Acid Jazz Junkie #3 - United Future Organization

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"Now it's jazz, the place is roaring." But if Jack Kerouac had written those words in 1993, as cool and hip as he was, it's entirely possible that he might have written "acid jazz" in lieu of just "jazz." I'm rebuilding my acid jazz collection on CD rather than vinyl, and my membership in the acid jazz club would certainly be rescinded if I didn't own a copy of the self-titled 1993 album from United Future Organization. San Francisco, New York City, England, France, Germany, and Japan all had great acid jazz scenes in the 1990's. Great. And Tokyo's United Future Organization are legends within the genre. Formed in 1990 as a trio (Japanese-born Tadashi Yabe and Toshio Matsuura with Frenchman Raphael Sebbag, although only Yabe and Sebbag remain,) the group used the strengths of both country's scenes to maximum potential, crafting a string of fine--hell--outstanding, acid jazz albums. This album (their second) is one non-stop groove, from the mellow, morning-full-of-sunshine smoothness of "The Sixth Sense" (featuring legendary acid jazz vocalist Rob Gallagher, AKA Rob Galliano of the band Galliano,) to the fun, funky-jazz instrumental, "Vinyl Junkie." And there's a reason I used a Jack Kerouac quote earlier. It's the opening line from an actual Kerouac reading, the guys took the recording of Jack's voice and built a sparse, dark-jazz tune around it for "Poetry and All That Jazz." But I've linked to the video for a classy piece of groovy French jazz, "My Foolish Dream,) featuring Japanese-American jazz vocalist/actress Monday Michiru (she's very pretty, her voice is very pretty, and this is a really neat black and white old-fashioned French jazz club-style video.) I love these guys. Domo arigatou/merci for the groovy music, gentlemen! (Info verified by Wikipedia)