Fujiwara no Shunzei was an twelfth century Japanese poet, who was also known as  Fujiwara no Toshinari. He was a member of the distinctive Fujiwara clan, who remained prominent in Japanese politics and culture for several centuries, until their slow decline, that started in the eleventh century and developed gradually, though they eventually divided into five branches, that can be traced to present times.  

Fujiwara no Shunzei became prominent for renovating a genre of Japanese poetry known as Waka, the other major forms being Kanshi, Tanka, Haiku – probably the best known and most imitated in the west – and diverse forms of complex collaborative writing, like the Renku, that remains little acknowledged in the western world, and needs to be read in Japanese to be better understood and appreciated. Waka, strictly speaking, was a complex setting of poetic meters, that could comprise several different forms of poetry, that also changed and evolved over time. Fujiwara no Shunzei was responsible for giving a more rejuvenated and modern refinement to this particular form of poetry. He also achieved notoriety for compiling the seventh imperial anthology of Waka Poetry. Literary compilations, poetry readings and poetry competitions remained widely popular in the Japanese imperial court for several centuries, being a cultural trademark in the classic history of Japan.   

Fujiwara no Shunzei apparently was born in the year 1114, and has enjoyed a long existence, having died at eighty nine or ninety years old, in 1204, in the dawn of the thirteenth century; little is known about his life, though his literary legacy and achievements remains quite solid to this day. His offspring would also carry on his talent ahead, since his son, Fujiwara no Teika, would become one of the greatest literary icons in the history of Japan, being a notable poet, literary critic and essayist, whose lasting reputation survives to the present day. Indeed, affinity with the literary arts ran within the family for generations. He was also proficient in classic Chinese literature, a cultural characteristic that would remain a common feature among Japanese writers. 

Given his importance and status in the Japanese literary circles – and his vast knowledge and deep analysis of the literary oeuvre of his contemporaries –, Fujiwara no Shunzei eventually acquired also a respectable reputation as a critic. Nevertheless, it was for his poetic style, introspective, lucid and intellectually embedded in philosophic treatment, that he remains appreciated. His poetry is dense, yet sensibly melancholic and somber, resting sincerely in the shadows of a lethargic, but innocent grace, that allows words to fluctuate over the meaning of existential cosmogonies, relying fully in the atmosphere of a passionate restlessness, that yell at the fate of the general human condition.  

At sixty-three years old, Fujiwara no Shunzei fully embraced Buddhism, changing his name to Shakua, and isolated himself, something that another prominent Japanese man of letters, fourteenth century essayist Yoshida Kenkō – better known for his work Tsurezuregusa – would also do. From then on, until his death, his life became enshrined in obscurity, and what is mostly known as a fact, which is close to nothing, would be information recollected in his own work. 

According to some sources, Fujiwara no Shunzei liked to wrote at the full darkness of dawn, with an oil lamp as the only source of light. In these quiet, lonely hours, he would compose his finest pieces, embraced by the somber solitude of creative tranquility, where his personal thoughts could contemplate the density of poetic expression in full accordance to his creative urges. While his literary efforts never brought him financial fortunes, he managed to be greatly recognized as a major poet in his lifetime. 

Literary talent would remain in the family for generations. Besides his son, Fujiwara no Teika, Fujiwara no Shunzei had a granddaughter – Fujiwara Toshinari no Musume – that would become a famous poet, one of the most relevant of her generation. Despite not widely read today, Fujiwara no Shunzei’s literary legacy remains alive, and teaches important creative and historic elements of the Japanese literature of his period. An author that evokes sentiments of nostalgia, perplexity and devotional rapture with strong vividness, Fujiwara no Shunzei certainly is a marvelous example of the pure degree of perfection that Japanese poetry could easily achieve. 


Wagner

Osamu Dazai – born Shūji Tsushima in the now defunct city of Kanagi, in June 19, 1909 – was a Japanese writer of literary fiction, that is widely considered one of the most relevant authors in 20thcentury Japan. Despite his untimely demise at age 38, Dazai managed to become one of the greatest talents of his generation in the literary arts, composing a substantial body of work that remains relevant to this day. 

Severely autobiographical in nature, the literature of Tsushima can be described as a precise reflex of his short, yet deeply turbulent life. An undisciplined bohemian with restless impulses – severely inclined to alcohol and narcotics abuse –, Tsushima’s behavior frequently put him in friction with his family. Often running away with geishas and mistresses, his rebellious nature made him clash with authorities in several occasions, something that became ostensibly dangerous when he joined the communist party. 

After befriending writer Masuji Ibuse, Tsushima became more interested in a serious literary career, working out his talent and creative propensities with a more proficient and ambitious passion. With relevant connections established, at the early 1930’s, he started having his works published. Almost from the very beginning, he used the pseudonym Osamu Dazai. 

Despite the immensurable reputation that Tsushima would acquire in just a few years – managing to become a respectable published author – he never became well known outside his native country. In the west, he is mainly recognized for his largely autobiographical novel No Longer Human, originally published in 1948, shortly before the author committed suicide. 

The novel’s protagonist is Ōba Yōzō, the author’s alter ego, a man severely depressed, that feels largely displaced and inadequate, unable to fulfill society’s standards. Always permanently melancholic and despondent, he doesn’t know properly what to do with his life, and makes constant use of narcotics to anesthetize his pain. With his life running in circles – doesn’t going anywhere –, his permanent sense of restless uneasiness distresses him to the point of becoming an irreversible pathological disturbance, and life itself is resented as an oppressive burden, a cage where he is doomed to the restraints of severe imprisonment, never being able to achieve a relevant level of happiness, consistence or coherence to his existence. 

A very remarkable novel, that reveals in depth the personal grief and disturbances of a truly depressed spirit, in No Longer Human, Tsushima really offers to the reader a greater picture of his perspective on life, one that not only scorns positivity, but doesn’t known optimism at all; maybe just as an empty word, totally devoid of true significance. Life is primarily felt as an uninterrupted succession of difficulties, and – in between the problems –, some level of relief can be find in drugs and ephemeral liaisons with women. 

Probably suffering from a severe case of depression – or, as a professional analyst more convincingly suggested, from a complex case of post-traumatic stress disorder, and his fragile mental state could have been exacerbated by his constant substance abuse –, Tsushima rises as probably one of the saddest and most desperate icons of Japanese literature; someone who saw writing as a means to relief and exteriorize his pain – and we certainly can find a lot of other examples in world literature as well – although evidently his creative abilities weren’t merely cathartic in nature. His style was sober and clean, and carried along the vulnerability of its taciturn qualities all the sensibilities of the writer’s profoundly immensurable and inherently hostile perceptions of life. 

With a tempestuous, though somewhat incisive density captured by a pristine component of clear expression, Tsushima’s literary style can be considered sober for its simplicity, despite the profoundness of his graceful virtuosity –  that submits the reader to the idiosyncrasies of the main character –, with an invisible strength that sidelines with the inherent fatalism of a doomed existence. Moreover, the prose of Tsushima is full of implacable sincerity and dramatic tenderness, being able to awaken the most dormant sensibilities of the reader to the fragility of the human condition. 

Shūji Tsushima was never happy in his life, despite the fact that he managed to be a successful author, and in a relatively rapid period of time. He also managed to be productive, publishing several works in sequence. During the Second World War, he was discharged from duty, because he had a very precarious health, having developed tuberculosis. This period, however, was personally difficult for the writer, as his residence was completely destroyed two times, as a consequence of the bomb attacks carried out by the American warplanes in Tokyo. Luckily, in neither occasion he or his family suffered any injuries. 

