Concert Review: Osaka Monaurail at The Great Hall

Osaka Monaurail & Souljazz Orchestra
The Great Hall
Toronto, ON
July 6 2012

In their first ever North American concert, Japan's "#1 funk orchestra" Osaka Monraurail, wowed a modest crowd friday night at The Great Hall in West Queen West. Put on by World Famous Music, a Canadian promoter known for organizing shows featuring highly talented funk, soul, jazz and electronic artists, the night was an absolute feast for aficionados of international interpretations of funky grooves from the late 1960s and 70s.

Opening for the Japanese funksters was Souljazz Orchestra, easily the most talented afrobeat band to ever emerge from Ottawa, Ontario. Souljazz has gained international recognition for creating catchy, lengthy singles like "Mista President" and "Freedom No Go Die" that are reminicent of the music of Fela Kuti and other popular 1970's West African afrobeat artists. Their live show was almost an exact replica of how I've often imagined afrobeat shows unfolding in a busy Nigerian bar: Intensely sweaty, funky and kind of transcendent, albeit without a bevy of semi-nude Nigerian dancers and the grand political statements that were an integral part of Fela Kuti's shows.

The Great Hall filled up quickly (with mostly Japanese Canadians, ex-pats and funk nerds like myself) as headliners Osaka Monaurail, an eight-piece band uniformly dressed in early 1960's style big-band suit jackets, took the stage, subsequently launching into instantly satisfying, funked out opening workouts of The Temptations "Get Ready" and Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered."  Charismatic frontman Ryo Nakata took the stage in classic band-leader style, almost a full half-hour into Monaurail's set and jumped right into a Maceo Parker-era James Brown flavored jam.

The 39-year-old Nakata attended high school in Alberta and moved back to Japan shortly after, starting the Osaka-based band in 1992. And impressively enough for a Canada-educated Japanese funk musician, his stage presence and vocal twang is eerily similar to Southern soul singers of the late 60s, evoking nostalgic dreams of a time when funk and soul frontmen like James Brown ruled black music in America; when Nakata growls "we'd like to go back to the sixtaaaays", I am placated and content.

The rest of the band can be aptly described as virtuosically talented, even though their sound is wholly limited to funky nostalgia. Drummer Soki Kimura plays with a subtle, yet extremely refined funk technique, employing precise ghost notes in his almost Dennis Chambers-like grooves with a tight swing-jazz touch in his cymbal work. Tenor Saxophonist Shimon Mukai is another standout, sounding like the long-lost Japanese son of Maceo Parker. 

On the whole, Osaka Monaurail plays with a tightness and a ferocity that pays tribute to James Brown and the subversively-funky past of Motown, Stax and the American South. An indicative moment comes when Nakata begins taunting the band, saying "y'all look like 1986...I want to go back to revolutionary times." Mid-set, Nakata announced that the band was celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, despite having never played a show in the U.S or Canada. Nostalgia for funkier times has always been a good business (especially in Japan), so much so that tight, popular funk bands like Osaka Monaurail consistently guarantee themselves a long musical shelf life. The soul of the Godfather of Soul lives on.

Note: DJ General Eclectic, a member of the well-respected Toronto DJ collective Foot Prints, supplied a welcome serving of rare-soul and funk tunes in between and after sets.


All photos © Corey Caplan 

Funk Friday - Bonnaroo! - June 1st 2012

In a few days I leave for Bonnaroo. It is my third American music festival in three years and I can reasonably predict it will by all respects be the most musically satisfying and physically arduous aural journey I will have embarked upon. Held at the same 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee for the past 10 years, the first Bonnaroo in 2002 saw 70,000 people, selling out the festival far in advance. Today, it has evolved to become one of the, if not the most high profile annual American music festival.

Mostly known for a wildly diverse slate of musical acts and the blistering Tennessee heat of the campgrounds that has effectively killed a handful of attendees in years past, Bonnaroo takes its namesake from New Orleans legend Dr. John's 1971 Meters-backed funk/R&B album Desitively Bonnaroo.

1. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Mellowship Slinky in B Major

The anchoring headliner at Bonnaroo 2012, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, formed in 1983 by vocalist Anthony Kiedis and Michael "Flea" Balzary are in my view, the most successful, prolific funk rock band of all time. Rooted in Parliament/Funkadelic funky guitar rock and the fun, aggressive California punk rock of the late 1970s and early 1980s, RHCP have consistently maintained a broad, strong following for almost three (!) decades.

While the hugely successful 1999 release of Californication saw the band finally reach a decidedly mainstream audience with a new, more mature sound complete with soaring, anthemic hooks and instantly replayable singles, 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik stands as an unheralded funk rock masterpiece. This is my favorite cut off that album.

2. Darondo - My Momma and My Poppa

In the early 1970s, William Pulliam recorded a slew of enjoyably sublime soul singles in the San Francisco Bay area as "Darondo" for Music City Records, a locally popular label that due to distribution problems, had never left California. After having been unearthed by British DJ Giles Peterson, the 1973 single "Didn't I" caught the attention of modern Californian groove label Ubiquity Records and Darondo's complete discography, which at that time had only been treasured by dedicated collectors of rare funk and soul records, was very quickly re-exposed to modern listeners.

Known to have only actually released three singles and played four shows in the 70s (including one opening stint for James Brown), Darondo disappeared from the music business for over 30 years; it is widely rumored that Pulliam created a life for himself as a pimp, but had been known to host local Bay area television specials, including "Darondo's Penthouse After Dark." Darondo's upcoming gig at Bonnaroo will certainly be his most substantial yet in this, the second stage of his musical career.

3. Dr. John - (Everybody Wanna Get Rich) Rite Away

I think there is a good reason why Bonnaroo takes its namesake from Dr. John and The Meters' 1971 funky blues classic Desitively Bonnaroo LP. The factually obvious reason is that "Bonnaroo" is Ninth ward NOLA slang, encompassing the French word "bon" meaning "good" and "rue" meaning "street." Taken literally, we would have the phrase "the best on the streets." According to Dr. John, "desitively" is a simple mash-up of "definitely positively."

Beyond etymology though, I think what music festivals, and specifically what Bonnaroo offers is a brief escape from everyday reality. A lot of the preconceived notions about music festivals involve a sort of survivalist, too-drugged-out-to-function atmosphere, but this could not be further from the truth: The music festival is a place of unbelievable positivity; where the capacity for a truly shared kinetic experience is as close to realized as we can get. If the objective of Dr. John and The Meters and the soul of NOLA funk music in general is to invigorate listeners with "the best on the streets" then we should only hope that we get a little "Bonnaroo" before our time is up.