Yoko Kanno & The Seatbelts

I don't think I have ever found a more versatile collection of soundtrack albums as the Cowboy Bebop OST collection. For those of you not familiar with it, it's an anime directed by Shinichirō Watanabe and written by Keiko Nobumoto. Both whom worked correspondigly as director and writter for Macross Plus (a most badass 4 chapter world of highly sophisticated mecha fighter pilots and a self concious artificial intelligence) Cowboy Bebop  however was a little more on the silly side, as opossed to Macross's dramas. The music however is a display of highly dynamic musicians and recording artist that ends up being a compilation of incredibly well produced songs.

Starting with the original 1998 album Cowboy Bebop, my personal favorite of the series, composer and keyboardist for "The Seatbealts" -Yoko Kanno, paired up with recording engineer Rudy van Gelder (Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane etc.) to make this very jazzy and very blusy record. The result is an assortment of different styles and sounds, traveling from experimental reggea to bebop to just one harmonica blowing some soul (and as Harmonicist myself I can tell you the playing and the sound Gelder gets from them is pure reed porn)

1		Tank !
2		Rush
3		Spokey Dokey
4		Bad Dog No Biscuits
5		Cat Blues
6		Cosmos
7		Space Lion
8		Waltz For Zizi
9		Piano Black
10		Pot City
11		Too Good Too Bad
12		Car 24
13		The Egg And I
14		Felt Tip Pen
15		Rain Featuring – Steve Conte
16		Digging My Potato
17		Memory

.Musicians:

• Bass – Hitoshi Watanabe, Maki Kitada
• Drums – Yasuo Sano
• Flute – Hideyo Takakuwa, Kazuhiro Iwasa, Mika Hayashi
• Guitar – Tsuneo Imahori
• Keyboards, Composed By – Yoko Kanno
• Mastered By – Scott Hull (2)
• Percussion – Ikuo Kakehashi, Mataro Misawa
• Recorded By – Rudy Van Gelder
• Recorded By, Synthesizer – Masashi Yabuhara
• Saxophone – Masato Honda, Osamu Koike, Shigeo Fuchino, Takuo Yamamoto
• Trombone – Junko Yamashiro, Masanori Hirohara, Yoichi Murata
• Trumpet – Kouji Nishimura*, Toshio Araki, Yusuke Hayashi
• Tuba – Kiyoshi Sato
• Voice – Tim Jensen

 

 On to more experimental albums like Vitaminless or Knockin on Heaven's door Future Blues which have more sequences, more play within the mix, more synthesizers. Future Blues has some gems of itself, with more vocals the album is more on the rock side, though it has again, a mix of funk, soul, and even chamber music.

All in all, the entire collection has at least 1 gem per CD and has become a clear standard for me of what a good production can do with skilled musicians and a recording master. I give it 4 out of 5 joints

4 out of 5

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