She was a master at balancing on the fine line between vulnerability and arrogance - with her mysterious aura, the jazz and blues interpreter was considered an icon of the subculture in the seventies.

The great era of the Japanese singer, songwriter and producer Maki Asakawa (1942- 2010) began in the late 1960s with the release of the album "Tokio Banka" (1967) and the recording of a three-day concert series (1968). For her psychedelic excursions into spiritual modal jazz, she inhaled Billie Holiday, stripped Nina Simone to the bone, adopted Nico's idiom, alienated Oscar Brown Jr, and collided Bessie Smith with big band experiments.

The compilation "Maki Asakawa" by the London label Honest Jon's now sets a fitting memorial to this unique artist with 18 tracks from Asakawa's heyday in the 1970s. The compilation is rounded off by highly informative liner notes by Alan Cummings and fabulous photographs by Hitoshi Jin Tamura.

TRACKS:

• 01. Nemuru no ga kowai
• 02. Chicchana toki kara
• 03. Blue Spirit Blues
• 04. Fushiawase to lu na no neko
• 05. Govinda
• 06. Chicchana toki kara
• 07. Boro to furutetsu
• 08. Aisa nai no aise nai no
• 09. Uramado
• 10. Kamome
• 11. Machi
• 12. Gogo
• 13. Zenkamono no Christmas
• 14. Hikkoshi
• 15. Cabaret
• 16. Konna funi sugite iku no nara
• 17. Onna
• 18. Yuki ga furu