From wayback in '21, when we were all young and full of hope, comes this Crawlspace Collectable. If you missed it last time, pick it up now, is my advice.
Italy! Home of the most beautiful cities, the most beautiful women, the best cars, art, food and wine this planet can offer! Also, some of the best music to ever come out of New Jersey! Thatt's where The Music Asylum come from: Louis Luzzi, a couple of Leonards (Conforti and Argese), and, confusingly, another Louis and another Argese (one guy, Louis Argese), who is credited with Straw, Whistles, Phaser Gun, Harpoleen, and backing vocals. We're liking these gentlemen already!
I picked this up on vinyl way back when, because Louis Argese's Catskills cocktail lounge look rewired my brain. That, and song titles like Flite Of The Tick Bird, Tube Along With Me, and Garbage, and the hip sleeve notes "The Music Asylum is not just one but a
combination of musically improved active ingredients in easy to take
album form", all screamed BUY THIS ALBUM! It was not a regret purchase. There's a light-n'-crispy deep-pan rock base with a zesty jazz topping, and ... well, it's melodic, adventurous, fun, beautifully sung ... I give up. It's delicious. Put it this way, if you like Caravan's style of light jazz rock, you'll like this. Put another way, if you never heard of Caravan, or think it's a Santana album, you'll like this.
Here's Louis in later life [left - Ed.], still rocking the same acconciatura.
From the internet: "Born in Brooklyn ... playing music since age 11. By the age of 18 Louis was on the road playing with greats like Johnny Mathis, Connie Francis and Sammy Davis, Jr., and amongst the artists he has recorded and arranged for are Jay and the Americans, Tommy James and Frankie Valli. Louis has also played on theme music sessions for HBO."
From discogs: "Starts out with flower power breeziness on side 1, but gets increasingly influenced by rock and jazz influences that sometime border on avant-garde/experimental ... Strong musicianship and side 2 is especially interesting..."
Dr. Schluss (remember him?) [Yes - Mr. Grimsdale] sez: "What we have here is an album that nicely straddles the crossroads between psychedelic rock, jazz and prog rock ... lengthy, prog-influenced epics, some shorter single-ready tracks, and several oddball, brief instrumental throw-aways. "Star Dreams (Nebulous)" is a fine piece of sunshine pop, featuring harmony vocals along with some nice West Coast style guitar and bass parts that occasionally veer into Frank Zappa territory. "Million Dollar Bash", a touch of freakish garage, "In My World" the best of that bunch, a sunshine pop prog epic."
Rateyourmusic: "In the late '60's, United Artists was one of those labels that specialized in signing unknown, often brilliant psych bands, and subsequently letting them die a quick death in the marketplace through utter lack of promotion. Music Asylum was one such band. This album is in a psych - jazz vein, but is less commercial than other releases in that sub - genre. The album is divided between lengthy excursions, and titles that are more fragments than songs. Within these grooves, you'll find original adventurous explorations ("Garbage", "In My World", and the lumbering, hypnotic "Plastic People"), jaunty throwaways ("Louie's Tune"), and Godz -like avant strangeness ("Tube Along With Me"), along with a cover of Dylan's then - unreleased "Million Dollar Bash". Though un - noticed then and now, this album ranks with the A - side of Tim Buckley's _Lorca_ in its power to mesmerize the listener."
All you have to do is click the link I'll add to the comments when it amuses me to so do, and add your voice to the chorus of praise for this swell album!
If ever there was a perfect IoF© album, this be it. Needlessly and pleasingly obscure, witty, weird, and mighty swell listening. You want it, tells us why Bobby Short is shit.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeletehe gave exuberance a bad name.
This is a very good answer. Your caps lock key get stuck?
Deleteand i'd rather not go into how that occurred.
Delete... but if you ever want closure, we're here for you.
Deletebecause Bobby worked with Rogers and Hart, the Loepold and Loeb of songwriting.
ReplyDeleteBobby Short: sophistication out the ass. Most New York Jazz fans of a certain age, made the pilgrimage up to the Carlyle.
