TOKYO JOURNAL - MUSIC - JUNE CITYSCOPE

HOMEPAGE	CITYSCOPE	CONTENTS
FREE TO CHOOSE by Mark Robinson

Shizuru Otaka has a voice. Pure and sharp, the classically trained mezzo-soprano has sweetened the air of millions of living rooms across the country. Earthy as traditional min'yo, beguiling as an Okinawan ballad, it is the voice of over a hundred TV commercials, for products ranging from Snow Brand Sliced Cheese to Rover cars, Nippon Ham and Sumitomo banks. Otaka's singing has become as familiar to the masses as her five, modest selling solo albums--not to mention her name--are not.

But Otaka is not your average, faceless session musician. Last year she appeared on worldwide television from Norway, singing Nagano min'yo at the close of the Lillehammer Winter Olympics. She sang again at the finale of the Hiroshima Asian Games. She works with a spectrum of people as diverse as free-jazz saxophonist Kazutoki Umezu to hysterical "disco baby" Patrick Bomarito. And her contributions to the advertising world have been a major element in the recent "world music" boom in advertising jingles; a boom which has thrust an indiscriminate grab-bag of ethnic melodies into our homes.

In her choice of repertoire, Otaka the artist--as opposed to Otaka the hired gun--is equally eclectic. Her fifth solo album, Repeat Performance III, released at the end of last month, is a collection of cover-versions of famous Japanese songs sandwiched between two, self-penned pieces. It spans shimmering schoolyard standards like "Chiisai Aki Mitsuketa" (I Found A Small Autumn) to legendary enka singer Hibari Misora's swank "Makka na Taiyo" (Pure Red Sun) and the ill-fated Kyu Sakamoto's early '60s classic, "Sukiyaki," which gets a lush yet compellingly simple treatment (Otaka began her career as a backing vocalist for the late singer).

The strength of Repeat Performance III, however, comes down to Otaka's incredible voice. When the arrangements become lavish or contrived, as they do on some tracks here; when her material suggests only surface impressions and not the depth of "other" musics; when the musicians sound like they are working just another session, with little or no feeling for the song as a whole, Otaka comes close to being swamped by the same generic production that shapes so many of the TV commercials she has sung.

Needless to say, perhaps, she doesn't agree. In interview, she is like her voice--direct and forthright. "These arrangements are perfect for me," she says. Dressed in a stylish black dress, a white, string top, and stern, half-moon shaped spectacles, she declares simply that, "People have different opinions--that's good." She is animated and laughs readily. Is she working at her own pace? "Yes." Does she wish for more mainstream success? "No." Is she doing what she wants to do? "Yes." She answers this last question immediately, although adds just as quickly: "I don't enjoy TV work." On the surface, TV work gives independent-minded singers like Otaka the financial freedom to do what they like. But does it? TV also sanitizes and processes the music it commissions--and forever demands more. Indeed, commercials hold incredible sway over art. Perhaps saxophonist Yasuaki Shimizu once summed it up best: "I think I'm doing what I want to do," he remarked. "But sometimes I wonder if what I think I want is in fact what I want."

Shizuru Otaka performs 6/28 at Bunkamura Theater Cocoon.