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No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
Ue wo Muite Arukou (Sukiyaki)
Sato Go
e wo Muite Arukou (Looking Up As I Walk) was a big hit for
the Japanese singer Sakamoto Kyu (1941–1985). The lyrics by
Rokusuke Ei were set to music by Nakamura Hachidai . As
Sukiyaki , the song made it big in the United States, ranked No.
1 by Billboard magazine for the week ending June 15, 1963, and entering the
Top 10 in the annual rankings for the same year. Here, we get to the bottom of
the background and creation of a work that became a pioneer of Japanese
content export , as i t were.
Dave Dexter, Jr.
I t was Kuwashima Akira, currently l iving in
Camaril lo in the suburbs of Los Angeles,
who told me about Dave Dexter, Jr. , the
A&R man for Capitol, one of the Big Four
record labels.
A&R is the abbreviation of Artist and
Repertoire, and i t is a job that only exists in
the music industry. The role of this
profession is to connect art ists, i .e. , s ingers
and musicians, with the repertoire, i .e. , the
tunes.
U
SATO Go
No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
Heading for California in 1943, Dave Dexter, Jr. had a hand in the fledgling
Capitol Records. Making use of his outstanding ear for music, keen intel lect ,
and writ ing abil i ty, he started his career working in PR, but he soon moved to
A&R where he had tremendous success.
In his autobiography, Playback , Dave Dexter, Jr. maps out the development
of the music industry in the United States and the history of Capitol Records
in a series of anecdotes. At the start of Chapter 18, he tel ls the story of the
creation of Sukiyaki . This is where i t becomes clear that the story of how the
single was released by Capitol is mostly down to the independent judgment of
Dave Dexter, Jr. Reading the passage several t imes, I keenly fel t the bri l l iant
sense, intuit ion and abili ty to act of a truly outstanding music man.
The year 1963 was a t ime in American pop when there was a direct l ink
between cute female vocals and hit tunes. I have no doubt that Dave Dexter,
Jr.’s keen antennae went up when he heard about a phone call from a DJ in
Fresno talking about the posit ive response by Americans to a record by a cute
female foreign vocalist . But the trif l ing interest changed into great interest ,
when he realized that the vocalist was not female, but a young man. You can
clearly read the moment when he had a change of heart in the sentence,
“Seeing the answer, I stopped what I was doing.”
As he himself writes, the more he thought calmly about i t , the more he
concluded, “I didn’t remotely think that a vocalist singing in a foreign
language could be a hit .” Presumably this is precisely why he immediately
made his move when he felt something that went beyond common sense,
reasoning and reali ty. Before the insight was suppressed by reason, he gave i t
shape by making a master.
The Age of American Pop
No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
Sukiyaki was a radio release from Capitol , just before the Brit ish Invasion
assailed American shores, and part of a stream of music history that included
the birth of rock & roll and the heights of American pop. When the cute
falsetto of Sakamoto Kyu streamed out from the radio, requests started to
come in to radio stations al l over the United States.
This is how the song became independent of Dave Dexter, Jr. and when the
street release of Sukiyaki came in May, i t started i ts unaided ascent to the top
of the hit charts.
The lyrics said “nakinagara aruku” (crying while I walk), but the song far
from walked; i t dashed up the charts in a rapid ascent, reaching the top spot on
June 15. ( * 1 )
Ue wo Muite Arukou sung by a nineteen-year-old Japanese youth had
performed a miracle on the American hit charts . I t had defied the handicap of
not singing in English to reach No. 1 on the nationwide charts. I t was also an
extraordinary achievement as three and a half years had passed since the
original song was released in Japan.
That is not al l , Sukiyaki entered the charts in one country after another, and
in the twinkling of an eye, i t overcame the language barrier to spread to people
worldwide.
This was the f irst instance of approval of Japanese culture around the world
after the Second World War. At a t ime when the Japan brand only had a
negative image, this was quite an event. Before Sony and Panasonic, Honda
and Toyota, pop music created in Japan had a major success on the global
market . This marked the f irst t ime that postwar Japan was on a par with the
rest of the world.
*1 The top spot was surrendered by Leslie Gore and It’s My Party and I’l l
No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
Cry If I Want To, the first No. 1 hit single produced by Quincy Jones.