After the war, Tsushima kept on writing, with his popularity constantly expanding. Nevertheless, he couldn’t behave decently for long periods of time. Eventually, he always descended into his old habits, returning to alcohol and narcotics. He constantly had affairs with women, and took advantage of his notoriety to win them over. By this time, he met a younger woman named Tomie Yamazaki, a widow who had lost her husband during the war, only after ten days of marriage. Tsushima – always an irresponsible libertine – abandoned his wife and children to live with her. 
​
His last days were no different from the rest of his life, except maybe that they could have been even more distressful. On June 13, 1948 – six days before his 39th birthday – Tsushima and Yamazaki drowned themselves in the Tama river, in the Tamagawa Aqueduct. The tormented existence of a profoundly disturbed writer, that never had any interior peace while alive, had finally reached its afflictive conclusion.   

In his short life, Tsushima has published more than twenty-five literary works – mostly novels and short stories –, although he could write essays and plays as well. A very productive writer, he could publish four works in a single year, maintaining an ardent discipline, that would seem somewhat incompatible with his dissolute lifestyle and erratic behavior. Nevertheless, he managed to be not only one of the greatest Japanese writers of his generation, but one of the most relevant in his country’s literature, displaying pure creative standards, that could be seen as imperiously passionate, as well as frivolously distant, maintaining a dignifying sobriety, that elegantly pursued the veracity of sensibility, without ever renouncing to a prominent degree of poetic sophistication. 

Unfortunately – despite his stature as one of the greatest Japanese writers – Tsushima remains little known outside his native country. Giving the difficulty that poses translating Japanese to other languages, especially an author with such a respectable degree of complexity like Osamu Dazai, the translations would be better provided by professionals native to Japan, already familiar with the language. 

In 1965, the Dazai Osamu prize – in Japanese, the surname comes first – was established, to reward the best original short story inscribed in the competition. Exclusive for amateurs, unknown writers and beginners in the literary scene, the winner recollects a gift and a cash ward of one million yen. The prize was interrupted for more than two decades, having ceased in 1978, but returned in 1999. In Goshogawara – the city that incorporated the town where Tsushima was born –, there is a museum dedicated to him, which is located in a house built by the writer’s father. Tsushima lived there for fourteen years, from his birth, in 1909, until 1923. 

Shūji Tsushima was a tragedy, but also an excelling beauty in the literary world. With a vivacity and a deep sensibility that was capable of filtering the most dense and tragic aspects of existence, he was engrossed in a struggle against himself, in an effort to determine the validity of life. A warrior whose soul felt with regret the misery and the uneasiness of a world full of emptiness, Tsushima resented living a life without the proper answers to the most relevant and sincere elements of what it means to be human. Never being able to find true happiness anywhere, he managed to be content with the ephemeral pleasure of prostitutes, brief liaisons, alcohol and narcotics, resining himself to pretend that this is all that life has to offer.    

Not being able to restrict his impulsive restlessness, the ardent savagery of his disturbed heart couldn’t bear the sordid anguish of a miserable existence. Although it is somewhat easy to perceive that he was not a nihilist, he apparently at some point gave up looking life as a more profound and meaningful source of redemption, the effort apparently no longer being considered worthwhile. 

A formidable literary talent that deserves to be vastly appreciated, Shūji Tsushima will always be a dramatic, though inspiringly graceful landmark in Japanese literature. As someone who saw life as a battle fought between the visceral agony of the perceptions of the soul and the inherent fatalities of a darkness that never fades away, this colossal literary icon will remain a splendid strength of glorious sensibility in the literary arts – unparalleled with anyone before or after him –, never to be matched in the lancinating brutality of his diffuse sincerity.  


Wagner

On June 15, died in Rome famous Italian director Franco Zeffirelli, well known for movies like 1967 The Taming of the Shrew, 1968 Romeo and Juliet – that won Golden Globe and Academy Awards – and television productions, like 1977 Jesus of Nazareth, that Zeffirelli wrote in partnership with Italian screenwriter Suso d'Amico and acclaimed British novelist Anthony Burgess. He was also a successful opera director, achieving an international degree of notoriety showcasing his talent in productions like La traviata, with famous Greek soprano Maria Callas, whom he honored in his last movie, 2002 Callas Forever. 

Gian Franco Corsi Zeffirelli was born in Florence, Tuscany, in 12 February, 1923, an illegitimate son born out of wedlock. Very precociously, the young Zeffirelli felt attraction to the arts, and studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze, graduating when he was only eighteen years old. He fought as a resistance soldier in the Second World War, eventually sidelining with the allies. When the war was over, he resumed his formal studies, but relegated them as secondary obligation, becoming amazingly attracted to theater after seeing legendary British actor Laurence Olivier in a 1944 movie adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Henry V, which was also directed by Olivier. Despite being a movie, Olivier was predominantly known as a theatre actor, being active in the stage for more than six decades, having participated in more than one hundred different theater productions.

Zeffirelli’s fortunes with prospective artistic career opportunities flourished, when he was introduced to famous Italian director Luchino Visconti – acclaimed for masterpieces like 1954 Senso, starring Farley Granger and Alida Valli, and 1963 Il Gattopardo, an adaptation of the famous novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, starring Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon – that hired him as assistant director for his third feature film, La Terra Trema, released in 1948. It would be nearly two decades, though, for Zeffirelli actually managing to go behind the cameras to work as a director. His first movie was the documentary Florence: Days of Destruction, about a terrible and tragic flood that occurred in 1966 in Zeffirelli’s native city, that was the most devastating in centuries, and killed more than a hundred people. Released the same year, the work was fifty minutes long, and would be the only documentary in the director’s career. In between directing his first film and his entrance in the movie industry, Zeffirelli worked as an assistant for famous Italian directors, like Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica, acquiring a large amount of experience, that would be extremely beneficial to him in his career as a filmmaker. 

His first feature film was an adaptation of William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew. Released in 1967, the movie starred famous Hollywood actors, like Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor – that were married at the time – and was a moderate box office success. His next movie was also an adaptation of Shakespeare, the more famous Romeo and Juliet. Released the following year, despite the more modest and unknown cast, the movie was a box office success, grossing almost forty times its actual budget; taking into account that – projected at less than a million dollars – was very moderate for a Shakespeare adaptation. Nevertheless, audiences and critics alike loved the film. Renowned movie critic Roger Ebert commented that it was the best movie ever produced from a work of Shakespeare.

This was followed by the movie Fratello Sole, Sorella Luna, largely inspired by the life of Saint Francis of Assisi, the notorious Catholic friar. On the movie, the pious religious deacon is played by an unknown British actor named Graham Faulkner, that was active in the show business for just a little more than a decade. In the movie, his character was named Francesco di Bernardone, which was a mixture of the nickname and the real name of Saint Francis of Assisi, whose birth name was Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, but he was dearly known as Francesco. Al Pacino screen tested for the lead role, but his method acting style was disliked by Zeffirelli. Released in 1972, this movie – contrary to the previous one –, was only moderately received.  

Zeffirelli would return to religious themes, with Jesus of Nazareth, a 1977 British-Italian television co-production, that run for a month in the NBC network in the United States, ITV in the United Kingdom and Rai 1 in Italy. Presenting the life and ministry of Jesus Christ as depicted in the gospels, the show had English actor Robert Powell in the title role, with an ensemble cast consisting of highly acclaimed stars, like Peter Ustinov, Christopher Plummer, Anthony Quinn, Ernest Borgnine, James Earl Jones, James Farentino, Stacy Keach, Ian Holm and even Laurence Olivier, one of Zeffirelli’s heroes, amongst many others. A highly successful miniseries, Jesus of Nazareth was hugely acclaimed both in Europe and North America. Nevertheless, the production had its share of criticism, concerning what was felt by certain religious groups as a somewhat “mundane” portrayal of Jesus, though this perception was entirely subjective. Lead actor Robert Powell was highly praised for his depiction of Jesus, and remains best remembered to this day for this role.  

After Jesus of Nazareth, Zeffirelli turned to opera productions, directing Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci for the Metropolitan Opera House, both in 1978. His next movie was The Champ, an American production starring Jon Voight, Faye Dunaway and Ricky Schroder. Remake of a 1931 movie of the same name directed by King Vidor – despite being a box office success –, the film was only moderately received by critics, and to this day remains one of the least favorable in the director’s filmography. 

