Wallace Berman - "(In Conversation)" Vinyl, LP, Album, Spoken Word, Limited Edition, Mono, 2015 (Edition Muta)

Without a doubt, the most personal recording in my record collection.  It's a conversation between my father the artist Wallace Berman with Hal Glicksman, a curator, and Jack & Ruth Hirschman, with my mom Shirley Berman as well.  On top of that, it was a secretly taped conversation.  My father didn't have the slightest idea that Hal was taping their chat, until halfway through this recording.  My father was famous for not giving interviews, and pretty much avoided talking about his artwork. He very much believed that the art itself should communicate with the viewer.  And he had an intense mistrust with popular media, which is ironic because Wallace used images from mass-produced magazines.  Or perhaps that alone is a comment on the nature of images and art.  Nevertheless, this is very much a typical night at the Berman household.   What I found shocking is the mention of Boris Vian by Jack, which many years in the future I became devoted to this author, and ended up publishing all his significant novels with my press TamTam Books.   The past becomes very much part of my present and going back listening to this recording, makes me realize that things are set in motion. It's a strange disconnect between my life now and then.   A fascinating document and I do recommend this to anyone who has an interest in my father's work, as well as American counter-culture life during 1968.  The album is a limited edition of 400.  I also wrote the liner notes for this release. 

John Zorn - "The Song Project" Vinyl, Box Set of Six 45 rpm Singles, Colored Vinyl, Limited Edition (Tzadik)

Photographs cannot express or expose the beauty of this beautifully designed package from the world of John Zorn.  "The Song Project" is a box set of six 45 rpm colored vinyl singles, that comes with a booklet with photos as well as lyrics/introduction by one of the key figures in this project, Jesse Harris.   Zorn commissioned or asked Mike Patton, Harris, and Sofia Rei, to not only sing but also write lyrics to music written and recorded by Zorn and from his vast catalog of goodies.  I'm not clear if Zorn chose the songs, or if the singers went through the catalog to choose the music pieces to collaborate on, nevertheless an interesting and well-developed project.

Zorn strikes me as a community.  Which sounds egotistical, but the way it works is that Zorn carefully picks his artists to work with.  None of them are 'studio' musicians, many of them are composers/artists in their own right, but also are willing to collaborate with Zorn and whatever system he puts in place.  Zorn is the producer/composer/arranger.  Still, I feel each singer/lyricist and musician stamps their own identity to the project.  Zorn's aesthetic is not to close down the world, but to open it up to new possibilities and adventures.  It's impossible to pigeon-hole Zorn musically because he is all over the map, and that is very much part of his appeal/aesthetic.  For one to discover him, the listener will have to really put time into it, because his landscape is huge.  Which again, is part of the Zorn aesthetic. 

"The Song Project" is twelve songs, which could easily be one vinyl 12" album, but there is something special about getting up and down toward the turntable to turn the record over, or go to the next 45 rpm disc.  When I hear this box set, I'm hearing an album, not separate twelve songs.   I played all the vinyl in order, but if one chooses to (of course) they can mix it up - but for me, it's a consistent piece from the first single to the last.  There are three singers, and sometimes the other sings harmony or backup to the other.  Same musicians are on all the tracks, and Zorn is set as the conductor/arranger as well as the composer of the music.  The singers are responsible for the lyrics and in most cases sing their own work along with Zorn's music.  Sean Lennon wrote one of the lyrics, and that is sung by Patton and Rei.  There are traces of thrash/noise/rock, but the majority of the pieces are melodic and beautiful.  It's pop music made by adults and a great band of musicians.  

Oddly enough, this box set reminds me of my dad's (Wallace Berman) Radio Either series, which was also a box set of his verox collages.   One can look at them separately as pieces of work, but in actuality, it is one work in separate pieces.  For me, the singles, although separately issued in the box (with each one with a Zorn artwork cover) can be apart from the box set.  It's one work of art, and I think the format of putting them out as singles in a set that's in a box is very much of an object as well as how one approaches the material on this project.   Heung-Heung Chin did the design work, and the backing band is pretty much The Dreamers, who I wrote about before on this blog.  

James Brown - "Live at the Apollo" Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, 1963 (Polydor)

The best live album ever.   A great aural snapshot of a genius writer/performer at the tip of his greatness.   Another album that I was raised on.  My parents had this record, and my dad played it on a regular basis.  I remember putting the album on in his studio numerous times while he worked on his art.   As I have mentioned before, if Wallace (my dad) liked a record, he would play it over and over till it becomes a meditative or ambient presence in that room.  