Sukiyaki and the Beatles
The Ears and Sensibilities of Two Producers
Twentieth-century America reigned supreme over the entertainment industry.
Above all , after the Second World War, the general public worldwide yearned
for American culture because of the affluent l ifestyle. For fi lm entertainment,
Hollywood was the apex, for plays, i t was the Broadway musicals of New York,
and for music, the hit charts of Bil lboard and Cashbox became indicators of
what was popular with young people.
Even in Japan, which had been burnt and left in ruins by air raids, American
culture came pouring in through films, radio, and then television as the
recovery got underway.
The postwar jazz boom, the rockabilly boom and the “cover pops” boom,
which were epoch-making events in Japan’s music history, happened because
they were rooted in the fervent wish of many young Japanese people of that
t ime to somehow be able to integrate with the culture of young people in
America.
For people working in some capacity in the entertainment industry, success
in America was the dream inside a dream. I t was a never-ending distant dream.
The huge American market was attractive, but at the same t ime, there were
also powerful barriers blocking the way.
In Japan, Toshiba (at the t ime, Tokyo Shibaura Electr ic Co. , Ltd.), which had
a technical cooperation agreement with EMI in Britain, buil t a factory for
manufacturing records in 1955, and sold the first records in July. They
included selections of classical music and chansons from EMI. ( * 2 )
No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
In the same year, Capitol, which had achieved remarkable growth in America,
became a subsidiary of EMI in Britain by sell ing them 75% of i ts shares. This
was the opportunity to establish a new department at Capitol for selecting
works that might be successful on the American market from the catalogs of
the international record companies that collaborated with EMI.
Dave Dexter, Jr. was singled out to take charge of the International A&R
Department. An excellent A&R man, who also wielded the pen as a scholarly
cri t ic, Dave Dexter, Jr. was considered suitable for his broad knowledge and
journalist ic sensibil i t ies.
For the recording companies, producers and art ists affi l iated with EMI, the
ear and sensibil i ty of Dave Dexter, Jr. , the international A&R man, was the
barrier at Capitol that s tood in the way of the dream of moving into the
American market .
Sukiyaki in Britain
According to the Complete Book of the Brit ish Charts (Omnibus Press), which
l ists all the singles and albums sold in Britain from 1951 to 1999, an
instrumental version of Sukiyaki arranged in the Dixieland jazz style by Kenny
Ball and His Jazzmen reached No. 10 on the Brit ish charts on January 19,
1963.
I t is not possible to specify the release date, but singles by Kenny Ball & His
Jazzmen had regularly charted in 1962, on February 17, May 19, and August
25. Their previous release, The Pay-Off (A Moi de Payer) recorded i ts highest
ranking at No. 23 on October 20. Consequently, a release date in the second
half of December 1962, or in the f irst ten days of January 1963, is probably a
reasonable guess.
No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
In an interview with a weekly magazine, Sakamoto Kyu talked about how Ue
wo Muite Arukou , a song in Japanese, came to be released overseas, and this is
how I found out that he had made a tour of Europe from August 19 to
September 2 to promote the song.
I t al l s tarted with a request from EMI in Britain, partners of Toshiba Records,
to send them a recording of Ue wo Muite Arukou by Sakamoto Kyu. Toshiba
sent the record immediately and the response from EMI was “Wonderful . Both
the song and the singer are absolutely wonderful . The melody is particularly
suited to European tastes. We would l ike you to send more samples because we
are going to introduce i t to our affil iates nationwide.”
In the third week after sending the sample, Pathé Marconi in France
launched the f irst bid for a release application. So, as a result of negotiat ions
between Toshiba Records and Pathé Marconi, a decision was made to release a
record with four songs, Ue wo Muite Arukou , Ano Musume no Namae ha
Nanten Kana , Kyu-chan no Zuntatatta and Sore ga Nayamisa . The master tape
for the original recording had been sent to France one week before.
Following on from France, releases of the Sakamoto Kyu record were
planned for many countries including America, Britain, Belgium and Austral ia.
In France, the single with four songs was released on the Pathé Marconi label
in August 1962. Simultaneously with the French disc, the record was probably
also released in Norway, Denmark, I taly and Switzerland, where Sakamoto
Kyu had been on his promotional tour.