From the early eighties to the mid-nineties, Zeffirelli mostly concentrated on opera, although he mixed his two passions in several occasions, adapting several operas to the screen. In 1996, he released Jane Eyre, an adaptation of the famous eponymous novel by English novelist Charlotte Brontë, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and William Hurt in the main roles. In 1999, he released Tea with Mussolini, a work notable for his semi-autobiographical nature. His last movie was 2002 Callas Forever, a homage he made to honor opera soprano Maria Callas, that died precociously at fifty-three years old from a heart attack, in September 16, 1977. He personally directed her in three operas. 

After that, Zeffirelli went into semi-retirement. He was also active for a time in politics, having served as senator for seven years, from 1994 to 2001. He died in his home in Rome, in June 15, ninety-six years old. Fortunately, he leaves a formidable artistic legacy – which overflows very peculiar qualities, like outstanding beauty and marvelous sensibility – that will shine vividly for the decades to come.  


Wagner

Selection and commentaries by Wagner Hertzog

Despite being well-known as a record label, Café del Mar started its days in the early eighties literally as a bar, situated in Sant Antoni de Portmany, in the island of Ibiza, Spain. Almost twenty years later, by the late nineties – in 1999, more precisely –, its proprietor decided to start a record label with the same name, releasing compilations of Balearic chillout, ambient, lounge music, easy listening and similar genres, whose sound perfectly corresponded with the atmosphere, the culture, the breathtaking sceneries, the natural beauty and the musical environment of Ibiza, a place well known for its exotic landscapes and nocturnal life, as well as clubs and festivals of electronic music. 

Eventually, this compilations became so famous, that achieved a worldwide cult status. Since 2006, they have a YouTube channel, that today has more than two hundred and sixty thousand subscribers, with more than seventy nine million views. The best compilations ever released on chillout music, they certainly deserve to be widely appreciated, and moreover, exposed to reach the largest possible amount of people. Thanks to Café del Mar – to give an example – I have discovered wonderful songs, like La Caina’s Jesus in the Sun. Below, I have selected my fifteen favorite Café del Mar compilations. 

The first compilation has exceedingly marvelous songs, like Cut Me Down, Crystal Forest and The Day You Got Older. With perfectly dense, versatile and groundbreaking dynamic melodies, there is a fully consistent vivacity displayed on this amazing compilation, that literally makes your soul wander throughout the sensitive vastness of the gracefully rapturous harmonies majestically delivered by each one of this sensational songs. 

With more calm and soft tunes, the tracks present on this compilation definitely delivers an interior peace that is marvelously sidelined by the graceful elegance of the harmonies. With a gentle and cohesive sound – whose expressively poetic density almost makes the listener fluctuate into a personal universe of calmness and serenity –, this mix is the perfect reason to lay down and enjoy a quiet afternoon of relaxation and tranquility. 

This compilation also has the prevalence of much more smooth and easy-going musical melodies, whose calm and exceptional tenderness navigate by a serene and graceful sensibility, although some songs may flirt with other genres, like sophisti-pop and new wave. Some of the songs featured on this compilation are Why I Love You, by CRi, Between Summers, by Aleksandir, and the marvelous Shift, by Henry Green. 

This is also another fascinating compilation, whose marvelous tracks dissipate its idyllic atmosphere over the sentimental horizon of the human sensorial perception. It its perfectly possible to lose yourself while listening to this phenomenal tracks, as your soul gradually dilutes, while becoming an integral part of the sensational melodies displayed in this perfectly selected set of imponderable and gracefully captivating harmonies. 

This is a great compilation, with tracks by Chilly Gonzales (Knight Moves), Blank & Jones (Pura Vida), Chris Coco (Summer Sun), Climatic (La Luna), Cantoma (with their majestic song Gambarra) and Groove Armada, with one of their greatest hits, History (though the version selected here doesn’t particularly pleases me), a song that – as the name would properly suggest – made history in the annals of the worldwide club and electronic music scene. So relax and enjoy this marvelous sound. This is one of the greatest selections of chillout music ever released, since the development of the genre.  

This marvelous compilation is another one made for you to close your eyes, to dream, and to forget all the distresses of your daily life. With a smooth and a very easy-listening mood from the beginning, it’s perfect to feel existence as a long-lasting idyllic paradise full of wonderful possibilities, where happiness is always at reach, from a very short distance. 

While this compilation has more dynamic and groovy melodies, it’s marvelous songs definitely make you feel exceedingly enthusiastic about them. This is another fantastic selection of tracks to enjoy and rejoice, for the entirety of its almost one hour long wonderfully majestic sonorous vibe.

This selection of tracks captures perfectly the atmosphere that made the sound of Café del Mar compilations so characteristic, and has conceived an unmistakable and very particular musical identity. With an exponentially transcendental, almost imponderable vibe, the colorful vitality present in these songs certainly makes the soul navigate into a deeply introspective journey of relentless grace – where a mosaic of different musical cultures converge –, to project a scenery of unrestricted peculiar beauty, everlasting serenity, consistent musical elegance, captivating emotional density and rapturous fascination. But, like all other compilations, you have to listen for yourself, to feel precisely what I’m trying to explain in words.

This is another formidable compilation, that definitely delivers a wonderful time to the listener. With exceedingly great and spectacular tunes, the tracks featured are a classic selection of Café del Mar, with all that sonorous gracefulness that made its musical identity so powerfully recognizable. 

With a more happy and attentive vibe, this wonderful compilation will definitely leave you in the clouds. Its formidable melodies and easy-listening vibe will certainly make you feel desperate to contemplate more astoundingly marvelous and sensational sonorous compositions, like the ones assembled here.

With an exceptionally smooth and very easygoing feeling, this marvelous compilation has songs by Bliss (Bascar Azad), Ghosts Of Paraguay (Falling Of The Edge), Deise Mikhail (Silent Sounds)
and Jay C & Felix Baumgartner (Souk). Displaying an abundantly graceful and tranquil atmosphere throughout its dispersive and salutary melodies, all the songs selected here – despite its obvious differences in style and tone – deliver precisely the same substance, and its consistent, peaceful and refulgent gracefulness transpire a homogeneously effervescent emotional rapture, that effectively produces the same effect in the mind of the listener. This means that you can relax, and enjoy the marvelously creative sentimental sensibilities delivered by each one of these songs, that, together, conform to a very singular and poetic set of musical standards, structured according to the diligences of its own virtues. In the end, you will feel like an elegant and consistent sensorial paradise of redemptive splendor was fully conceived for your delight; everything that you hear is an everlasting contemplation of an extension that represents everything that you are, and everything that you will be.

With a colorful density and very captivating musical tonalities, this wonderful compilation departs from more fragmentary, experimental and dispersive musical layouts, while concomitantly displaying minimalist melodic tendencies, that navigates slowly throughout a dispersive musical surface of pristine serenity. 

With somewhat original and very audacious creative dispositions, a lot of songs on this mix certainly deserves to be deeply appreciated, by the virtuous combination of qualities exposed on them: aggrandizing authenticity, majestic sensibility, proverbial excellence, phenomenal inventiveness, technical proficiency and high standards of dense and complex artistry, certainly showcases the work of serious, skilled and professional musicians, that not only deserves greater recognition, as well as all the compliments by their fantastic conception of an everlasting and disruptive world of sound, that – contrary to this one where we live in –, is imponderable and limitless, with sensibilities in constant motion and horizons in perpetual expansion. 

This exceedingly marvelous compilation begins with the fantastic song Numb, by Sam Brookes (in a remix by Phaeleh, another great chillout artist). A fabulously melancholic cantilena that delivers with an abrasive intensity all the disdain of its wonderfully lugubrious melodies, this depressive, but exceptionally pleasant song exposes and reevaluates the darkest and the most disturbed elements of the human soul. This amazing compilation also features songs by Nate Connelly (You Echo [Asa Remix]), Himalia (Ghosts), Catching Flies (Stay Forever), Marcel (Ébredés) and Jellis & Subsets (Reborn).

