John Sebastian “The Four of Us”

I remember buying this as a young teen, I believe at the mall record store (not this copy—but I remember the abstract cover like it was yesterday). I’m not sure if, when I bought it, I was already familiar with John Sebastian from seeing him on TV, either solo or with the Lovin’ Spoonful, singing “Do You Believe in Magic”—hugging that autoharp—which was the nerdiest thing I’d ever seen. But also really cool, in a way, and kind of exciting, because when we started our first band, in 1972, the only instruments we had available to us were the piano, the autoharp, and a gong (as well as improvised percussion). I always thought of him as one of those annoying hippies with glasses (as opposed to annoying hippies without glasses)—but still liked him. I remember thinking this album seemed about half dumb and half compelling—and that’s about how it sounds to me now—though likely different parts are dumb and compelling. The styles are all over the place, but that’s what you get from someone with a lot of influences who gets to indulge a little. When I was 13 or so, I suppose I liked the blues stuff best, but now my favorite song is “I Don’t Want Nobody Else”—just because it’s a particular kind of dated pop song that appeals to me now. Funny, because I’m pretty sure it was my least favorite song on the record, back then—but now I really like it. Just a simple pop song, a little melancholy, very pretty.

Side Two is presented as one song, “The Four of Us”—though, of course, it’s a “suite” of very different songs—but it’s kind of a loose travelogue about these four hippies traveling in a truck, four of them, two men, two women—and I’m pretty sure I got the impression that there was a bit of “swapping” going on—which made me feel gross, back then. It makes me feel gross now, as well—though I don’t think there’s anything in the lyrics to support this—I must have been reading into it, just because of my biases about hippie culture, free love, and all that. On the way, then, they’re meeting some characters, and that gets old, so then they head down to the islands for a bit (steel drums and the like). Restless again, so it’s back, and to New Orleans, electric guitar, some partying, Dr. John and so forth. And then on the road again, a little melancholy, heading out west. Red Wing, Colorado—always my favorite—maybe I pictured that as how my life could have, and should have, progressed. The simple life—so simple that now there’s only two of them. Where did the other two go? But even that gets old, so it’s back to LA and, I guess, “Hollywood”—is LA home? Now it’s “more of us” (babies, I’m guessing, not just ferrets and dogs). Ultimately, as far as I can tell, it’s about the “love of a good woman.” And memories. Bit of lowkey ending there, but at least it’s happy. Had this been a movie of the era, it might have ended with drug overdoses, car accidents, and violence. Glad to hear John Sebastian’s still out there, and he’s still doing music and other show-biz stuff.

3.31.23

Ahmad Jamal “Sun Set”

The first song, “If Not for Me,” starts out particularly understated—you know the song, so when he doesn’t even finish one of the phrases, your mind finishes it, but it’s supremely pleasing in that it denies your expectations, as well as fulfills your expectations. Then there’s a part where a couple of notes are repeated to the extent that if it was a CD, you’d be certain it was skipping, even though this record came out in 1976, and CDs were still on the drawing board, right? (I don’t remember anymore.) Well… certainly when it was recorded, over a decade earlier. But it doesn’t sound like a record skip—so I guess back then, it would probably just evoke a kind of weird but interesting repetition. I know nothing about jazz, really—despite listening to years and years of Phil Schaap’s radio shows—but you don’t necessarily need to know much to enjoy it. Of course, the more you know, the better. It’s kind of funny how opposite I feel about live jazz recordings and live rock recordings. I avoid the rock ones—I can think of very few I like—too much energy with nowhere to go, not to mention inane patter (could drugs have been a factor?) But for jazz, live recordings make perfect sense.

