Yusef Lateef - "Russell and Eliot"

Russell and Eliot is an intersection in Detroit. Clearly some heavy shit obtains at the corner of Russell and Eliot. Some really seedy, nasty business. Maybe there�s a motel there. Fluorescent lights. Transient, desperate living. Suitcases, fedoras, trench coats. Or maybe there�s nothing there. Maybe Lateef was walking up Russell St. when the sinister chord progression started to take shape in his mind. Maybe he thought of that deep soul bass line with the slides at the end of every phrase as he passed Wilkins St., conceived of the lethargic, sun-stroked funk of the drums as he moved up past Erskine St. Maybe he stopped at Eliot, halted by the muse, giddy with his idea: that guitar solo.

�Russell and Eliot� is my dad�s favourite song. For all I know, it was the first song I ever heard. I could sing the guitar solo from memory by the time I was 27 days old. The solo sounds like metal and sparks and oppressive heat and it introduces a new dimension of tumult into an already decidedly unsettled composition. The weak of heart tend to die upon hearing that the solo - a behind-the-beat blues masterpiece - is matched, and subsequently surpassed in intensity by Lateef�s tenor horn: squealing, then calm, then shredding in circles like Pharoah Sanders, but slowly, like John Fahey plays guitar.

I never noticed until now that a piano enters the mix when the solo starts, only to accent occasionally, quietly, almost freely. Nor did I notice the gorgeous, almost Kraut-pop post-solo muted guitar chords.

I haven�t listened to �Russell and Eliot� in years, and now that I listen to it critically for the first time, I can�t believe how good it really is. I first loved the song because my dad loved it, then because it was accessible jazz and I wanted to like jazz, and eventually I came to appreciate it based on its intrinsic attributes. But only now do I see both what it is and what it represents for me. My dad was not an avid music listener anymore by the time I was born, but through records like this one, records that were deeply and apparently meaningful for him, he provided me with an example of and a doorway into the kind of powerful, lifelong love relationship one can have with music. The kind that he and I both have. The kind from which, if well-maintained, the romance never fades. [Buy]

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Simon Joyner - "One For The Catholic Girls"

Me: Pretty much just two chords on an organ for six minutes, huh?
Simon Joyner: Yup. And my Lou Reed vocals.
Me: Why doesn�t that get boring?
Simon Joyner: Because I throw in one very brief flourish at 2:30, and then again at 5:25.
Me: But I�m not sure that�s it.
Simon Joyner: Then what?
Me: Actually, I can't quite put my finger on it.
Simon Joyner: Well, you�re a handsome genius; I�m sure you�ll figure it out eventually. Can I borrow fifteen bucks?

fin [Info/Buy]