[Song Review #210EX] "Lady Violetta" by Yonin-Bayashi
Hi. It's an instrumental time.
Today's song is "Lady Violetta" (A Song For Lady Violetta, 1976 album version) by "Yonin Bayashi".
This is a relaxing instrumental ballad featuring the acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and flute.
The fans of Light & mellow music might enjoy listening to a slow & gentle instrumental tune like this at home in a cold winter day like today.
The running time of this track is more than 7 minutes, but never felt such long, perhaps because of its outstanding tranquil atmosphere.
The performing group is "Yonin Bayashi" (Four membered musical band) which is a legendary progressive rock band representing Japanese rock scene of the '70s.
If you like, please try.
Links to the music shops, offering song samples, are located on the bottom of this page.
Some contents have been put away in tabs with "▶" mark in each section, so please click it to see.
We are now working on improving appearances of our posts.
If you find anything odd, please kindly let us know.
Thank you.
Cover art today
Song data
| Title | Lady Violetta |
|---|---|
| Artist | Yonin Bayashi |
| Album Title | |
| Catalog Number | CSCL-1245 |
| Track No. | 6 |
| Duration | 7:09 |
| Released | 1976 |
| Publisher | |
| Lyricist | Instrumental music |
| Composer | |
| Arranger |
About the creators
Instrumental music Lyricist
This is an instrumental music, and there is no lyrics for this song.
Katsutoshi Morizono Composer & Arranger
"Katsutoshi Morizono" is a Rock, Jazz guitarist, composer, arranger, music producer, and a member of a legendary progressive rock band "Yonin Bayashi" active since 1971.
Early times
The articles on several web sites say "Morizono" began to play the guitar in middle school.
In around 1969, he happened to meet with the future key members of "Yonin Bayashi" in high school. And in 1971, "Morizono formed a new rock band "Yonin Bayashi" with 3 other members, and started his music career as a professional.
"Morizono" came up big as a guitarist & vocalist of "Yonin Bayashi", and contributed to the band to release two albums (excl.pre-debut album) until 1976.
But in 1976, "Morizono" decided to leave "Yonin Bayashi" to explore his own music further.
Work with others
In 1976, "Morizono" joined a newly formed Fusion band "Prism", a guitarist "Akira Wada" led, as another guitarist.
He recorded & released two excellent albums as a member of "Prism". And in 1978, just after released the second album, "Morizono" withdraw from the band.
Afterwards, he participated in various bands or special sessions, like "Tetsu Yamauchi & Goodtime rolls band", "Juliet" (a unique rock band from Yokosuka), or "Guitar Workshop" as a guest basis in the '70s.
Later, he also collaborated with the bands, or musicians like, "Novela", "Johnny Yoshinaga", "Masami Tsuchiya", "MALTA", "tRICK bAG", or "Mari Kaneko" until recent.
As a solo
As a solo musician, "Morizono" launched his first album "Bad Anima" in 1978.
Since then, he has released seven solo albums until now.
Return to "Yonin Bayashi"
Around 2001, "Morizono" restarted the band activity as "Yonin Bayashi" together with 3 other old members.
After that, the band is holding live concert regularly until recent, though the core member "Masahide Sakuma" passed away in 2014.
For more details about him, please have look at the references linked below.
-
(Ref: www.4nin.com,
history)🇯🇵
Song image & Lyrics
Open
Link to the lyrics
Copyright notice on the lyrics link
Sound impression
Relaxing instrumental ballad
This is a mellow, much relaxing instrumental ballad with a hint of wildness, and sprinkled with various artistic phrases.
Melodious
The ensemble of the drums, bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitars (lead, side), and electric piano begin an impressive introduction calmly.
In the first half of the main part, the acoustic guitar & electric guitar play a melodious main passage in unison. Then, the electric guitar takes a lead, and plays the main melody more freely like doing an improvisation.
In the bridge, the flute & percussions also join, and the flute performs an inspiring solo play.
Musicians
Musicians playing this piece are as follows.
- A. guitar, E. guitar
- Katsutoshi Morizono (Yonin Bayashi)
- Electric Bass
- Masahide Sakuma (Yonin Bayashi)
- Drums
- Daiji Okai (Yonin Bayashi)
- Keyboard
- Hidemi Sakashita (Yonin Bayashi)
- Flute, Percussions
- Motoya Hamaguchi (Guest)
Origin of the name "Yonin Bayashi"
By the way, their band name "Yonin Bayashi" (Four membered traditional style musical band) is almost certainly a pun for "Gonin Bayashi" (Five membered traditional style musical band) which is well known as a part of "Hina doll" set.