With wonderfully peaceful and serene harmonies, this – allow to me say – splendid compilation brings a formidable set of songs, with an almost cool jazz melodic vibe present in the atmosphere. With elegant and exceedingly graceful melodies, this selection of songs is perfect for people who loves a tangentially sophisticated, though more quiet, dense and minimalist music. 

Closing in great style, this selection of tracks has a more heterogeneous atmosphere, displaying a degree of versatility unusual for Café del Mar Compilations. Nevertheless, all the songs selected here are delightfully pleasant to enjoy, and altogether, propitiate a peculiar sonorous experience. Undoubtedly, people who appreciate this compilations will enjoy the elegant harmonies present in each one of these exceptionally graceful and marvelous songs. 

​Wagner

I really don’t know if you have the habit to listen or to appreciate jazz music occasionally. Personally, I really don’t listen to this genre frequently, but I certainly appreciate the improvisational elements of this type of music, and the generally smooth, easy-going qualities of the sound, that is fully opened to the creative horizons of the musicians involved, limited only to the stylistic possibilities that goes as far as their audacity and capabilities are willing to go, though each individual band member have to harmonize himself with the rest of the group. So Jazz definitely imposes to musicians the challenge and the discipline to achieve a precisely defined scale of musical convergence, where intuition have to be completely sidelined with a complex conjuncture of technical abilities. 

Well, here I’ve selected eight albums of the genre – some of them not so well known –, that are, nevertheless, very pleasurable to hear, at least according to my own musical preferences. You can say I have a predilection for Miles Davis, since four albums of this Jazz icon were selected, but allow me the honesty to explain that this was totally accidental. Of course Miles Davis was a great musician – and a legendary artist of immensurable status –, but my main goal for today is to open your mind for this genre of music, leaving you to appreciate this marvelous albums entirely by yourself. I don’t have the pretension to teach you anything about jazz. As I wrote above, I appreciate the genre only on a sporadic basis, and I’m not a specialist on the subject. I’m only presenting to you some possibilities, followed by relevant information, and minor personal impressions about each record. I hope you enjoy the albums I selected; I sincerely expect they could open your horizons to this interesting genre, especially if you are not used to appreciate this type of music.

Released in 1963 – and apparently recorded in four days in New York City in the previous year –, this album has eight tracks. Side A has Monk's Dream, Body and Soul, Bright Mississippi and Five Spot Blues. Side B has the tracks Bolivar Blues, Just a Gigolo, Bye-Ya and Sweet and Lovely.  

Despite the linear glances conceived by a candid set of harmonies, the smooth structure of the sound conceals a complex level of arrangements, that are discreetly inserted beneath a thin layer of improvisational melodies, that are driven by a moderate, though concomitantly majestic level of emotional rapture, despite the fact that – in a general evaluation – Monk’s abrasive, but graceful technicality seems to prevail all the way throughout the record. 

A primary example of classic jazz, Monk’s Dream displays very effusive and latent harmonies, with an amazingly preponderant chemistry between the instruments. Definitely, it’s a fabulous musical experience, that hardly any other genre could provide, with precisely the same substance. 

With more melancholic tunes, and definitely more proverbial and lugubrious musical tonalities, ‘Round About Midnight is an album by American legendary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, released by Columbia Records in 1957. Originally recorded in sporadic sessions between 1955 and 1956, the original album had the following tracks: 'Round Midnight, Ah-Leu-Cha and All of You in the Side A; Side B has Bye Bye Blackbird, Tadd's Delight and Dear Old Stockholm. This almost one hour long version – released in 2001 –, had the following additional tracks: Two Bass Hit, Little Melonae, Budo and Sweet Sue, Just You.

With an imperiously extravagant and consistent organic flow that combines the cohesiveness of the harmonies with the spontaneous synergy of a versatile musical axis, the melodies inundate the mandatory space of its own dilated, but captivating sensibility, with a breathtaking and salutary easiness. With a vivacious glory that wanders over the notes of its surreptitious tenderness, ‘Round About Midnight juxtaposes the serenity of its continuous flow with the inflexibility of its plausible intensity, being an amazingly simple and accessible jazz album, at the same time that its technical proficiency instigates the wonderful densities of its own dynamic playfulness.

Released in 1955 by Debut Records – and recorded in that same year – Blue Moods, with a total length that is a little less than twenty-seven minutes long, is a very concise record, and the shortest of this selection, though by no means the less relevant. With only four songs, Side One has the tracks Nature Boy and Alone Together, and Side Two has There's No You, followed by Easy Living.

With a serene, but despondent atmosphere, this brief musical effort interchanges melodies reminiscent of a melancholic, lugubrious and solitary dawn, with more urban, sentimental and melodramatic soundscapes. With a technical proficiency that nevertheless wanders softly over the shadows of exponentially diluted harmonies, Blue Moods circumnavigates around the peripheries of the traditional style of Miles Davis, with all the virtuous strength that became recognizable as his sound signature: an uncompromised, expansive and latent sonorous universe of playful easiness, whose practical densities fluctuates above the graceful sensibilities of one’s soul. 

Bags’ Groove is a compilation album released by Prestige Records in 1957. The record has on Side One two different versions of Bags' Groove, one eleven minutes and sixteen seconds long, and the other has an extension of nine minutes and twenty-four seconds. Side Two has the following tracks: Airegin, Oleo, But Not for Me, Doxy and an alternative version of But Not for Me. 

Following the more conventional standards of the genre, nevertheless, this album presents some rapturous grooves, and proverbially dense harmonies, that ingratiates its smooth tonalities with fantastically serene, but sometimes abrasively skilful melodic lines. With a concentrated synergy, that exhales the ecstatic atmosphere of its diffusive gracefulness with the vivacious restlessness of its imponderable vitality, Bags’ Groove reveals itself a modest treasure of classic jazz, that discreetly disseminates beneath the veracious sensibility of its mordacious level of artistry the lucid cohesiveness of an improvisational conjuncture of methodic intuition, perfectly aligned with the smooth easiness of a sober, but vast sonorous diagram. 

Bags’ Groove had Miles Davis on trumpet, Percy Heath on bass, Kenny Clarke on drums, Milt Jackson on vibraphone and Thelonious Monk on the piano. The other tracks featured Miles Davis on trumpet, Sonny Rollins on saxophone, Kenny Clarke on drums, Percy Heath on bass and Horace Silver on piano.

Released in 1959, this is one of the most celebrated albums in Miles Davis vast discography, widely regarded as one of the best jazz albums of all time, and the best-selling jazz album in history. The original album had the following tracks: So What, Freddie Freeloader and Blue in Green in Side One, and All Blues and Flamenco Sketches in Side Two.  A 1997 reissue had another version of Flamenco Sketches as a bonus track. And a 2008 reissue had three brief alternative outtakes of Freddie Freeloader, two of So What, two of Flamenco Sketches, one of Blue in Green and one of All Blues as bonus, as well as six full tracks: On Green Dolphin Street, Fran-Dance, Stella by Starlight, Love for Sale, an alternative take of Fran-Dance and another version of So What, recorded at Kurhaus, The Hague, in April 9, 1960.

Containing in full projection and abundant lines the most virtuous and spectacular elements of the authorial Miles Davis’ style, Kind of Blue has consistent and agglutinated, but at the same time fully expanded dissonant notes, that nevertheless carry on the epicenter of its delightful harmonies all the aggrandizing sensibilities of a fragmented symphony, whose mosaic of discreet, though ever increasing melodies eventually collide with the graceful hyperboles of its own dilated artistic intuition. Displaying an elegant, though tangential atmosphere of fully consecrated dimensional sagacity – whose core ambitions travel in line with the anatomy of the sound –, the salutary inventiveness that rises with the methodic vivaciousness of the artist reveals a mordacious sensibility, whose vitality lives by the technical consistency of a fascinating, but at the same time, exceedingly original creative disposition. 