ReplyDeleteThere's an ancient Borscht Belt gag:
"She said kiss me where it stinks so i drove her to new jersey. "
Howdy,
ReplyDeleteWhen the Missis and I first started courting, I didn't know from one Short to the other. Now Longhorns, I can tell you about them all day...but she wasn't interested in than, being big a city gal an' all. Here she was on the grange, hair died all sorta' colors, wearin' fishnet gloves, chewing gum, but I knew I had to snag that fillies. Music was her thing - on her denim jacket it said "Kick out the jams", and "The Good Rats", then had buttons of The Ramones. So I started listening to all sorts of music, not that at the time I liked it much. But I was interested in her so I sat though it, you know - to impress her. Well, one night she brings over a cassette tape of some radio show from back home. The DJ's name was Lou Reed, and he played Bobby Short singing Miss Otis Regrets. I'm not a man who does much in the way of crying, but if that song didn't bring a tear to my eye...and that one moment is what got her to give this country boy a chance.
As always,
Billy Gates of the double X ranch.
I emailed the gospel music company Louis worked with, but got no more information than their website offers. The album's clearly a one-off in more ways than one, and what's intriguing is that it's so well done.
ReplyDeleteAs for Bobby Short - all I've heard is negative criticism (a social institution, musically uninteresting), so I never got around to listening to him.
Here's The Music Asylum.
Even if he is shit...
ReplyDeleteHe's standing in the doorway.
Shift him, anyone!
Too many secrets can make a person smile too much!
So, that means that his teeth were too tall!
Short answer:
ReplyDeleteJust found this one at a charity shop...
Don't gimme no "Short People" cr@p about it if I some day play it and then wax po' (-addict?) about it like some sorta show tunes nut..
https://www.discogs.com/Bobby-Short-Bobby-Short-Is-K-Ra-Zy-For-Gershwin/release/7518984
It's in the stacking system - thanks!
DeleteAlso this: https://youtu.be/EL8KX0dZGuw
ReplyDeleteOf its type, this is as good as it gets. But calling a perfume Charlie was never a good idea.
DeleteNo idea who Short is.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the download. I've only listened to this album once, and I think I like it. This is why music categories are redundant sometimes. Very interesting stuff.
I've heard of Short Shorts. Any relation?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to think that Bobby both drank and wore them.
DeleteRe-upsie:
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/FMcpp5H4AZs
I hit my Randy Randomizer Button a few days ago and In My World from this fine album started playing, that track alone is worth the price of admission.
ReplyDeleteWhat are the chances of that? There's a kind of Canterbury Sound to the album - I can't think of another American album that does this. The whimsical titles, crazy track lengths, gently melodic vocals, the jazz-adjacent improv ...
DeleteI've not detected the Canterbury Sound myself, but this album has got 'something' that I can't define, but really enjoy.
DeleteNot sure how I missed this post the first time around so I still haven't heard the album. But, I have heard the earlier non-lp 45 featuring a Leka-Pinz Lemon-Pipery confection on the A-side. https://www.imagenetz.de/cWpfx
ReplyDeleteI'm, like, wow. Thank you.
DeleteThis is larvely. Two years previous to the album, and the same (excellent) producers.
DeleteThe Music Asylum...this one surprised me i believe thanks are in order
ReplyDeletebobby short ??? doesn't surprise me you could've found him in any nyc bars' back rooms that served up their liquor in pretty glasses
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHokay - this is inneresting. Same label, same producers, same cover photographer, as an album I picked up on vinyl at around the same time I picked up this swell album - Boffalongo (S/T). Different musicians sounding nothing like the M.A. album, and on the back we see a mysterious rubric: A MUSIC ASYLUM CONCEPT. This album and the followup to be FoamFeatured© nextly.
ReplyDeleteThat is a prime bit of product, and up there with "Winter's Dream" (side one of the first Edgar Winter album) in wonderousness.
ReplyDeleteListen hear/ here, pop pickers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x5hLh-1S-U&t=3s
I also hear lots of Nazz and early Todd Rundgren. What a corking find.
ReplyDelete