Traditionally in Japan, the 3rd March is the day for "Hina-matsuri" festival which is held to pray for the healthy growth of all girls.
On "Hinamatsuri" day, the families with small girls display a set of "hina dolls", which is often called "Hina Kazari" (Hina decoration) or "Hina ningyō" (Hina doll), for their children. The picture below is an example of "Hina Kazari".
"Hina-kazari" usually have multiple tiers, and the dolls are tiered on the platforms in a set order.
As you see, there are five male dolls on the 3rd tier, and the most of them are holding, and playing an instrument.
They are a musical band for the emperor & empress, who are sitting on top. And the band is called "Gonin Bayashi" [Lit: A traditional style band (O-hayashi) of five members (Go-nin)], naturally because the band has five musicians.
For more detailed information about "Hina-matsuri", please have a look at the Wikipedia page, "Hina-matsuri.
Reference
About Google translate
About the artist
Yonin Bayashi Influential Rock band
"Yonin Bayashi" is a 4-piece progressive Rock group formed in 1971.
It is one of the most influential progressive rock band in Japan, and representing the Japanese rock scene of the '70s.
The band released their first album "Isshoku-Sokuhatsu" (Explosive Situation) in 1974. Since then, 5 singles, and 7 original, 4 live, and 5 best albums have been launched until now.
(Ref: Wikipedia-en, Yonin Bayashi )
Early times
The origin of the rock band "Yonin Bayashi" stretches back to a session team formed by "Katsutoshi Morizono" (Guitar) and "Daiji Okai" (Drums) when they were students in high school in the late '60s.
"Okai" and "Morizono" then recruited band members through a music magazine, and a bassist "Shinichi Nakamura" joined as the third member.
Soon afterwards, "Morizono" invited his schoolmate "Hidemi Sakashita" for a band keyboardist, and "Sakashita" also joined.
Then, the four members teamed up a new band "Yonin Bayashi" in 1970.
Even as each member of the band was still a high school student, "Yonin Bayashi" began to play a live stages in various venues around Tokyo together with many other professional bands.
And soon, the excellent performance of "Yonin Bayashi" came to be recognized by fans and professionals in the music scene.
Pre-debut
In 1973, the band received a request to write & perform screen music for a documentary drama film, "Nijyussai-no genten" (My origin at the age of 20), even they had not released any albums before.
The music production was not fully under control of "Yonin Bayashi", but the band smartly completed this job.
The film music was later released as a soundtrack album of the same title. Then, this album unexpectedly became a debut album of "Yonin Bayashi". (Therefore, fans and the members of the band call this album "Pre-debut", since some part of the album was not under control of them.)
First album
Finally in 1974, "Yonin Bayashi" released their first album, "Isshoku-Sokuhatsu" (Explosive Situation) from TŌHŌ record.
"Isshoku-Sokuhatsu" contained 6 songs including a 12 minutes plus track "Isshoku-Sokuhatsu". It was a brilliant progressive rock album, and soon gained acclaim from fans and critics.
And thanks to this remarkable success, "Yonin Bayashi" quickly became a rising new rock star.
It might be the reason for these, but in 1975, "Yonin Bayashi" was selected as a opening band on a great hard rock band "Deep Purple"s "Nippon Budō-kan" concert.
In 1976, "Yonin Bayashi" again performed as a opening band on a Japan tour of a big name foreign rock band, namely "Rainbow" (Blackmore's) .
(Explosive Situation) Yonin Bayashi 1974, 2002 [New & Used CD]
Golden Picnics
In 1976, "Yonin Bayashi" launched their second album, "Golden Picnics" from CBS Sony record.
The new album gave a more refined & stylish impression to the listeners compared with the first album.
But it was equally excellent, and with no doubt, this was also a great work by "Yonin Bayashi".
The band gained enthusiastic praise once again with their second album "Golden Picnics", and established their position as a super rock band, even all the members were still young, in other words, only 22-23 years old at that time.
However, "Yonin Bayashi" announced a surprising news immediately after the album release, saying "Katsutoshi Morozono", the guitarist, vocalist, and front man of the band, was leaving the team.