The first important action was that EMI, the largest record company in
Britain, urged affi l iated record companies in Europe and America to release
Ue wo Muite Arukou . The story of the circulation and growth of Ue wo Muite
Arukou s tarted in the European countries in 1962.
Even so, who was i t that had been trying to pressure EMI since the spring of
1962 to take on the worldwide market with a song called Ue wo Muite Arukou?
No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
On January 19, 1963, Dave Dexter, Jr. must have been checking the weekly
English charts a bit more carefully than usual .
The reason was that a single by The Beatles had shown some noteworthy
chart action. Please Please Me had cl imbed the charts with a momentum
hardly to be expected of the second record from newcomers, reaching the No.
2 spot as early as the second week of the release. This was after the EMI
request for a US release had already been refused, but there were reasons to
feel uneasy.
Sukiyaki by Kenny Ball and His Jazzmen had risen to the No. 10 spot in the
same week. A Dixieland jazz instrumental was r ight up Dexter ’s al ley. There is
no one left who knows whether or not Dave Dexter, Jr. heard the song at that
t ime. But, three months later he heard Sakamoto Kyu singing Ue wo Muite
Arukou , and it is highly l ikely that he thought of Sukiyaki for the t i t le because
he had heard Sukiyaki by Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen.
In May, Dave Dexter, Jr. , who twice gave The Beatles the brush-off , released
Japan’s Sakamoto Kyu singing Ue wo Muite Arukou under the t i t le Sukiyaki on
the American singles market . I t became a huge hit , and by June 15, i t had
captured the No. 1 spot on the hit charts across the United States. In August ,
Sakamoto Kyu visi ted America, and when the effects of the promotion were
added in, sales ultimately reached one mill ion. Before long, he was even
presented with a splendid Gold Record award by the Recording Industry
Association of America.
From the viewpoint of the job of an international A&R producer, achieving a
mill ion-seller with a song sung in the Japanese language by a Japanese art ist
was surely an unprecedented achievement.
With i ts huge success on the American market, Sukiyaki was released by
recording companies affi l iated with EMI in many countries worldwide and
No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
became a major hit .
Then, in September, the Beatles crushed the high and powerful barrier
represented by the person of Dave Dexter, Jr.
When Capitol released I Wanna Hold Your Hand on December 26, 1963,
there followed one huge explosion after another. Suddenly, even people in
America had given the thumbs up to The Beatles.
I t was the best possible t iming for America to encounter The Beatles. In the
event, the same was true for The Beatles. That is precisely why The Beatles
phenomenon materialized l ike a huge explosion in pools of magma.
Behind the legend, there is the historical fact that in 1963, the song called
Sukiyaki and the art ists called The Beatles were squaring off on the stage of
the huge American market. Two A&R men, both with an extremely good ear,
the American Dave Dexter Jr. and the Englishman George Martin, had fai th in
their own sensibili t ies and fought fairly behind the scenes. The verdict was
handed down by the American market , by the sensibil i t ies of teenagers.
*2 The first releases on the Angel Records label were internationally famous
musical recordings anticipated by music aficionados at the t ime. The
classical works included Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 (conducted by
Furtwängler) , Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake (conducted by Irving), and
Smetana’s Die Moldau (conducted by Furtwängler). Popular works included
Les Feuil les Mortes by Yves Montand, and L’Âme des Poètes by Yvette
Giraud.
A Great Music Man
Published on September 30, 1971, Toshiba Musical Industries: 10 Years of
No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
History consists of twenty-one chapters in chronological order. The moment I
read the second chapter, “The Partnership between Toshiba and EMI,” I f inally
arrived at the great music man who worked t irelessly to send Ue wo Muite
Arukou out into the world.
I t was Ishizaka Noriichiro.
The decision to release the single Kuroi Hanabira (Black Petals) after an
appeal by Nakamura Hachidai in 1959; Nakamura Hachidai’s study tour of
America and Europe in 1960 to broaden his knowledge; giving shape to talks
about writ ing a song for Nat King Cole who came to Japan in 1961; the move
by EMI to release Ue wo Muite Arukou in Europe in the spring of 1962—one
music man was instrumental to al l of this, and it was Ishizaka Noriichiro.