This is a double record—a repackaging from “Chess Jazz Master Series.” It’s put together by a guy named Dan Nooger, who wrote the liner notes. It’s a release of a couple of records that were live recordings from 1958 and 1961—nearly 30 songs. The personal is the same: Ahmad Jamal, piano; Israel Crosby, bass; Vernel Fournier, drums. So… these are recordings of live shows from just before I was born and just after I was born. And for whatever reason, this is music that connects with me like I was listening to nothing but this all my life. I wonder who decided to call it “Sun Set”—rather than “Sunset” or “Chess Set”—interesting. The cover is a picture of, I suppose, a sunset (though, I might have thought moonrise) over some mountains. It’s funny—the picture is roughly the aspect ratio of a movie—but the cover opens up, and then the picture, a landscape, continues onto the back—and becomes the aspect ratio of a CinemaScope movie. I don’t know if that was intentional or not—but I’ll take it.

I don’t know that much about Ahmad Jamal, but I have a couple of his LPs—that I was able to find without mortgaging anything. No doubt I’ll pick up another one. The Big Board says he’s currently 92 years old—and he was born the same year as my dad, in roughly the same geographical area, with partly the same name (he changed his name to Ahmad Jamal in 1950, when he converted to Islam). He started playing piano at the age of 3, and by now has been releasing records for seven decades or so. I suppose by listening to this record enough times I know quite a lot about him (and his bass player and drummer). Hearing a good musician’s music is a direct connection to them—I guess that’s partly why we feel so strongly about music. And for some reason, piano, more than anything else, strikes me as a direct connection to the musician’s mind. Piano was the first instrument I tried to play—and I guess it was the first time I can recall experiencing significant failure. But that didn’t turn me against the instrument, or people who play piano. I might always consider it my one true love.

Bent Fabric “Alley Cat”

I would probably buy any record with a cat on the cover, that’s how much I like cats—the exception being if it’s treated badly or something, like compromised—coerced to perform human activities, like stir-frying or bong hits. Cats are more dignified than that. And this one is a really cute cat… and takes up the whole cover. I think I used to own a copy of this, lost it, and picked up another for a few dollars—you see it in cheap record bins. It’s probably a record that many people have, but if you asked them to describe the music, they couldn’t. (I mean hum the melodies—you know it’s somewhat cornball easy listening piano based instrumentals.) But then, when they do hear it—or Bent Fabric’s most famous composition, “Alley Cat”—brought to life on this record—they’ll recognize it—“Oh, that song. I never knew what the name of that was. That’s the song in that…” (And then they can’t remember.) I suppose that might go for a lot of popular tunes, standards, and jingles. A Danish guy, Bent Fabric was more or less his real name, I think, or close, I think (okay: Bent Fabricius-Bjerre). You wouldn’t make something like “Bent Fabric” up—when you could call yourself Soiled Fabric or Bent Fender or Frank Bjorn (the composer of “Alley Cat”). Or, simply, Bjorn. That’d be my choice. But still, he became a household word, a question on “Jeopardy” (most likely), and recorded a lot of records and soundtracks for half a century (he passed away in 2020). The liner notes by Bob Altschuler are nonsense, but the Bent Fabric photo on back is a classic.

X media – Various Artists Flexi Disc (Rocco Loco / Serious / 12 Year Olds / D. Bush)

This is a multi-artist, 7-inch flexi disc with four tracks—it’s beat all to hell, yet still plays splendidly. I have no idea where I got it—I don’t have a clue. I feel like I may have owned it for several decades. How things don’t get lost is more of a mystery than when they do. I looked it up on Big Brain and 15 minutes of avid searching (my limit) un-earthed nothing. Okay, there is a listing on Discogs—very rare to find something not on Discogs (though, of course, that’s an ongoing goal!) There are even four for sale! All in the four dollar range, plus shipping. The links for the band names take me right back to flexi disc listing. The label and/or title of the disc is “X media”—which also gets me nowhere. No other info on the flexi itself. The printing is black on black. No date, no address, no secret message that I can see visually. I’m forced to proceed by sound alone!

