Mercury Records Collection: PPS-2031: Far East Goes Western

PPS-2031: Far East Goes Western / Tak Shindo

Label Type :	gold f:35d PPS type B
Matrix Number :	SIDE-A	PPS-2031A M2 FF
	SIDE-B	PPS-2031B M2 FF

Comments

Gatefold cover.

With original Mercury inner sleeve.

Cut-out hole on the bottom-left corner.

An spine-chilling great sound. Awesome monaural recording!

Inside The Groove

An unique mixture of C&W-flavoured percussive sound with many Japanese instruments - maybe what Euro-American of that time thought “exotic” :) Another side of Space-Age music!

Personal Impression (and brief notes)

Tak Shindo (1922-2002), who was an American-born Japanese, graduated from Los Angeles State Collage and the University of Southern California. He had studied jazz with Spud Murphy, oriental music with Dr. Shigeo Kishibe in Tokyo, and classical form with Halsey Stevens and Ingolf Dahl.

Then he started to work with TV / movie studios, and his name became gradually popular among musicians and producers. Quincy Jones, one of the key-people of the Mercury label, suggested him to record Tak Shindo's own album. This is the one.

With the help of Bill Holman and Johnny Mandel, Tak Shindo wrote scores of American cowboy west tunes, using full of Japanese and Chinese instrumentation. The result on this album sounds very attractive even for us Japanese :) It all owes to Tak Shindo's marvellous arrangements and fruitful knowledge of Euro-American and Japanese music.

A very interesting and invaluable album, along with his other works (which can be heard on “Brass And Bamboo”, “Accent On Bamboo”, both left on the Capitol label).

Strictly Personal Rating (to what extent I could enjoy this album)

9 out of 10

Track Listing

SIDE-A
A-1	F24090 (FPB6340)	Jungle Jangle Jingle (Frank Loesser & Joseph J. Lilley)	2:36
A-2	F24183 (FPB6965)	Tumbling Tumbleweeds (Bob Nolan)	3:16
A-3	F24074 (FPB6334)	On The Trail (Ferde Grofe)	1:50
A-4	F24073 (FPB6333)	The Green Leaves Of Summer (from the Batjac Production “The Alamo”) (Dimitri Tiomkin & Paul Francis Webster)	2:36
A-5	F24184 (FPB6966)	Buttons And Bows (Jay Livingston & Ray Evans)	2:42
A-6	F24076 (FPB6339)	Deep In The Heart Of Texas (Don Swander & June Hershey)	3:43
SIDE-B
B-1	F24092 (FPB6342)	Wagon Wheels (Peter De Rose & Billy Hill)	2:18
B-2	F24185 (FPB6967)	The Last Round-Up (Billy Hill)	2:46
B-3	F24093 (FPB6325)	High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me) (Dimitri Tiomkin & Ned Washington)	2:12
B-4	F24075 (FPB6335)	I'm An Old Cowhand (From The Rio Grande) (Johnny Mercer)	3:18
B-5	F24091 (FPB6341)	San Antonio Rose (Bob Wills)	3:04

Personnel

Personnel/recorded date/master numbers confirmed with the Ruppli's discography.
(“The Mercury Labels - A Discography” by Ruppli and Novitsky, Greenwood Press, 1993)

Tak Shindo (arr, cond) with many musicians (clarinets, flutes, g, banjo, b, ds, marimba, harp, cymbals, xyl, Japanese bells, iron pipe, gongs, cymbals, koto, shamisen, temple blocks, coconut shells) who are unknown.
Recorded at Radio Recorders, Los Angeles, CA in 1962.