Of course, everything was connected.
A typical intellectual of the Meij i period, Ishizaka Noriichiro was born in
1906 and went to Keio University where he studied economics with Koizumi
Shinzo, who was also president of the universi ty. He mastered economics,
l i terature and history, but above all , he excelled at language studies. He was
proficient in English and Latin, and his knowledge of classical music was
unmatched by crit ics.
From the period before and during the war, to immediately after the end of
the war, the predecessor of Toshiba, Tokyo Shibaura Electric Co., Ltd. , was
affil iated with the two largest record companies in Japan, the Japan Victor
Company and Nipponophone Co., Ltd. (Columbia Records). However, after the
war, the GHQ dismantled the zaibatsu , and the two record companies were
separated from Toshiba.* To restructure Toshiba, which had been thoroughly
weakened by violent industr ial disputes, Ishizaka Taizo,* an economist and
former bureaucrat with the Ministry of Communications and Transportation
(subsequently, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, currently the
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and Japan Post) ventured to
No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
put himself in the f ir ing l ine by accepting the posit ion as president.
Ishizaka Taizo, who had developed Daiichi Seimei into a leading l ife
insurance company in the period before and during the war, took on the
restructuring of Toshiba. By negotiat ing face to face with the unions, he
achieved personnel reductions of as many as 6,000 people, and the
restructuring succeeded very well in a fairly short t ime. Together with Hitachi
and Matsushita, Toshiba was soon dubbed one of the Big Three electronic
manufacturers, and became a leader of the business community during the
period of rapid growth after the war.
Ishizaka Taizo not only focused on financial aspects, but he also thought that
the company should be represented in the cultural f ield. With Toshiba back on
the corporate growth track, Ishizaka Taizo considered the historical
background of the company, and entered the recording industry.
The origins of Toshiba Records go back to the establishment of a record
business at Toshiba Shibaura Electric Co., Ltd. At the t ime, Ishizaka Taizo
dispatched his second cousin, Ishizaka Noriichiro, to take charge of the
business.
Under the guidance of an engineer dispatched from EMI, Toshiba completed
a factory for manufacturing records in 1955. In 1956, the company signed a
contract with Capitol to expand into American popular music.
Laying the groundwork a l i t t le at a t ime with classical and popular music,
Toshiba Records boldly struck out on the road to producing Japanese music
from 1958 onward.
Toshiba Musical Industries: Ten Years of History is not only the history of a
company, i t is also a record of the blood, sweat and tears of a corporation that
rose from the burnt-out ruins after the war, l ike a growing boy chasing his
dreams. Reading hard between the l ines, some passages even bring to mind the
personal history of Ishizaka Noriichiro, which also makes i t valuable reading
No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
material .
The book is a concise record of the aspirations, mission, troubles and joys of
a great music man, who took a provisional project in a corner at Toshiba with
only a few people assigned to i t , and in a mere ten years after the formal
launch in 1960, turned i t into a leading record company with as many as a
thousand employees. Behind each word is the unique thinking of Ishizaka
Noriichiro about the past that the company had traversed, and the future
ahead.
For Toshiba, which had only just embarked on the new business, the tr iumph
of winning tr iple awards for new art ist , new lyricist and new composer at the
First Japan Record Awards in 1959 proved a bril l iant launch. The aim of
Toshiba Records was to create new Japanese songs suited to a new age.
The Dream of Popularizing Japanese Music Internationally
Routinely coming into contact with people involved in the international record
business, Ishizaka Noriichiro knew how enormous the world market was. But,
he was even more aware of how high the barriers were. With this
understanding, he dared take a proactive approach to the possibil i ty of
international success for a Japanese tune.
He worked out a plan of action with knowledge acquired by cutt ing back on
sleep to study and read vast numbers of books. I t was a matter of personal
confidence gained by building up relat ionships with key people overseas.
In 1962, Ishizaka Noriichiro f igured out that the essence of the music
business does not l ie in manufacturing and sell ing records, but in the song
creation and rights business. Based on this fundamental principle, and in order
to get Japanese songs and singers closer to the international market, he
No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
concluded fair contracts with the copyright holders and sold Japanese music
through established routes to partners who were American music publishers
and record companies.