One: Rocco Loco “Cigarettes” – Sounds like a field recording, you hear some cars, some rustling, and a guy who keeps saying something about cigarettes—but I can’t tell what he’s saying at all—it might be French (except for the word “cigarettes”). Two: Serious “Air It Out” – Sounds exactly like recordings I made in the Eighties with friends while we were drunk. Someone’s got an alto sax, someone else has a clarinet, and then there’s some improvised percussion, pots and pans and whatnot—and somehow, they fall into a barely discernable (but definite) groove—and that’s the song. Three: 12 Year Olds “Unbageled Jelly” – This one totally sounds like some recordings we did with my very first band (called the Chinese Electrical Band) formed, incidentally, when I was 12—so it might actually be us? Could be, but how’d they get the tape? (We did totally lose one.) No… that’d be too weird. We had some great song titles (like “Pumpkins Rule My World”) but nothing remotely as brilliant as “Unbageled Jelly”—that’s astounding. I want to figure out how to use the world “unbageled” in everyday life, now, but how? In what context? Of course, it’s probably a company name (like that stupid Untucked shirt co.)—and most certainly a band, somewhere. Four: D. Bush “Tax Break; Gas, Grass or As” – A recording on a very wavery tape recorder (gotta change those batteries!) pretty much just singing and electric guitar—though it wavers so much, the wavering is like an instrument itself. Two songs: the first, there are lyrics (which I can’t make out) and a melody—though it’s not a great melody. The second song, much the same, but I do understand the chorus: “You gotta have gas, grass, or ass, baby” (which, back in the day, motorists demanded of hitchhikers—and always struck me as pretty damn needy). It ends with the most minimal sound collage ever: “the root of the problem is” and “I want to be a criminal”—I kind of admire the restraint, and not going full on “Revolution 9.”

Carole King “Fantasy”

I’d never heard (or remembered I had heard) any of this record, from my favorite (for music) year of 1973. Carole King is such an amazing songwriter, and singer—I could probably hang out on her most boringest day and have one of my most memorable (my fantasy, being a teenager and invited in the studio, where she’s writing and recording, and I’m just taking it in). But, for some reason, back in the early Seventies, I avoided her like homework—I knew no better. This is a somewhat odd record in that there’s a little intro at the beginning (“Fantasy Beginning”), and at the end, “Fantasy End” (outro)—that are intended to tie the whole thing together, I suppose. And there is no space between songs—they just bump into each other—so it’s like one big song (though you have to turn the record over—did I need to say that). Glad the inner sleeve is intact, because there’s lyrics on one side. The other side is sepia version of the album cover—which is like a muted, colorized sepia (really, just blues added). It’s an odd style of photo collage, using a grand piano from the top as a frame in which there’s a street scene—people coming and going—and then a portrait of Carole King superimposed, looking over it all like an angel. From what you can make out of the street, I’m guessing it’s NYC Times Square area, because there’s the Horn & Hardart Automat—which is a cool detail—as well, as some other businesses—and the people appear to be tourists. The back is an even more stylized photo collage—that resembles the educational magazine and book illustrations I’d see in grade school, back around this time. The back is all musicians—likely ones featured on this record—including three versions of Carole King.

I’ve got to say, I kind of got obsessed with this record over the last days, weeks, or so I’ve been trying to figure out what I think. At first it bugged me a little—for no good reason—but with repeat listenings, it’s really grown on me. I guess you could say, lyric-wise, she’s asking a lot of questions. Trying to figure things out—and through melodies and lyrics—that’s as good a way as any. I really like how it all flows together, rather than isolating songs—even though there are some very good songs. Listening to it now, it’s reminding me of different things—soul music from this era, certainly. Oddly, the end of side one (the song “Weekdays”) made me think of my favorite Frank Sinatra album—Watertown (from 1970). This has got me questioning how I listen to music lately—picking these records randomly, and then sometimes I listen to them once—and write about them. But this is one that really benefits from being treated like when I used to buy records as a teenager—when each new one would be a new journey, and I’d really live with it for a while. I guess from now on, I’m going to try to recognize when that kind of listening works better. I’m sure there are people out there who love Carole King more than anyone—who might think it’s odd that it’s taken me so long to love her as much as they do. Well, you know.