More fierce humans to support: Monday Michiru Akiyoshi-Mariano. Where does one start with the wildfly prolific career of Monday? How about the beginning with Mangetsu. Unlike little released in Japan at that time, Mangetsu was the sprawling debut of a young Japanese-American who couldn’t quite suss out any style she wanted to gravitate to (nor wanted to) and decided to venture further everywhere, to the tune of her own fife and drum. Hearing it now, one can imagine how virgin ears then might have completely missed just how pioneering this work was at that moment.
I hate to use the word, but Monday had the ‘pedigree’ to be made of something special. Born in Tokyo, in 1963, to two icons of jazz music, one her mother, noted composer, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and the other Italian-American saxophonist, Charlie Mariano, from the beginning it seemed her trajectory was destined. However, life, as with many things, isn’t quite as forecast.
Mostly raised in America, it was in places like New York City and Los Angeles, that’d Monday learn what many expected her craft to be. Classically-trained in flute (and exceptionally gifted in it), she set that aside to explore her true love: singing and songwriting. Falling in love with urban house, techno, jazz, hip-hop, and R&B scenes, there she knew the kind of music she’d like to make was. However, by then an opportunity to pursue a career in acting temporarily delayed that venture.
In the late ‘80s, Monday would set anchor in Japan, scouted by a director looking for a non-professional who could portray an opera singer. She took the opportunity to take the role and quickly became an in-demand actress appearing in countless films, garnering various acting awards. Her striking looks and fluency in Japanese lead to various modeling and CM contracts, and with offers to host various Japanese TV shows and radio programs. But still, that music bug never completely got away from her. Music was her thing. Whether on the radio, TV, or in print media, she’d become one of the early proponents trying to get Japanese audiences to dig deeper in the burgeoning underground dance and hip-hop culture through influential shows like “Tokyo Deep”.
Hustling to make her real goal of making music that thing, Monday would befriend artists like Shinichi Osawa (aka Mondo Grosso), DJ Krush, and others at the forefront of the J-Underground dance scene, writing about that whole scene. A photo, bio, and a demo later from L.A. her cassettes made it to a record company in Japan. Perhaps owing to her more open minded approach to music, it was fortuitous that she’d end up signing for her debut on Richard Branson’s Virgin Japan label and given freedom to explore all sorts of styles.
“Wagamama (Self-Indulgence)” would be the lead-off single from Mangetsu and in it’s own way perfectly encapsulated the level of ambition already present in Monday’s mindspace. Part hip-hop groove, with perfectly dropped lyricism from Monday and MC Muro over impeccably hyphy sonic vibes from the DJ Krush Posse, an audacious acid jazz experiment that predicted some of the ideas crews like Brand New Heavies and Mondo Gross, of course, would later make major bank with. However, befitting all albums created at the turn of a century or decade, Mangetsu is wonderfully kaleidoscopic in Monday’s vision, actively accepting her waifu makeup and pushing back with its worth (in a culture that often times devalued their contributions). That it was a minor hit was a surprise in itself.
Lead-off track “Making Love To A Ghost” signals one direction: ambient soul music, but as Monday would admit, she purposefully shifted moods on each track. Monday refused to be pigeonholed and she successfully found a way to navigate into certain uncharted waters. The title track “満月の華 (Mangetsu No Hana)” lets her compositional chops take flight with music more befitting the realm of neotraditionalists like Mio Fou, packing as much drama as possible into a 4-minute long song. Then as you think it’s something “Wagamama” punches in knocking you for a loop.
“With You” gives Monday an opportunity to stretch out and does so with a sultry, downtempo track that touches on UK Soul and strident vocals covering all sorts of glorious phrasing and runs. Here DocTA Haketa aka Takefumi Haketa (from early J-Electro crew Afrika) provides the delicate touch. Things go even deeper with Michio’s overtly torchlit balladry, a revisitionist number called “Do It Again” that mixes proto-trip-hop stylings in ways Gershwin would have approved.
If a CD could have a flipside, surely for Mangetsu it would begin on “Just Pretend”. A Walearic number featuring the aid of ex-Duran Duran member Nick Wood, Yas-Kaz (!), and Kenji Omura, somehow finds a way to let Monday integrate Japanese folk, latin jazz, and J-soul into a bilingual blend befitting its creator. A very brief number “Ricordérai” hinting at Italian opera or European chorale music segues effortlessly into another album highlight, the absolutely torching “Pretending To Care”.
On it members of Killing Time, Unita Minima, and Hotra Picarra show another fascinating side of Monday, the art pop songstress, one that makes her case on this side, stretching her ideas out of leftfield towards some brilliant outer reaches — almost making you forget this is just a Todd Rundgren cover.
The album ends on two decidedly Japanese-influence tracks. “With My Love” much like the work of Aragon and Mariah, fits into that slot where Japanese fourth world music could also cross the line into the pop arena. Full credit goes to Monday for reigning in the ideas of Nick, Kenji, and Yas-Kaz, again in a way that fits her greater vision of not running away from any of her cultural lineage.
Then the album ends quite fittingly with Monday’s mom, Toshiko, joining her on piano for a gorgeous slice of nocturnal vocal jazz, both giving a hat tip to the inspirational figures who blazed a path for her, and signals signposts to those sometimes lonely paths she must follower herself to leave a wake for others to continue with. Fittingly, an album that failed miserably to capture an audience, and is long undeservedly out of print on a defunct label, now sounds like it belongs as a timeless one for our generation to rediscover if they could only just find it.