For Ishizaka Noriichiro, the music man, the challenge of the big dream of
making Japanese music popular worldwide started in the spring of 1962 when,
in anticipation of the future music business, he set up a new department and
concluded a contract for Ue wo Muite Arukou r ight from the start . The first
posit ive feedback came from the European countries, including France. I t was
the idea of Pathé Marconi that they “wanted to give free play to the Japanese
original ,” so in France, the song was released in Japanese, and other countries
also followed France’s lead.
But the release of Ue wo Muite Arukou in Europe did not earn the rave
reviews, or rake in the dollars l ike newspapers and weekly magazines were
writ ing. The result was that you could hardly call i t a failure, but you could
also not say that i t was a successful hit .
There were reports of plans to release an English version in America, but at
some point i t came to nothing. Despite all the statements and art icles by
everyone concerned that I found, there is absolutely no trace of a recording of
an English version.
For some reason, i t seems that the experiment of launching an original
recording produced in-house by Toshiba Records onto the world market was
temporari ly terminated from the end of 1962 to 1963.
However, as the year 1962 drew to a close, something happened in Britain to
prove that the foresight and approach of Ishizaka Noriichiro had hit home.
The title Sukiyaki
No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
To have foreign musicians and singers doing covers of performances or songs
was another way of gaining populari ty abroad. This is how the cover of
Sukiyaki on Pye Records emerged.
The people at Pye Records probably had a strong feeling that the jaunty
Dixieland jazz version of Ue wo Muite Arukou arranged by Kenny Ball and His
Jazzmen would score a hit . Certainly, the preparations for the launch of the
single went ahead. In such cases, i t was a mandatory formali ty to obtain the
consent of the copyright holder to the recording.
Toshiba Music Publishing had authorized overseas music publishers to
manage copyright in their respective terri tories. Consequently, Pye Records
had to request permission from the EMI music publishing company that was
handling the rights in Britain.
How did Ishizaka Noriichiro react , and what conclusion did he draw, when
he received word from the music publisher in Britain that Pye Records had
contacted them, requesting permission to put out a cover version under the
English t i t le of Sukiyaki?
He had not been able to deliver good results r ight away with a song in
Japanese by Sakamoto Kyu, but he must have continued to search for
possibil i t ies overseas. His analysis probably found that i t would be quite a
stretch for a song with a diff icult Japanese t i t le to win wide acceptance among
foreigners. From the perspective of Europe and America, Japan was st i l l a
far-off small country at the t ime. I t was an age when the average person only
knew words l ike Fujiyama, Geisha or Tokyo.
Even so, the t i t le Sukiyaki that Pye Records gave the song had a hint of
mockery that was a long way from the image of the original Japanese t i t le. As
might be expected, Ishizaka Noriichiro knew the sinceri ty of the art ists who
had created the song, and he must surely have been bewildered.
Are there no other good song t i t les associated with Japan and easy to
No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
remember to substitute for Sukiyaki? Fujiyama , Sayonara , Tokyo , Sakura…
“I remember well that people from the office came to our home for a
meeting about the English t i t le for Ue wo Muite Arukou . If I’m not mistaken,
there were three suggestions for words that would be easy for Englishmen
and Americans to remember. At any rate, everyone talked about how it was
important to first get the name to st ick. Finally, in a rare display, I
remember hearing my father raise his voice when he made the decision,
s tat ing point-blank that they would go with Sukiyaki .” (Interview with
Ishizaka Kuniko in March 2011)
Ishizaka Noriichiro’s oldest daughter, Ishizaka Kuniko, told me about this
important episode.
This is how a single called Sukiyaki by Kenny Ball and His Jazzmen became
a hit when it charted in the Top Ten in Britain in January 1963.
However, by the t ime the long-awaited positive results finally came and the
issue of making the next move arose, Ishizaka Noriichiro was, unfortunately,
robbed of t ime to work on overseas expansion. The reason was that in the third
year since the company was established, i t became clear that Toshiba Records
was in a management crisis.