Eighty-three minutes long, this is the longest album on this list. This compilation has seventeen tracks: Tenderly, Time After Time, Marilyn, Secret Love, All Blues, Angel Eyes, My Funny Valentine, Darn That Dream, Deep In a Dream, Blue Bossa, 
I Married an Angel, Round Midnight, Line For Lyons, What’s New, When I Fall in Love, My Funny Valentine and You Go to My Head. With an exceedingly smooth and melancholic style – engraved with a classic harmonious diligence that made his style a typically American feature, Chet Baker was also a singer, and some songs on this albums have vocals, which make this record unique on this list. With a crystalline, sometimes almost opaque sensibility that makes the melodies incredibly soft, but persistently cohesive at the same time, the musical output of Chet Baker is indebted to a relentless pursue of elegance, whose sonorous content expands randomly to several directions, though the general alignment of the harmonies obey to a distinctly pervasive methodic conjuncture, that dissipates its notes throughout a vast ocean of creative liberties. 

Tough its style can be stagnant at times, the life that hides inside each one of its notes revisits an undermined, but upgraded melancholy, that seems to reside indefinitely within the invisible scale of the harmonies. Despite its apparently frivolous intensity, there is a genuine sensibility that seems to revolve around the particles of all the disruptive musical framework present in the artist’s mindful restlessness. Unconsciously, he seeks to resign from the general resentment of life, never to contemplate again the darkness and the reluctant despondency that hides within the aggressiveness of his own dilapidated sensibilities. This creative strength would be better described as an impenetrable fortress of painful and hazardous emotional veracity, something that would made obvious the fact that Chet Baker’s music was always an expression of his depressive state of mind. 

Regardless of its impenitent serenity, that seemed to constantly overflow from a creative paradigm – whose downplayed narrative reinvented its peculiar waves of sadness from a very personal perspective – the melodies arise to be the redemption of the artist’s own livid and graceful musical dispositions, though permanently looking in the direction of a horizon that never deviates from its own introspective resolutions. So, to conclude in a sincere, but graceful simplicity, Chet Baker is pure melancholic poetry, ascending directly from the dawn, until the early cold morning. 

Only forty-minutes long, this is another very concise record, with nine tracks. Side A has the following: Windflower, The Night Has A Thousand Eyes, My Foolish Heart, Close Your Eyes and Danny Boy. Side B has the four following tracks: Walkin', Stardust, Triste and Groove Merchant. 

With some extraordinary harmonious tonalities – and a very colorful musical disposition –, whose natural flow integrates the easiness of a rapidly vanishing sonorous rainbow that permeates the fugacious revenue of its creative labor with a vast, but lyrically diluted and pristine musical cosmogony, Windflower reveals itself to be a simple, yet profoundly lurid, splendid and dimensional album. 

Displaying a more cool jazz vibration that definitely delivers to the audience a sensationally graceful and sincerely resplendent audacious musical tenacity, the charismatic sound that emanates from this amazing record definitely embraces a formal vitality that anticipates its own intrinsic and fugacious artistic reality. With a sound and a style whose overwhelming beauty fluctuates underneath the density of its own oblique atmosphere, Windflower is an astoundingly proverbial and authorial album, whose deeply imaginative and intricate level of originality definitely deserves to be majorly highlighted, and appointed as one of the more lucid, vivacious and authentic of its kind, to come out of the American jazz scene of the seventies.

Released in 1961, My Favorite Things was the seventh album by American jazz legend John Coltrane. Only forty minutes long, the record has four tracks. Side A has the songs My Favorite Things and Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye, while Side B features Summertime and But Not for Me. 

A very light-hearted album, with some groovy melodies that circulates within a very tenacious, but consistent musical diagram – though precisely technical in its overall sensibilities –, My Favorite Things is a testimony on Coltrane’s versatile and complex rendering of the work by other artists. With an impenetrable vitality that reaches the center of the soul of the rhythm, the effusive musical framework dispersed by each note played by Coltrane highlights the visceral virtuosity of his style, that departs from an instinctive ability to display a sober, yet restless enthusiasm, that has no fear in exhibiting with a fervent mordacity its majestic, though precisely sculpted sonorous grandiosity. 

And yet, it’s interesting to observe that Coltrane is modest in his personal interpretation of these tracks, in the sense that he does not deliver indiscriminately while playing all his formidably creative and intuitive musical skills, but stays on a more moderate zone of restrained confluence, arguably displaying a deliberate control and a technical gracefulness whose calculated pragmatism definitely conceives this work as a dynamic conjuncture of intricately cohesive sonorous elements. Coltrane’s unique splendor and exceedingly peculiar perspective about the genre certainly makes this album a singular treasure in the history of jazz music.

​Wagner

The Dignity of Labour – often abbreviated as TDOL – is a solo project of American musician Kirk Taylor, whose musical career has started moreover in the early eighties. Although the act begun mainly as a real band, progressively it became a personal project driven solely by Taylor, despite the fact that he would still perform live occasionally, with the help of additional musicians. The project has developed slowly, but consistently, throughout the decades, according to Taylor’s personal circumstances.

TDOL released its first album, titled Tired Hands, in 1992, containing material that had been written over the last five years. The second album, Belief, was released in December 1997. In 2002, Taylor partnered with musical producer Colin Mansfield and sound engineer Bob Cain for the third TDOL album. Throughout this period, Taylor has submitted some of his tracks to major American and European record labels specialized in electronic music, and one of them responded, offering a one album deal to Taylor. So the third TDOL album, self-titled, was released in September 2005. 

With a very peculiar, though somewhat typical synthpop sound, the musical style of TDOL is characterized by a nostalgia inherent to the eighties, that seems to be a musical period whose sonorous nuances are attached to the musician’s inspiration. Nevertheless, the artist’s style is prominently peculiar and characteristic. So I have selected below my five favorite TDOL songs, for you to enjoy, and be acquainted with this formidable musical project, especially for the ones who didn’t new it.  

A beautiful sentimental song taken from Taylor’s own YouTube channel, the musician himself explains that the inspiration to write this song came when he found by chance the diary of a teenager, that wrote on its pages that he wanted to commit suicide. Extremely shaken by what he had read, Taylor decided to deal with his emotions through music, and wrote this song about the experience. He never found out who the journal belonged to.

A very beautiful and emotional song, this is one of my TDOL favorites. With a marvelous melodic and exceedingly positive atmosphere, the colorful harmonies and the soft, easy going voice of Taylor makes this wonderfully gracious and vividly sensible pop tune a pleasant experience to the ears. 

Probably the first TDOL song that I have ever heard, this marvelous pop anthem made me a fan of this project. With a fabulous and exceedingly rapturous musical atmosphere, it’s fugacious, sensible and beautiful, though inherently fatalist harmonies, have an exceptional poetic density, whose enormous and majestic gracefulness revolves around the pragmatic sensibility of its fantastic melodies. 

This is another TDOL song that I love too much. Featuring exceedingly typical synthpop harmonies, nevertheless its practical spirit, content, consistency and genuine musical atmosphere – as well as its discreetly vague and complacent mood – makes Liquid a work of intrinsically formidable and astounding grandiosity. This is a song that undoubtedly should be considered an anthem of the genre. 

With a more smooth and easygoing vibe, Someone Is You is a more delicate and sensible tune, whose emotional vitality relies underneath the crystalline beauty of its spectacular, but primordially humane harmonies. A marvelously beautiful song, it’s fascinating melodies definitely captivates the heart with a soft, though graceful strength, that inevitably leads the listener into an introspective journey towards a personal universe full of thoughts, speculations and reflections. 

