TIN PAN ALLEY – TIN PAN ALLEY

Description

The self-titled Tin Pan Alley debut LP brought together Haroumi Hosono, Masataka Matsutoya, Shigeru Suzuki, Tatsuo Hayashi to deliver an excellent and varied LP. Starting with Caramel Rag, a piano track that pays homage to the original Tin Pan Alley, it quikcly moves into Chopper’s Boogie, which gets funky fast. From there, Hosono and the rest of the crew nimbly navigate between styles. There is a good reason this LP is well respected and always in demand, it is a great LP.

This pressing of Tin Pan Alley’s self-titled debut is an “import” from the Italian label Life Goes On Records. But we want to be sure to get this into the hands of whoever wants to hear Tin Pan Alley. So here it is.

Tin Pan Alley is the name given to a collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century. It originally referred to a specific place: West 28th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in the Flower District of Manhattan. Haruomi Hosono (Apryl Fool, Happy End, Yellow Magic Orchestra), Masataka Matsutoya (music producer, arranger, keyboard player and composer married to popstar Yumi Arai), Shigeru Suzuki (also guitarist in Happy End) and drummer Tatsuo Hayashi (later on in fusion prog-bands such as Aragon and Parachute) took the name for granted. Their 1975 self-titled debut is still one of the most sophisticated venture in the so-called city pop scene.