Actually, I CAN Recommend It Enough

There's that feeling when I am so impressed by a book, restaurant, or piece of music that I just can't recommend it enough. I want everyone else in the world to experience what I've felt so that we can discuss it in rapturous tones: That was a life-changing book! My God, the pierogies! Lennon may never have sounded better! I love when I just can't recommend something enough.

This isn't one of those occasions, but it's okay.

I've been listening to Manu Katché (pronounced mah-noo kotch-ay) for the last week and a half. I've had his 2016 album Unstatic playing on a loop as I've been writing. I have it on now, a quiet tune called "Trickle" that's a perfect accompaniment for writing.

That this isn't an album I just can't recommend enough gives the impression it's not good, but I want to wipe that idea out right now. The album is good jazz and Katché is a gifted drummer as anyone who has listened to his work with Peter Gabriel, Sting, Robbie Robertson, and Tears For Fears can easily attest. (By the by, those are four albums I just can't recommend enough. They're all genius and represent some of the best works of those artists.) I enjoy Unstatic each time I listen to it and have listened played it nine times in a week and a half, so what's the problem? It's not so much a problem as it is this:

I can't remember any of the songs after I've heard them.

I've listened to Katché's albums for years and wondered how I can so enjoy something in the moment but have it disappear almost completely from my mind at the album's end. Recently I found Ian Mann's review of Unstatic which included this illuminating passage:

While this music may be relatively undemanding it’s far from vacuous and there’s some excellent writing and playing throughout this record. (emphasis mine)

Undemanding music works well as background for writing but then disappears. The music doesn't ask enough to stick with me. There is an ineffable quality missing. The music is workmanlike jazz, Katché's writing is solid, his playing is excellent, and he has a strong band behind him. This is all good, but it's not genius jazz like Pat Metheny's "One Quiet Night", Brad Mehldau Trio's "Dream Sketch", or The Bad Plus's "Prehensile Dream.

That's okay. Workmanlike (however gendered that term remains) is good. Unstatic is great music for writing. It doesn't have to be a work of genius. Sometimes workmanlike beats genius. For instance, I have "Prehensile Dream" playing now and have to stop writing so as to pay attention. I just can't recommend "Prehensile Dream" enough. I can't even come close. My God, you should hear it.

I still recommend Manu Katché's jazz, especially as the background for doing creative work, but it's not like I can't recommend it enough. It has its place in my music library but maybe not in the depths of my heart.

Genesis, Wind & Wuthering

Why have I been reluctant to add this to my collection? It's an album I had as a kid, a part of the Genesis collection (Trespass through Three Sides Live) I would expect to own, and it includes one of my favorite of their songs "Blood On The Rooftops." Yet I've passed up a bunch of chances to buy it. This time, the price and moment being right, I picked it up.

At this point Genesis had recovered from the loss of Peter Gabriel and continued as a quartet with the gorgeous A Trick Of The Tail. Wind & Wuthering was the quartet's sophomore album and turned out to be their swan song as Steve Hackett left and the next album was aptly titled And Then There Were Three. Wind & Wuthering has always felt to me like a sophomore album through and through. Maybe that's why I've taken so long to buy it.

The first side has three very good songs and schmaltzy enough it was a kind of hit. Side two begins with a pretty bad lyric but good instrumenta, moves into the gorgeous "Blood On The Rooftops," and follows with a good two-part instrumental before ending with "Afterglow" a song that everyone loves but I think is just meh.

The front and back covers are perhaps the best in their catalog (though I love Seconds Out). It's gorgeous packaging for an album that may be a little too pretty. Still I'm not sure what I've been waiting for in buying it.

Time to give it a spin.

Scott Simon

I don't listen to a lot of NPR any more because I prefer to read the news, but I often check the NPR website and I try to keep up with Scott Simon's weekly essays. Simon is a national treasure and should you require proof, his program from the week after September 11, 2001 is most beautiful and moving.

Much more recent is his essay about Christine Blasey Ford's testimony to the congressional committee considering a Supreme Court nominee. I found Ford's testimony moving and convincing. I find Simon's essay artful, graceful, and a spot-on consideration of the testimony and the ways in which we should be thinking about sexual assault.

Simon is kind. There can never be too much kindness in this world. He is a thoughtful writer, speaker, and thinker. If you're not reading or listening to his weekly essay, I can't recommend enough that you seek him out and pay attention. In these times, we need more Scott Simon and less of so much of the other news.

And I Love Her

Brad Mehldau Trio is on the turntable (their album Blues And Ballads, not the whole band; they'd break the whole shelf) playing "And I Love Her." And I love it. 

I've poured a short glass of scotch with one ice cube. Whiskey is the only thing I enjoy slowly. Mostly I gulp and bolt things. I want to slow down but just don't. Whiskey is slow and that's what I like best about it.

Stephanie is in the shower and when she comes out can use the sink. For five days it has been plugged beyond anything I know to clear it. Anything but the plumber who took things apart, snaked a muskrat out of the pipe (might have been hair, but I saw eyes), and the water she flows again. 

The snow has melted enough that the roads are dry though riddled with potholes and bumps. We got fourteen inches Friday into Saturday, but it's all cleared and piled along the sides of driveways and roads. A clear driveway makes me happy and reminds me of Dad. 

The dog snores when she sleeps on her blanket three feet away and is intriguing accompaniment for Mehldau's jazz trio. And I love her too, though this wheezing and snoring is odd. She needs whiskey. 

Both daughters are at school tonight. One is rehearsing the musical until past my bedtime. (I've been known to be in bed by 7:30 saying I'm going to read but falling asleep before eight. I really am 87 years old and get the hell off my lawn you damn kids.) The other is at mock trial until a slightly different time than the other. Having two children means driving to and from the high school more times than I can count, though I can't count very high. Back in my day, we used to walk...

Having railed against Amazon for weeks, I of course ordered a printer cartridge from them. They had a ridiculously low price and we were snowed in pretty well when I ordered. It was so convenient! So convenient, I ordered the wrong one and will spend eight bucks to send it back. Meanwhile, Best Buy had the right one, two miles away, and get this: they match Amazon's price if I ask nicely. Had I bought the wrong one at Best Buy, I could have returned it for free. But Amazon is convenient. Place your best on when I might learn my lesson. 

I figured out that I have about 2,000 days on the job before I can retire. Stephanie says that's no way to think about it (as she took away sharps and poisons). Take it one day at a time, she said. She didn't sing the One Day At A Time theme song, which surprised and saddened me, but the message was clear. 

So I took just today, this one day at a time, and you know what? It totally sucked. What does she know? 

Brad Mehldau is playing "My Valentine" now and it might just be a perfect song the way he plays it.

I have this record, a turntable, an amplifier, and a great pair of speakers. I'm sipping good scotch. My lovely wife will come down soon. Our printer works as does most of our plumbing. The dog snores but is every way love itself. 

There's every chance I may learn not to panic every time I feel sad. I may come to believe again in possibilities for my future. I suppose almost anything is possible.

At least when Brad Mehldau is playing and Stephanie is walking down the stairs to be with me.