When I play this album, I get such a vivid image in my head.  James Brown with a cape wrapped around his shoulder as he's being led off the stage.  But the intensity of the moment is too high, and he throws off the cape and runs back to the microphone.  James does this over and over again.  The repetition becomes a burning fuse, and one wonders if he is just going to explode.  The practice or discipline of art is very prominent in Brown's work.   That is what he has in common with Wallace Berman.  A performer is a performer no matter if they're on a stage or in the studio.  The mediums are different, and they have their own set of rules and practices, but the essence of repetition is to build the intensity to a level that is a natural high.  

When you look at the songs, Brown performed that night in 1963, that itself is perfection.   As I read the song listing, such as "I'll Go Crazy," "Think," "Lost Someone," and then the incredible melody on side two, it's all there in my head.  I can hear it now, as well as the audience screaming in ecstasy.  So yes, an incredible document of a time and place (the Apollo), but also a great work of art.  You can't beat the Four B's.   Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Brown. 

The Fortunes - "You've Got Your Troubles" b/w "Here It Comes Again" 45 rpm 7" vinyl single (London)

My dad, Wallace Berman, played music on his portable turntable in his studio, and The Fortunes' "You've Got Your Troubles" is one of the songs that he played over and over again.  When he played a record and loved it, that means it can be played 10 or 12 times in one sitting.  My job, as a child, was to make sure to pick up the needle at the end of the song and start it over again.  At the time, it was a song that seemed sad to me.  The melody always caught me in a very reflective state of mind. As a child and one who tends to play by himself, I often had time for quiet meditation, which was always backed by a record.  

The trumpet played in such a manner, like in this song, always seems like someone is crying.  The singer lost his love that day.  Nothing is good.  Here the singer wants sympathy, but he comes across another one in the dumps.  Misery loves company.  The brilliant part is the reframe where another voice comes in and sings over the vocal  of the one who is suffering, and comments "And so forgive me if I seem unkind/I ain't got no pity for you."  As a grown-up, I realize that this song is about self-pity, and is making a humorous statement of sorts.  

The beauty of this song, written by Greenaway and Cook, is that it is both a song of romantic despair as well as making fun of one who allows themselves to be in such a state, and not imagines anyone else feeling that similar type of romantic angst.  The duality, now as an adult, appeals to my sensibility.  As a child or teenager, the song always spoke to me as being in the bottom of a well, and just hearing my voice echoing among the walls.   "You've Got Your Troubles" is an amazing song and a superb recording by The Fortunes.   Not sure if it meant to be ironic, but the very name of the band seems to mock the song's sentiment as well. 

The Beatles - "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band"

The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Vinyl album, Mono, 1967

Capital Records

Around the summer of 1967, a cultural bomb went off that was called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Was it the greatest album ever made, no I don't think so. But it was the album of that year just by its presence. Either the stars were alined perfectly or there was a cultural shift happening, this became the soundtrack of that moment and place.

I knew of the album maybe a few months before it was released, because my dad Wallace Berman is one of the faces on the cover. I was home alone and in the mailbox was a giant envelope from London England. I opened it and out came this black n' white photograph of the album cover. At first I couldn't make out what this was a photograph of. With the image was a letter from Brian Epstein asking for my father to sign a document, within the envelop, and to send it back as soon as possible. I called my Dad who was at a friend's house, and told him about the package. While I was talking to him that I realized that it came from The Beatles, and they were asking his permission to use his image for the cover. It took me awhile to find the image of Wallace, because the letter to my father wasn't really that specific. Also keep in mind that The Beatles were rarely or never publically photographed with beards or mustaches on their faces. So that too took me awhile to figure out the four figures out front were The Beatles themselves.

It was one of the first albums I heard where it seemed that the songs were not separated from the rest of the package. In one sense it was a musical or even a narrative of sorts, so it had a beginning and an ending. At least that is how I read the album when it first came out.

The dream quality of the music and the so-many cultural references on the album cover made people's head swim in those days. 45 years later it is still an iconic piece of work that is still debated whatever it is a masterpiece or not. For me personally it is not my favorite album by them, but at the same time it is foolish not to accept it as a major 20^th century iconic piece of art.

Without a doubt there's beautiful music here, that reinforce The Beatles as major players in the pop music format. In a sense they built a wall with this album, and ever since then people have been trying to either tear it down or climb over it.