Break & Restart
In 1977, "Yonin Bayashi" welcomed "Mitsuru Satō" as a new guitarist & vocalist of the band.
Since then, three studio albums, namely, "Printed Jelly", "Bāo", and "NEO-N" were launched until 1980.
Around 1980, "Yonin Bayashi" stopped activity as a band, and started a temporary break.
Although there was a sporadic resume in 1989, this break was lasted until the reunion of original members in 2001.
Since then, the group is focusing on live performances through collaborations or join sessions with many other rock bands, rather than releasing albums.
Regrettably, some of current, and past members of "Yonin Bayashi" has passed away in recent 20 years.
But seemingly, the band is continuing their activity in a way that they can do.
Nijyussai-no genten
This is just a side story, but for "Yonin Bayashi", their 1974 album "Isshoku-Sokuhatsu" (Explosive Situation) is regarded as their debut album, and the members of the band also nod their heads yes.
But it is also true that "Yonin Bayashi" recorded a sound track album, "Nijyussai-no genten" (My origin at the age of twenty) in 1973 for a docudrama film of the same title, about the life of the female college student lived in the student protest era in the '60s.
And this album is categorised as a "Pre-debut", since no member thinks this as a debut album, because they could not pour full power into this album, due to many constraints they had when recording.
Interestingly, our writer "Satsuma" saw this movie at a second-run theatre in the early '80s, and he was impressed by its back ground music.
But he did not immediately realise that "Yonin Bayashi" was playing some of those bluesy, but melodious pieces of music.
He learned the fact some 20 years later, and was shocked because he had been familiar with the band.
Anyway, for that reason, people often pay less attention to this sound track album, but there is certainly a smell of early "Yonin Bayashi" & "Morizono".
If you are a core fan of them, please try.
Lady Violetta
This is also a side story, but "Katsutoshi Morozono", a guitarist of "Yonin Bayashi" recently (2020) released an instrumental album titled "Lady Violetta".
As the title suggests, this is an album specialized for a "Morizono"'s guitar instrumental tune "Lady Violetta" (A song for Lady Violetta), and contains 10 different versions of this song recorded from 1976 to 2004.
A sweet-sounding instrumental tune, "Lady Violetta" was originally composed by a "Yonin Bayashi" member, "Katsutoshi Morizono", after he inspired by an American artist, "Maxfield Parrish"'s painting "Lady Violetta about to make tarts".
for their new album "Golden Picnics" released in 1976.
The song became hugely popular among fans, and "Morizono" himself also liked this.
So even afterwards, "Morizono" played this song in various occasions, with various members. Those performances were recorded, and some were already released in several albums, but some had not been until now.
In an interview, "Morizono" was mentioning, that he looks the picture of "Lady Violetta" more like "Mona Lisa" than real "Mona Lisa". Because he feels the expression of "Lady Violetta" is more mysterious than "Mona Lisa".
"Morizono" wished to portray the flashes of inspiration he had from "Lady Violetta" in music. This might have driven him to write such a cool & mellow tune.
For more details about this album, please look at this special page on "Lady Violetta, barks.jp" thought the article is written in Japanese. (Please use a translator.)
References
For more details about "Yonin Bayashi", please have a look at the references linked below.
-
(Ref: www.4nin.com,
history)🇯🇵
Video clip
We looked for some music clips related to today's song "Lady Violetta", but so far no success.
So, we would like to introduce a music clip of a nice pop instrumental track "Buendia" from "Yonin Bayashi"'s 1975 single record, instead of them.
(This single record titled, "Sora-tobu enban-ni Otouto-ga notta-yo" [My younger brother boarded a UFO.] contained two songs. They have been included in "Yonin Bayashi"'s first album "Isshoku Sokuhatsu" since the 2002 reissue.
"Buendia" is one of the known pop instrumental tunes of "Yonin Bayashi" together with "Lady Violetta", though both are rather exceptional from the basic style of the band. (a lot harder)
The song is just like walking in a fresh air before noon on a sunny day.
If you like, please listen to.
Music Samples
6
(試聴する)
AD: Listening samples (Free)
Amazon JP(en)
recochoku.jp
music.apple.com (Track No.6)
Japanese Letters
| Song Title | レィディ・ヴィオレッタ(Lady Violetta) |
|---|---|
| Artist | 四人囃子(Yonin Bayashi ) |
| Album Title | ゴールデン・ピクニックス(GOLDEN PICNICS) |
Comments