Funky Jazzy Nighttime Garage Sounds

The crescent moon shows its face from behind dusty wisps of heavy clouds that are darker than the twilight, and you know it's time for those jazzy funky records to come out. Flip through stacks, dust 'em off, and fire up the old turntable in the garage. We are about to step into another era...

It's pretty cool to be able to pick up a relic of history -- a square case with roughed up edges and a yellowed inner slip-cover -- and know that at one point someone else -- maybe even a younger version of you -- held this very artifact in their hands when the world was younger, more naive, less connected, and quite a bit bigger. And someone liked it enough to keep it. Maybe there's a picture of an evening ocean that covers the back of it, the whole thing a rich harvest orange, with shades of water, earth and sky running from peachy yellow to fiery bright and right down to a heavy auburn. But you know this isn't a manipulation -- the computer software to do that didn't exist back then. You know equally well too, and just as unconsciously, that this isn't the real deal either. See, the way you've been presented with the beach scene is not how it really was. Just think of an old mid-20th century National Geographic if you're having a hard time visualizing the effect: the shot appears the way it does because of the camera equipment that was available at the time. What you're seeing is how they wanted to believe the world was 20 years ago. This was all that could be captured. And it maintains its radiance. So we're left with an enigmatic image to stamp Jean-Luc Ponty's "Enigmatic Ocean" all across our brains -- all across the times. Fretless basses, organs, synthesizers (the ARP -- so wandering, unrefined and lost by today's standards), grand pianos and electric guitars -- quintessential elements of a 1977 attempt at the modern concerto. The Enigmatic Ocean spans four parts. There are three portions to "the Struggle of the Turtle to the Sea".

And whether you like the old record, the style, the approach, the flow of the segments -- or not -- You can always delve into each and every bar and note like a book. Just let the sounds sweep you away into another land far gone. Or -- more precisely -- the same places, the exact same space -- but in a completely separate mindspace and soundscape. But the structures of the waveforms remain the same.

So whether you're looking at the abstract shapes that spread out over "Where Have I known You Before -- Return to Forever" featuring Chick Corea, while hearing parts you fucking hate or moments that glisten so hard you just want to reach out and touch them, sample them and soak yourself in them -- or whether you're looking at brown bodies playing on the sand and in the light blue water on the Weather Report's Black Market album jacket, greeted by a deep foghorn and textured saxophones from its vinyl -->> you're being given the gift of playing in a landscape that exists now as only a dream, a remembrance in someone else's mind. And now it belongs to you too. Quite a trip if you ever want to try it.

Or maybe you want to travel on with Herbie Hancock on his "Maiden Voyage". The sleeve has a lime green border at the top with white text denoting the album. The photo across most of the front is a blurred ocean blue. Sit back and listen to a man delve into his fascination with the great deep beyond -- the heaving and crashing big blue.

Keep in mind that this sophisticated man with a piano was not only imaginative as hell in years past -- but has the staying power to keep on headlining right through the new millennium to today. So he says:

"the sea has often stirred the imagination of creative minds involved in all spheres of art. There still exists an element of mystery which surrounds the sea and the living aquatic creatures which provide it with its vital essence....This music attempts to capture its vastness and majesty, the splendor of a seagoing vessel on its maiden voyage, the graceful beauty of the playful dolphins, the constant struggle for survival of even the tiniest sea creatures, and the awesome destructive power of the hurricane, nemesis of seamen."

So do yourself a favour, hit a garage sale and dig dep. Maybe you too can be soaked in the grand schemes of rhythmic time travel. Catching sonic waves along side homemade chip dip and drifting on and on and on. Look. Over there across the dirt back lane, over the covered automobile, across the wooden fence, the white haired lady is out on her porch again, and again. She sure has to throw out a lot of garbage for some reason today.

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