's great, she's damn great.

[Bright Moments]

so i picked up this one:

short but good. surprised nobody mentioned it yet.

so am i in the club?

[JSngry]

so i picked up this one:

short but good. surprised nobody mentioned it yet.

so am i in the club?

Haven't heard that one. What's the story on it? Did you find it online or local? It looks like it'd be sorta acid/techno/whatever, which, based on the little of that aspect of her I've heard, she does really well.

Yeah - if you hear her as anything other than a scatting soccer mom, I'd say you're in the club.

[rostasi]

That's a single..I think?

Rod

[Bright Moments]

its 6 songs actually. a little less than 30 minutes. all quite enjoyable.

picked it up from amazon.com used

[jazzbo]

Having my first listens to "Routes" and "4 Seasons."

I can begin to see why Jim has become a bit. . .obsessed!

[jazzbo]

Well, I've been enjoying "4 Seasons."

I like how she's not afraid to be positive and pretty in her music and lyrics. And I love the way she has put together a host of elements and yet the results aren't collages and pastiches but a real organic growing together of things, things mingling and becoming one as they grow towards that sunny light from the dirt.

This is a really really fine release. I hear bits of Stevie Wonder, even bits of Pharoah Sanders. And lots of Monday.

Thanks be to Jim for pointing the way.