Well, this are my favorite TDOL songs, I hope you have liked them, as much as I had the pleasure to introduce to you the fantastic music of Kirk Taylor, a great musician that knew how to revitalize synthpop with a very peculiar and authorial virtuosity, while at the same time preserving the graceful qualities of the genre. I hope he can surprise us all in the future, releasing more flavored and spectacular tunes like the ones shown above. 


​Wagner

Ann Dvorak – born Anna McKim in August 2, 1911 – was an icon of the American movie industry, in the first half of the twentieth century. One of the most recognizable and beautiful faces of black and white cinema, she was born in New York City, to a family working in the show business: her mother Anna Lehr was an actress, and her father, Edwin McKim, was a director. Dvorak began her career as a child actress, in the silent movie era; she was only four years old when she was cast in her first film, Ramona. Nevertheless, this was just a brief stint. After one more movie, she stopped, and would return to the screen only twelve years later, in 1929. 

After some minor works, Dvorak was introduced to the famous Howard Hughes. Subsequently, she begun to be noticed by the studios, and a potential career in film became a reality. Her talent and dramatic abilities were recognized, and she eventually went on to star in several successful films, becoming a highly sought-after actress. In 1930 alone, Dvorak has participated in fourteen movies, and in the next year, she was in eight. Though this were mostly uncredited appearances, she became widely noticed in the industry, and in 1932, she starred in the iconic movie Scarface as Cesca Camonte. In this period of her life, she became extremely active professionally, and always had work in excess. Both Dvorak herself and Hollywood took advantage of her youth and exotic appearance; in her early twenties, she became a star on the rise. 

From then on, Dvorak’s future in the industry was practically assured. She would star in several important motion pictures, achieving a respectable degree of notoriety, that a lot of other actresses of her generation – for lack of talent, opportunity or both – wouldn’t be able to match. Dvorak managed somehow to always star as one of the main characters, or to effectively secure the lead role, in the movies that she was cast. In 1934, Dvorak portrayed Myra, in the drama Heat Lightning, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, Marguerite Gilbert, in the romantic movie Side Streets, directed by Alfred E. Green, Joan Morley in the crime film Midnight Alibi, directed by Alan Crosland, Nan Reynolds in the drama film Housewife, also directed by Green, Barbara in I Sell Anything, directed by Robert Florey, Susan Merrill in the drama film Gentlemen Are Born, also directed by Green and Judy in the action film Murder in the Clouds, directed by Ross Lederman. 

In the next year, she starred as Bonnie Haydon, in the musical Sweet Music – another movie directed by Alfred E. Green –, Jean Morgan in the crime drama film G Men, directed by William Keighley, where she acted alongside American screen legend James Cagney, Fay Wilson, in the drama Bright Lights, directed by Busby Berkeley, Josephine Gray, in the crime film Dr. Socrates, directed by William Dieterle and as Sally Mason, in the musical Thanks a Million, directed by Roy Del Ruth. In the forties, Dvorak slowed down, reducing her workload to two films per year. She would break this pattern only in 1950, one year before her retirement, participating in four films. 

Mostly active in the thirties and forties, Dvorak retired in 1951 – only forty years old –
 after her last movie, The Secret of Convict Lake. In total, between short movies and full length features, Dvorak made almost ninety films, in twenty-two years in the movie industry (although becomes twenty-four, if we add her two years as a child actress). 

 In 1959, forty-eight years old, Dvorak decided to move to Honolulu, Hawaii, with her third husband, Nicholas Wade, to live a quiet and peaceful life there. They married in 1951 – precisely when Dvorak retired from the movie industry – and remained married until his death, in 1975. Previously, Dvorak was married to Igor Dega, from 1947 until 1951. Her first marriage was to Leslie Fenton, a well-known actor and filmmaker, that coincidentally retired from the industry about the same time as Dvorak. 

Dvorak died of cancer, sixty-eight years old, in Hawaii, in December 10, 1979. Despite her decades long absence from the screen, she remains one of the most iconic and significant actresses from the first half of the twentieth century American cinema. Her legacy remains as one of the most relevant for classic movies enthusiasts, and for the cinematic arts as a whole.  


Wagner

Tomisaburo Wakayama – born Masaru Okumura in September 1, 1929 – despite having died almost thirty years ago, in April 2, 1992, at sixty-two years old, remains as one of the most important and relevant Japanese actors of all time. Highly prolific, Wakayama’s output encompasses several genres, despite the fact that he became more widely associated with samurai and ninja action films. Working in the industry as an actor, fight choreographer and stuntman, it’s impossible to define precisely in how many movies Wakayama was involved throughout his four decades long career, but speculations are as high as five hundred. 

Born into a family of actors, Wakayama already in his childhood followed his father’s footsteps, becoming involved in the kabuki theater. His younger brother Toshio Okumura also developed a profound interest in the profession, and became an actor. In adulthood, he would find fame and notoriety in the Japanese movie industry under the name Shintaro Katsu, becoming also one of the greatest actors of his generation. 

Eventually, though, Wakayama became more interested in martial arts. He started to study and practice judo, and acting became secondary. In the beginning of the fifties, though, he accepted an invitation to tour the United States with a theater company, for a series of spectacles that lasted nine months.

Nevertheless, his martial arts background opened doors for him in the movie industry, as a movie company, Toho, was seeking for performers with real ability to star in their action films. Wakayama, always looking for the improvement of his skills, studied several martial arts, like kenpō, kendo, bōjutsu and iaidō, to be able to achieve a degree of realism close to perfection. From then on – despite the fact that he was a very skilled and versatile artist – he became widely associated with the action genre, more specifically, period pieces featuring samurai and ninja stories. His fame, though, would be majorly consolidated in six movies, that were adaptations of the manga Lone Wolf and Cub, created by writer Kazuo Koike and illustrator Goseki Kojima. The first four of these movies – Sword of Vengeance, Baby Cart at the River Styx, Baby Cart to Hades and Baby Cart in Peril – were released in the same year, 1972. The fifth installment, Baby Cart in the Land of Demons, was released the following year, 1973. The last, White Heaven in Hell, was released in 1974. The second movie, Baby Cart at the River Styx – containing eleven minutes of footage from the first movie, Sword of Vengeance – was released for the American movie market in 1980 as Shogun Assassin. The third movie, Baby Cart to Hades, was released as a sequence, titled Shogun Assassin 2: Lightning Swords of Death. In 1980, Wakayama starred as ninja avenger Kaiketsu Kurozukin, in the marvelously fabulous movie Black Hood. His character was remarkable for the fact that, besides his skilful abilities with swords, he also used firearms, which was uncommon for a ninja.

Despite his reputation, though – acquired through decades of diligent and impeccable work – Wakayama was barely known outside Japan. He had roles in only two American movies: the 1978 comedy The Bad News Bears Go to Japan, directed by John Berry, and the legendary 1989 police thriller Black Rain, directed by Ridley Scott, and starred by Michael Douglas and Andy García. On this movie, Wakayama portrayed Sugai, a Yakuza chieftain, that serves as one of the story’s main antagonists. 

With a consistent and perfectionist style, that contributed substantially for the development of the action movie genre as period pieces quintessential for the consolidation of Japanese cinema as a major exponent of sublime art, it’s no exaggeration at all to affirm that – in the second half of the twentieth century –, samurai and ninja warriors portrayed onscreen were largely a definitive feature of Tomisaburo Wakayama. 

With a mordacious seriousness and a spectacular degree of realism that definitely surpassed the highest expectations, his legacy and proficient dramatic abilities had made him one of the greatest actors of his generation, and one of the most recognizable faces of Japanese action period movies. With a fantastic degree of density – and a passionate sensibility that allowed him to fully surrender to his characters –, Tomisaburo Wakayama has proved in hundreds of movies, though only a handful of these were necessary, why he deserves to be qualified as one of the greatest actors that ever lived. 


