You know you have a problem when you start buying stuff from Japan, right? And in this case I definitely have a problem.
It’s one of my favorite albums, an Impulse! recording entitled John Coltane And Johnny Hartman. You can read the basic story of it here. It was recorded fifty-one and a half years ago at Rudy Van Gelder’s second studio, over the course of a single day. Compared to A Love Supreme, which would be recorded a year later, this is pretty lightweight stuff. Six standards, nothing edgy or avant-garde or “outside”.
I am not sure when I first heard the album — probably some time in the early Nineties. I started a Coltrane kick in 1989 with “Blue Train”, which happened to be in the stacks at my local library, and over the next ten years or so I listened to most of the major Coltrane and Miles recordings. Back then, however, I was looking for aggressive, technically difficult music, and I probably dismissed the collaboration with Hartman as too poppy.
A few years ago, however, I found the CD during a reshuffling of my basement and it became the soundtrack of many “stuck” trips. When I say “stuck” I mean it in the Pirsig sense. In Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance he writes about how you can only be creative when you are in that “stuck” moment. That moment when you have run out of your existing ideas and you are open to inspiration. We all recognize it after it happens — it’s the last second before you say “Aha!” and fix whatever you were trying to fix, or troubleshoot whatever you were trying to troubleshoot. It’s the last second before you finally touch the keyboard and start that five-thousand-word piece that is due tomorrow morning. It’s the last second before you reach for someone and kiss them for the first time.
When you are young, the stuck moment comes naturally, but as you age it becomes shy and fleeting. This record helped stick me, helped me get stuck. It was the only CD to which I listened during one memorable 1,459-mile trip from Hilton Head to Destin to Powell, Ohio. Just these six songs, rotating endlessly. I remember the late night approaching a beach with the top down, existing solely in the moment, secure in the knowledge of what lay ahead of me but in no hurry to get there. Stuck.
That original CD is scuffed and skipping now so I bought a Japanese Super Audio CD for my home sound system, then a Mobile Fidelty 24k gold CD for sentimental purposes. Now, this Japanese-market vinyl for when my new turntable arrives. I can’t wait for that day. I’ll close my laptop and dim the lights and put the needle on the record as I have done since childhood. Then I will sit and wait for the magic.
I should probably hunt this down, purely on the basis of having installed Blue Train on the work box. (This is one of the few actual perks of my job: no one questions my aesthetic choices so long as I produce.)
Nothing in digital music approaches the sense of anticipation after you lower the needle onto the record’s surface and wait for the needle to drop into the groove.
Jack, I’d recommend a Grado cartridge for your turntable. Still made in Brooklyn.
What else is money really for? Check this out, I applaud this guy as one of the few who really understands that concept:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/magazine/the-brazilian-bus-magnate-whos-buying-up-all-the-worlds-vinyl-records.html?_r=0
Thank you for that link. What a man.
Thank you for that link; it reminds me of Janis Ian’s rant and followup regarding the music publishing industry, especially the massive music vaults which to this day remain sealed, their contents generating no revenue and enlightening no new listeners to the unimaginable treasures contained therein.
Having ordered a Phaeton’s worth of CDs and DVDs straight from Japan during the past 20 years - and overnighting the last VHS cartridge I would ever buy after receiving the go-ahead from Buena Vista in the summer of ’97 - I sincerely say, “welcome to the club!”
The production quality of Japanese media is the best you’ll ever find; I have happily eschewed domestic market discs in favor of Japan’s offerings despite the significantly higher prices and added cost of mandatory EMS shipping.
Though I know better than to hope for those halcyon days when the dollar netted more than 130 yen, the overall cost of imported media has improved significantly through home market price reductions on music, higher episode counts per disc for video media, and the softening of the import blow by the addition of English language subtitles for new releases.
I just wish Amazon.jp would stop classifying certain game related music as computer software: they forbid overseas shipping from that category and I still don’t know any good proxy shoppers over there.
As I know you know, there’s some great Pastorius and Metheny stuff that’s Japan-only issued.
I’ve done road trips where I limited my listening to a single artist, but a single album? That is some serious stuckage.
Inquiring minds want to know what table you’re getting Jack…
All will be revealed in mind-numbing detail, I promise!
Son of a gun ~
Young Folks still buying stacks and stacks of ” Magic Wax ” .
I thought it was just a very few of us Geezers who held onto turn tables and vintage records .
-Nate
Thx for the tip I’ll have to hunt that one down
I’ve had “kind of blue” looped for weeks on my CD player
Can’t do that with vinyl unf 🙂
Its interesting enough that I never get bored of it. Hard to believe they were mostly improvising; maybe that’s why it sounds so fresh
MFSL and Speakers Corner are my two favorite vinyl sources : top notch analog stuff