The Future of Ue wo Muite Arukou
Trying to extract the company from the worst-case scenario that had put i ts
continued existence in danger, Ishizaka Noriichiro reverted to the original
format, and gave his undivided attention to consolidating the whole company
into a specialist in making, producing and sell ing records. I t was at this
No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
cri t ical point when an unexpected telegram arrived from Capitol in America.
I t said that they wanted Toshiba to send a master tape of Ue wo Muite
Arukou by Sakamoto Kyu as soon as possible.
The telegram said that Capitol had already distr ibuted Ue wo Muite Arukou
to radio stat ions al l over the United States in the form of a radio release, and
since the response from DJs and l isteners was extremely positive, they
planned a formal release in the United States as soon as the master tape from
Japan arrived. The good news was that Capitol planned formal release on the
American market , which as regarded as the most diff icult one to crack.
Unexpectedly, the day when Ue wo Muite Arukou would be recognized
worldwide had come from the opposite direction.
I t appeared that the song was frequently aired on the radio al l over the
United States, not only on the West Coast where there were many people of
Japanese descent, but also on the East Coast and in the Midwest. I t was clear
that there was strong potential for a hit song. To have a hit in America in a
language other than English, and in Japanese to boot, rather than in Europe
where many people were said to appreciate the arts and culture of other
countries, was an event completely outside the scope of the imagination.
Incidentally, during the talks with Capitol about a release, the Japanese side
discovered something completely unexpected.
The Capitol radio release of the record had been given the t i t le Sukiyaka . At
f irst , the Japanese side thought that i t was a simple spell ing error, or a
misprint in the telegram, but Capitol had intentionally given it the t i t le of
Sukiyaka .
Clearly, i t was Dave Dexter, Jr. who was the man behind the t i t le Sukiyaka .
With pop songs, the names of the art ists and the names of the songs
constantly roll off the l ips in sets , such as Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel ,
Nat King Cole’s Love , or Yesterday by the Beatles So, i t was advantageous to
No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
use words that radio station DJs found easy to say, and that l isteners found
memorable.
Compared to Ue wo Muite Arukou , Sukiyaki was easier to say and to
remember, but Sukiyaka was even easier to remember. The reason is that the
Saka in Kyu Sakamoto and the yaka in the song t i t le have a similar r ing, which
emphasizes the accent. Consequently, when the radio DJs introduced the song,
i t stuck firmly in the mind.
When Ishizaka Noriichiro persuaded them to go back to Sukiyaki because the
word Sukiyaka is impossible in Japanese, the record had been distr ibuted to
radio stat ions across the United States, and DJs al l across America had already
come to know it by the name Sukiyaka .
In fact , both the score and a cover record by the Billy Vaughn Orchestra had
been marketed and sold as Sukiyaka . The record by Sakamoto Kyu was
immediately changed to Sukiyaki , but the other versions on the market were
sold as Sukiyaka , and the name remained in wide circulat ion.
Thanks to a music man who dreamed of making Japanese music popular
around the world, Japan’s Ue wo Muite Arukou became Sukiyaki worldwide.
* At this t ime, Hitachi became affil iated with Colombia, and after an
interval of four years, Matsushita incorporated Japan Victor in a capital
affi l iation.
* Born in Tokyo in 1886 (Meiji 19), Ishizaka Taizo became the second
chairman of the Nippon Keidanren after his st int as president of Toshiba.
With the permission of the author and the publisher, this art icle was abridged
and translated from the series “Ue wo muite aruko,” NEPPU , March 2010 –
No. 9 December–January 2011/2012
June 2011, [this series of art icle was published as Ue wo Muite Aruko by
Iwanami Shoten, Publishers](Courtesy of STUDIO GHIBLI Inc.)
SATO Go
Born in 1952. As a music producer, he has managed famous Japanese
musicians including THE BOOM, Miyazawa Kazufumi and SUPER BUTTER
DOG. Since 2004, he has been working on a project reviewing the values of
Japanese rock, pop and so-called New Music, and establishing a category of
“J-Standard” songs, namely those which wil l be sung by future generations
and which may be considered cultural propert ies of Japan. Drawing on his
concept of J-Standard, Sato worked as senior producer on the album “1969” by
Pink Martini and Saori Yuki, which was released in October 2011 and topped
the Jazz chart in Apple’s i-Tunes Store in the United States.