Wagner

Lee van Cleef – whose birth name was Clarence Leroy Van Cleef Jr. – was an American actor, active for almost four decades, from the late forties until the late eighties, retiring a year before his death, in December 16, 1989, at sixty-four years old. Born in Somerville, New Jersey, in January 9, 1925, Lee van Cleef achieved notoriety mainly for his prominent roles in Spaghetti Westerns of the sixties and seventies, of which the most famous is probably the now classic 1966 production The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, where he shared the screen with Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach. On this movie, Cleef portrayed the “Bad” from the title, a malicious character named Angel Eyes.

Lee van Cleef started his acting career in the late forties, after leaving the United States navy. After a series of roles in theater plays, he was spotted by a talent scout, who drove him to a renowned agency. His entrance ticket for the motion picture industry, though, came after a few years, when – after seeing him performing in a play in Los Angeles – famous Hollywood director Stanley Kramer invited Cleef to be part of his next film, High Noon, which would be the actor’s big screen debut. The movie – a western starred by Gary Cooper – was produced by Kramer and directed by Fred Zinnemann. Cleef had a very small part, as a character named Jack Colby. The movie was released in 1952. In this same year, van Cleef also debuted on television, appearing in shows like Sky King and Boston Blackie, as well as The Lone Ranger and The Range Rider. In these last two, he would be cast in episodes until the following year. 

While this period in van Cleef’s career was significant, given the fact that he had managed to break into the movie and television industries, despite being a terrifically skilled and versatile actor, he would very soon start to suffer from a terrible plague that frequently affects people in the business: typecasting. 

After portraying some villains – the most remarkable in this early period of his career was probably the one in the 1952 movie Kansas City Confidential, where van Cleef portrayed Tony Romano, a cold and selfish gangster that, together with three other men, robs a bank, after which the group manages to frame an innocent man for their crime, and eventually this man, Joe Rolfe, portrayed by John Payne, elaborates a highly intelligent plan of vengeance to redeem himself, successfully subduing his antagonists in the end – van Cleef unfortunately became too associated with criminals, offenders and outlaws. He hardly would manage to break out of this vicious circle. 

As time passed – more than a decade went by –, van Cleef managed to participate in moderately successful films, sometimes in good and relevant roles, sometimes doing minor parts in not so remarkable movies. His fortunes changed, though, when Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone decided to cast him in the 1965 western For a Few Dollars More, where he would star alongside Clint Eastwood. On this movie, van Cleef plays a character named Douglas Mortimer, while Eastwood portrays a tough individual that answers by the alias of Manco. Both are bounty hunters, that fight to survive the implacable ordeals of the old west. The movie also starred notorious German actor Klaus Kinski, in a villainous role. 

This movie – alongside with a handful of others – was the main responsible for giving birth to a subgenre of western movies, that would later be called western spaghetti: low-budget westerns, that were shot primarily in Italy. Lee van Cleef would star in several of these movies, eventually becoming an icon of the genre. In the following year, he starred again with Clint Eastwood in a Sergio Leone production, a western spaghetti titled The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, already mentioned. This legendary film acquired cult status since it was released, in 1966, and became a highlight of the genre. 

After these movies, Van Cleef consolidated his reputation as a major celebrity, with his image closely associated with western spaghetti. He would star in several other movies in this particular genre – frequently in leading roles –, like 1969 Sabata, and 1971 Return of Sabata. Unfortunately, he became typecast one more time in his career, but now as an old west though type of guy, and would hardly find any work outside of it. Nevertheless, he found fame and stability, and became recognized as a good actor, that managed to captivate audiences in the big screen, conveying veracity to the characters he played. 

In the seventies and eighties, van Cleef worked on television only sporadically. On this period he concentrated almost exclusively on film, since he was rarely out of offers, though invitations to star in movies also started to decline. In 1981, he co-starred with Kurt Russell in the John Carpenter directed science-fiction feature Escape from New York.

Suffering from bad health – more specifically from a heart condition – since the late seventies, in the eighties van Cleef had to undergone a surgery, where doctors implanted a pacemaker. Forced to slow down, he acted in only a few more movies. With an exotic appearance that made him look easterner, in 1984, van Cleef was cast in the main role of John McAllister, a ninja, despite the American name, in the NBC television series The Master. The show was cancelled after only thirteen episodes, and was the last television show in which van Cleef had participated, and the only one he had done in the eighties. 

In the last decade of his life, van Cleef was featured in nine movies. His last film was 1988 Thieves of Fortune, a movie directed by Michael MacCarthy, on which he played a character named Sergio Danielo. The actor died in his home in California, in December 16, 1989, at sixty-four years old. Besides his heart condition, he also had throat cancer. With a legacy encompassing almost ninety movies, and more than thirty television shows, Lee van Cleef has left crime and western movie enthusiasts in a rapturous urge of passionate and belligerent grace, whenever he was on the screen. 


Wagner

Michiyo Kogure was one of the most relevant and talented Japanese actresses of the 20th century, having starred in approximately eighty nine movies, in a forty five years career, beginning in 1939, and finishing in 1984, with the climax happening in the 1950’s. She starred in several movies with the lead actors and actresses of her generation, including Kazuo Hasegawa and Raizō Ichikawa (whose life and career were analyzed on an article that I wrote, that you can read here). 

She starred with Kazuo Hasegawa in the 1951 drama film The Tale of Genji, an adaptation of the eponymous 11th century classic Japanese literary work, written by Murasaki Shikibu. 


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In 1955, Michiyo Kogure starred in the 12th century historic drama Shin Heike Monogatari, a movie on which she played Fujiwara no Taishi, the mother of Taira no Kiyomori (played by Raizō Ichikawa), a renowned samurai and military strategist of the Heian period, known for pioneering samurais as a government ruling class. 

Two years later, she starred again in a movie with Raizō Ichikawa, the 1957 film Freelance Samurai, directed by Kenji Misumi. Another period piece – though this time fiction – on this movie, Michiyo Kogure starred as Kosuzu Hanabusa, a woman that gets enamored of Momotarō (the character played by Ichikawa), a Ronin that discovers that he has a twin, the noble hereditary leader of a dynasty, and uncovers a plot from a rival clan to kill him. 

Her most relevant roles, though, were as Taeko Satake, in the 1952 movie The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice, directed by legendary Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu, and as Miyoharu, the main character in the 1953 film A Geisha, directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, another virtuous talent of Japanese cinema.

These are two exceedingly marvelous and splendorous movies, that I think deserves to be highlighted, and meticulously analyzed. They are certainly among the best films that I have ever seen. Both are touching, humane, gracefully artistic and deeply poetic, and the performances delivered by Michiyo Kogure on these two majestic motion pictures display exceptionally fantastic, wonderful, consistent and discreet, yet monumental interpretations of vivid, intense, beautiful and fragile characters. 

In The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice, Michiyo Kogure starred as housewife Taeko Satake, an unhappy woman, that gets bored and disillusioned with her life. She becomes unsatisfied and disappointed with her husband, Mokichi Satake (played by Shin Saburi); he is a kind and hard-working gentleman, but she eventually starts to despise him, becoming tired of his somewhat calm and serene nature, that she interprets as lethargic and condescending. She arranges all kinds of excuses to pass the largest amount of time possible with her female friends, going to spas and trips, and her husband – acknowledging her free-will temperament and indulgent personality –, let her do exactly what she wants. 

Despite her relatively good relationship with her niece, the young Setsuko (played by Keiko Tsushima), Taeko puts pressure for her to attend a matchmaking session. She is resistant at first, telling to a male friend of her that she finds this matchmaking social obligations an archaic and retrograde tradition, and – although she is young –, she wants to feel as an independent woman. Eventually, though, Setsuko agrees to participate, only to escape after arriving there, which leaves her aunt Taeko, that had accompanied her, severely distressed with her disappearance. Setsuko then goes to her aunt’s home, where she finds her uncle, and explains to him what happened. He advises her to return, but she refuses. When Taeko comes home, and finds Setsuko, she demands an explanation. Setsuko then tells her aunt what she really thinks about arranged marriages, and then leaves. Taeko tells her husband that Setsuko is too much of a carefree spirit, and needs to be reprimanded, to learn how to properly behave, and to follow costumes and tradition. Mokichi then tells her, in his characteristic calmness and serenity, that it will be of no use, since this could produce another couple like them. 

