Category: Music

Weeknotes S04 E07: TBR

It’s fall, and around these parts that means the October Friends of the Library Book Sale. It’s where I was last weekend instead of writing this. I always find a treasure there. Always. And it’s probably one of the few places I’ll buy a dead tree book–not because I have anything against dead tree books. We just don’t have the space, and ebooks are the only way I can practically read in the interstices of an otherwise busy life.

I usually focus on two sections before I start wandering around the place: the science-fiction/fantasy section and the literary short story section, which is where I scored what I discovered was the inaugural issue of the lit mag NOON, edited by Dianne Williams and Christine Schutt. Then, I’ll wander around the other sections and finish off at the CDs. The big score here was a recording from Return to Forever’s 2008 RETURNS tour, the first album from this classic jazz fusion band in over 30 years. I remember freaking out when I first saw the YouTube videos of the Montreux part of the tour. They didn’t lose a step, that’s for sure!

I picked up a copy of the HEAVY METAL soundtrack as a lark, and the interaction I had with the older volunteer who sold it to me made it totally worth the price. She goes, “Great soundtrack! Blue Öyster Cult… I was actually listening to them before I came here today.” Rock on, auntie!

There are two other conditions where I’ll buy a dead-tree book: (a) When I want something that’s only offered in that format and (b) I want it right the fuck now and don’t care if it’ll end up in an ebook later on. That doesn’t happen very often and when it does, I tend to forget when I pre-order them. So this week I got, not one, but two pleasant surprises from past me.

I guess if I go another month between Weeknotes, we’ll know why.

And If the Wind Is Right, You Can Sail Away

New school yacht rock meets old school yacht rock!

How could I not love Benny Sings’ vibe? Dutch guy putting a modern spin on Yacht Rock, singing like Barry Gibb on lo-fi tracks? Yes please. I got a couple of his albums, and that was before I knew he was hanging out with bands like Free Nationals. If he’s hip enough for them, he’s hip enough for me.

And to top it off, to get a hold of a Christopher Cross demo to put it on the B-side? :chef’s kiss:

velocity x dm/dt

Thrust exists in that blurry, liminal space between jazz, funk, soul, and R&B.

I finally pulled the trigger on the whole catalog of Wilbur Niles and the band Thrust. Much like the journal GAMUT, here’s another thing from my childhood that I didn’t know existed at the time.

I love the story here: In the late ’70s a musician from Akron and his girlfriend puts out an album that quickly goes out of print but gets continuously sampled over the years, becoming a white whale for collectors everywhere. Meanwhile, he and his band just keep putting out music. Music that’s really up my alley, at least in my adult life.

More than that though, I dig the obvious Northeast Ohio roots…

Wanna know more?

Still Flying

Much like Mac Miller, trumpeter jaimie branch was a musician whose name I’d heard but whose music I never got around to listening to until after her passing a little over a year ago.

Luckily, there seems to be a lot of stuff out there to go through. Keep flying, jaimie!

Not Approved for Therapeutic Use

I’d buried this tidbit in a Weeknotes post a few weeks back and it’s been bugging me ever since. This really deserved its own space.

The Witch on Horseback Institute for Cognitive Salubrity was a short-lived new age education center and performance space founded in Trumansburg, New York in the nineteen-seventies by former employees of the Moog synthesizer company. These forgotten recordings with disgraced Ithaca experimental psychologist Noving Jumand were discovered at a library sale in Ithaca, New York in the early 2020s, and have been restored from the original LPs by the musical entity known as Witch on Horseback, named in the Institute’s honor.

“This recording has not been approved for therapeutic use,” is the disclaimer that appears at the beginning of each track. I haven’t decided yet. Maybe I should listen to it a few more times…

Birdland, Revisited

I just needed somewhere to pin this memory: When I first became aware of Weather Report’s classic jazz fusion tune, it was only in the context of shitty high school marching band or college big band renditions. So many of them that when I finally heard Weather Report’s original version in college, I couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t hear it without cringing. Couldn’t undertand it. Couldn’t watch it being played by anyone, even if they were trying to be true to the original, without a sneer of derision.

I got a copy of HEAVY WEATHER in college when I was heaviest into my Jazz Phase when the thing that separated the people who took jazz courses for the credits was and the Real Hip Cats(TM) was knowing about the side projects of the people who played with Miles on BITCHES BREW (in this case, Josef Zawinul, Jaco Pastorious, et al.). But I didn’t get it, not really. Not “Birdland,” and certainly not “Teen Town” or “Palladium.”

It’s taken nigh on 25 years to finally get all that out of my system and actually appreciate HEAVY WEATHER and “Birdland” for the classics they are. This shit is in the jazz fusion canon for a reason, and now I respect it enough to NOT want any part of rearranging and playing my own version.