is a Japanese band led by composer and instrumentalist

Yoko Kanno is a Japanese composer, arranger and music producer best known for her work on the soundtracks of anime series, television series, live-action films, video games, and advertisements. She was born in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. She has wri ...

. An international ensemble comprising both a stable lineup of musicians and various collaborators, the band was assembled by Kanno in 1998 to perform the soundtrack music for the '' Cowboy Bebop'' anime series. Their repertoire covered and blended many different genres, mainly

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

, but also a wide variety of

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to r ...

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

orchestral pop Orchestral pop (sometimes called ork-pop for short) is pop music that has been arranged and performed by a symphonic orchestra. It may also be conflated with the terms symphonic pop or chamber pop. History During the 1960s, pop music on radio an ...

and other styles of genres.

Band history

The name of the band, according to the fictional description given in their first album '' Cowboy Bebop'', derives from how the performers wear

seatbelt A seat belt (also known as a safety belt, or spelled seatbelt) is a vehicle safety device designed to secure the driver or a passenger of a vehicle against harmful movement that may result during a collision or a sudden stop. A seat belt red ...

s to be safe while they play hardcore jam sessions. The band performed the entire soundtrack of the

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

series ''Cowboy Bebop'' and produced a total of seven albums (three new songs in '' Cowboy Bebop Tank! THE! BEST!'') and one live DVD. The band performed virtually in the midst of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

in 2020 to participate in new projects. In collaboration with

Funimation Crunchyroll, LLC, previously known as Funimation from 1994 to 2022, is an American entertainment company owned by Japanese conglomerate Sony as a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex that specializes ...

Sunrise Sunrise (or sunup) is the moment when the upper rim of the Sun appears on the horizon in the morning. The term can also refer to the entire process of the solar disk crossing the horizon and its accompanying atmospheric effects. Terminology Al ...

, and composer Mason Lieberman, the band rerecorded the ending theme of Cowboy Bebop,

The Real Folk Blues ''The Real Folk Blues'' is a series of blues albums released between 1965 and 1967 by Chess Records, later reissued MCA Records. Each album in the series highlighted the music of one major Chess artist, including John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Mudd ...

to raise proceeds for COVID-19 relief. In addition, the band began the Session Starducks project on a newly founded YouTube channel in April 2020. In collaboration with musicians as well as with the original members of the band, the project aims to virtually record new interpretations of various songs composed by Yoko Kanno. These include songs from Cowboy Bebop and

Macross Frontier is a Japanese anime television series and the third Japanese anime television series set in the ''Macross'' universe. It was broadcast on MBS from April 4, 2008 to September 26, 2008. ''Macross Frontier'' is the story of a human space ...

. It was confirmed in April 2020 that Yoko Kanno will be returning to compose the upcoming live-action adaption of Cowboy Bebop for

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

. It was later confirmed in November 2021 that The Seatbelts will perform the music for the new adaptation.

Discography

Studio albums

* '' Cowboy Bebop'' (1998) * ''

Cowboy Bebop Vitaminless The '' Cowboy Bebop'' anime series was accompanied by a number of soundtrack albums composed by Yoko Kanno and Seatbelts, a diverse band Kanno formed to create the music for the series, with a principal focus in jazz. The soundtrack was released in ...

'' (1998) * '' Cowboy Bebop No Disc'' (1998) * '' Cowboy Bebop Blue'' (1999) *'' Ask DNA'' (2001) * '' Future Blues'' (2001) *''Cowboy Bebop (Soundtrack from the Netflix Series)'' (2021)

Live albums

* '' Future Blues DVD'' (2001)

Remixes and compilation albums

* '' Cowboy Bebop Remixes: Music for Freelance'' (1999) * '' Cowgirl Ed'' (2001) * '' Cowboy Bebop Boxed Set'' (2002) * '' Cowboy Bebop Tank! THE! BEST!'' (2004) * '' Space Bio Charge'' (2009)

Singles

* ''TANK! Virtual Session 2020'' (2020) * ''"Real Folk Blues" For these days'' (2020) * ''Don't Bother None 2020'' (2020) * ''Space Lion Virtual Session 2020'' (2020)

As a featured artist

* The Real Folk Blues (2020) (with Mason Lieberman)

References

External links

The Jazz Messengers
site with many ''Cowboy Bebop'' resources. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Seatbelts (band) Japanese jazz ensembles Blues musical groups Musical groups established in 1998 Musical groups disestablished in 2004 Musical groups reestablished in 2020