Eventually, Mokichi has to go to Montevideo on a business trip, but Taeko leaves, without informing him of her precise whereabouts. Mokichi sends a telegram to her asking her where she is, and asking her to join him, informing her about his immediate trip. She ignores his solicitations, though, and does not go to the airport to accompany his departure, nor to say goodbye, like all other families traditionally do. After a few hours, though, Mokichi comes home. He informs Taeko that was a problem on the airplane, so all the passengers had to disembark, and were scheduled for the next flight. He will be leaving tomorrow. 

More solicit and emphatic, Taeko asks Mokichi if he needs anything, and he says he is tired, but also hungry. She offers herself to go to the kitchen, to take some food, and she joins him in the meal. Both go to the kitchen together, to pick up all the necessary things to eat. Taeko asks forgiveness for her husband for leaving without informing him where she was going, and promises not to do that anymore. Then, in a very beautiful, touching and emotional scene, she says she feels guilty, and is profoundly sorry for the terrible and difficult behavior she has displayed lately, towards him. He warmly accepts her apologies, and the two reconcile. 

Later, Taeko is seen with her friends, very happy, saying that she is the most fortunate woman for having a man like Mokichi as her husband. She now values everything he does for her, and she says that – despite the fact that she used to see him as a very lethargic and complacent man – she came to discover that a woman never really knows what a man has to go through, in his working life, on a daily basis. Maybe he has to pass through great lengths and sacrifices to give her the good life that she has, and she never realized before that maybe she doesn’t know everything that he has to confront, to give her the prosperity that she enjoys. She seems peaceful and grateful for all the things she has, and now values the decent man to whom she is married, saying that she couldn’t ask for a better husband.     

In the final scene of the movie, we see Setsuko talking to her friend from earlier, the one upon which she complained about arranged marriages. It leaves the audience to decide if they are just good friends, or if they are – or will become – a couple. 

A marvelously fantastic masterpiece, The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice has a dense and consistent history, sidelined with profoundly dramatic, but gracefully humane elements. The impeccable direction of Yasujirō Ozu, that knew how to capture in detail – though with an expressively dynamic vivacity – the splendid dichotomy of relationships, exposed with veracity and formidable vitality the exceptional layers of the human behavior, in a very cohesive and sensible story. 

With an astounding cinematography, and exceedingly wonderful visual qualities, as well the phenomenal versatility of Michiyo Kogure – who inserted a subtle, though profoundly existential density into her character – The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice certainly can be considered one of the greatest movies ever made in the history of Japanese cinema. Its aggrandizing virtues display such a glorious level of excellence and refinement, both in the creative and technical elements, that its astounding perfection in all aspects is simply undeniable. 

In the 1953 movie A Geisha, Michiyo Kogure plays Miyoharu – the title character –, that accepts Eiko (played by a then young Ayako Wakao, which would later become another famous Japanese actress) as a maiko, an apprentice of Geisha. Eiko is seemingly desperate, because her mother recently died, and her father is a very negligent parent. She also has an uncle, that she refuses to live with, as he constantly demands sexual favors from her. Since she has debts related to her mother’s funeral, she is desperate to earn some money. Initially having doubts concerning her potential, Miyoharu eventually becomes sympathetic towards the girl, and accepts her as an apprentice. 

Initially, conforming the girl to Geisha standards proves to be a difficult task; Miyoharu becomes indebted by enrolling her in a prestigious school, and Eiko – who earns the apprenticeship name of Miyoei – gets drunk at parties, hardly behaving with any grace, elegance and sophistication. As the girl becomes somewhat solicited at parties and venues, her father tries to extort money and goods from Miyoharu. Eventually, she is contacted by a group of businessmen, that wants her to seduce a potential client – a man named Kanzaki (played by Kanji Koshiba) – in a deal that could bring her great prosperity. While this man becomes attracted to Miyoharu, another one, Kusuda (played by Seizaburō Kawazu) becomes fond of the young Miyoei.

Nevertheless, Miyoharu becomes disillusioned of the way the deal goes, and not interested at all in Kanzaki, subtlety avoids him. They never consummate, something that frustrates Kanzaki. To get matters worse, Miyoharu becomes severely worried when – at a party where all of them are – Kusuda stays alone with Miyoei in a room. The girl manages to avoid the man’s advances, though. Miyoharu never surrenders herself to Kanzaki, nor Miyoei to Kusuda. It becomes clear that Miyoharu wants to protect Miyoei at all cost, and does not want her to have sex against her will, and with such a young age, willing to go to great lengths to protect her from the vicissitudes of a life of geisha. Since the deal is broke, she starts to be sabotaged from venues, and all her other appointments are cancelled. Miyoei, eager to sacrifice herself for the honor of Miyoharu, decides to present herself to be taken by Kusuda, but this cannot happen without Miyoharu’s approval, that is not granted. 

Knowing that she has to do something to improve their situation, Miyoharu decides to sleep with Kanzaki, as long as they made a deal, that consists in Kusuda forgetting Miyoei. The deal is arranged, and after that, things return to normal. Eventually, Miyoei gets suspicious, and asks Miyoharu if she slept with Kanzaki, saying that she will be very angry and disappointed if that would be true. Miyoharu confirms her suspicions, but says that she did that for her own well-being. She doesn’t care to anything that happens to her, but she is very protective of Miyoei, desperate to prevent her from the traumas and afflictions that comes with the profession. Willing to preserve her purity and innocence, Miyoharu acted to protect her, and soon thereafter, pupil and mentor reconcile, rejoicing at their reacquired good fortunes. 

One of the greatest movies that I have ever seen – besides the marvelous, profound and incomparable acting abilities of Michiyo Kogure – this story of abnegation, altruism, love and sacrifice displays the preservation of innocence in a corrupt and lustful environment. We can easily think that the main character, Miyoharu, experienced hard times as a geisha, and never had anybody to defend her, to protect her or to stand for her. Exactly for this reason, she decides to protect the young Eiko at all costs, being a shield for the young girl against the miseries of life, determined to protect her from the horrible and disgraceful ordeals of existence, more specifically against the burdens, disillusions and disappointments inherent to the life of a geisha. So, she decided she would be to Eiko the protection that herself never had in her life. 

A marvelous movie with a groundbreaking degree of artistry, that combines a diligent and profound story filled with realistic historical elements, the characters are marvelously elaborated, and amazingly portrayed. A period piece that certainly has so many virtues as a result of the fabulous and exceptional direction of Kenji Mizoguchi, this majestic movie is one of those that deserves to be appreciated several times. Its formidable qualities have such distinct combinations – and so peculiar commonalities –, that this aggrandizing and masterful state of the art work certainly deserves to be vastly acclaimed as an unprecedented accomplishment of not only Japanese, but worldwide cinema.
 
Michiyo Kogure was one of the most talented actresses of her generation. With a versatile, but candid and sincere brightness, that transpired a mordacious, but at the same time exceedingly elegant vivacity in each one of the characters that she played, Michiyo Kogure deserves to be remembered by her splendorous and extraordinary talent, that so much glorious virtues and singular nuances aggregated to the movies in which she had participated. A lot of them displayed artistic vitality and extravagant beauty exactly because of her presence. 

Unfortunately, Michiyo Kogure never became widely known outside Japan. Nevertheless, her virtuous talent has proved to be one of the greatest triumphs for the cinematic arts in her home country, whose eighty-nine movies that featured her graceful appearance certainly makes a consistent legacy, especially to people that appreciate classic Japanese cinema. Michiyo Kogure was born in January 31, 1918 and died at seventy-two years old, in June 13, 1990. 


Wagner