The proverbial Tree Of Music is a wild massive oak, with deep roots and a thousand limbs that constantly branch out to melodies new and old. Even if you’ve got Spotify Premium, there’s no way you’ll ever be able to digest all of it, but that’s fine. Metal will keep shredding, rap will incessantly drop rhymes and pop?Sigh, not much we can do there. But how to get into more esoteric genres, the inherentlycoolones? Talkin’ bout jazz, daddy-o.
When theCowboy Bebopanimedebuted in 1998, the buzz involved the show’s genius blend of styles, but perhaps even more than the visuals, the soundtrack was on the tips of everyone’s tongue. Yoko Kanno, eccentric genius/musical chameleon, was the one responsible. Along with her band, The Seatbelts, Kanno baked jazz (and other genres) into the Bebop formula, making the music irrevocably synonymous with the show, and forcing fans of all backgrounds to cave to its cool.
Within the universe of The Seatbelts, she’s known as Captain Duckling. She doesn’t say much, mostly because she doesn’t have to. Her music speaks volumes. Seven albums cover the entirety of Bebop’s short 26 episodes, with the bulk of the music residing in the realm of jazz, a genre that tends to exist within the peripherals of modern music. It’s a sound that’s appreciated by either older fans, or java-sipping hipsters in ironic fedoras. But perhaps this isn’t the best representation of the genre.
Jazz has always been about expressing a certain mood, as opposed to being pigeonholed as an arcane musical style. Rest assured, I’m not here to push jazz on you like some beatnik at an open-mic night, but in order to understand Bebop, you’ve got to somewhat understand…well,bebop.
This isn’t contemporary jazz we’re dealing with, no sir. Kanno leans in heavily to the raw, unhinged power of brass at times, and at others allows a single saxophone to express its melancholy with a wail. It’s a perfect fit, considering Cowboy Bebop’s crew is either frantically engaged in action or dead still in their ennui. Moreover, with a closer look, our main characters are pretty much caricatures culled from director Shinichiro Watanabe’s neo-noir 1940s influences. We’ve got the hot-shot wild card, steady straight man, witty femme fatale, and a random kid thrown in for purity’s sake. They’re an homage to films popular around the same time that the bebop genre took off. Fast, improvised, and complex — it is no accident that the term is aptly used as the show’s eponymous title and the crew’s ship.
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So how then did a Japanese literature major dropout turn the anime world upside down with her own singular musical vision? The answer isn’t complicated. Maverick talent simply often needs a venue to manifest itself, and Bebop was the perfect vehicle to display Kanno’s skills. She and Watanabe had worked together during the hit anime Macross Plus, during which time Kanno oversaw recordings with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra for the soundtrack. The beautifully orchestrated pieces sound nothing like the cool, lounge-room scores from Bebop, but they do highlight Kanno’s ability to harness the power of instrumentation in order to set the scene. Additionally, Macross Plus features guest singer Gabriela Robin, who would contribute her angelic voice to a seminal Bebop number called “Green Bird”.
Working with a full orchestra must’ve lit a fire under Kanno, as she promptly put together the international ensemble of talented musicians known as The Seatbelts. Supposedly named after a taxi cab’s warning label, The Seatbelts would be Kanno’s main band through which to channel Bebop’s space-western vision, and in doing so, she hit a level of iconic status with Track 1 from the Cowboy Bebop Original Soundtrack. You know it asTank!.
As a show with so many facets, I’m always still surprised at just how diverse the soundtrack really is. The first two tracks of the Original Soundtrack keep things rooted deeply in jazz, with a reliance on dizzying brass riffs and slinky stand-up bass. However, the playlist defies expectation and turns on a dime. Harmonica dripping with soul segues to bluegrass-style slide guitar, while playful flutes keep things light before ending on the bittersweet music-box lullaby that could make a grown man cry tears into his drink at last call. It’s one hell of a ride, and I have to remind myself that every single note and stanza has been composed by one person, the enigmatic Yoko Kanno.
I often feel that Cowboy Bebop the show and its accompanying soundtrack are two distinct animals that just happen to run parallel to each other. Of course, the anime wouldn’t exist without the music, but perhaps the music, on its own, would actually survive without its host. I listen to it often, without any context to the series. Spokey Dokey gives me chills, Cats On Mars makes me laugh and, predictably, Memory makes me tear up (don’t tell anyone). These tunes have stood the test of 25 years and, regardless of how excellent the series is, they’ve earned the right to be appreciated as stand-alone gems.
Cowboy Bebop was the perfect mechanism to introduce a variety of musical genres that would’ve probably never graced my (and basically everyone’s) ears, including jazz. Thanks to Yoko Kanno, I can actually appear to have some class if ever asked to host a semiformal dinner. Sorry, Kenny G. You’re not invited.
