Dissin' The Dubyuh

I don't just sit around chewing gum, filing my nails, reading comic books, and listening to records all the time. Although it sometimes hurts my head to do so, I occasionally think about more serious stuff. Such as Stephen Colbert's "performance" (here pt.1 and here pt. 2) at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner Saturday night (if a performance is what you call it), which could not have been more disrespectful toward Boosh than if he'd got right up in the Dubyuh's face and Done the Dozens on his momma.

Afterwards, Colbert was quoted as saying the whole thing was done in the spirit of good, clean "comedy" fun. If you believe that, then I have some proverbial swampland in Florida. . .. But at least Colbert equivocated after the fact.

This is the only thing I have witnessed in the mainstream media since the start of WMD that even begins to reflect the seething, unbridled rage that most of my friends and I, and, I suspect, a good deal of the rest of the world feel toward this low-normal, failed Wal-Mart Manager of a president of yours (he's not mine). A welcome relief from endless pseudo "news"--- stuff such as Rosie O'Donnell obstructing "The View" and the Long Island Lolita's facelift---this was not at all like the copout on the cover of the current Rolling Stone, with its "The Worst President in History?" headline. Colbert not only ripped Boosh a new one, but removed that lingering question mark after "History" for once and all time.

What made the whole thing doubly effective was the offhanded, common-as-an-old-shoe, cliche-mongering style of Colbert's faux Fox Network commentator, more-or-less modelled on none other than THE MAN himself.

I felt like I was watching living history unfold before my very eyes. As in, "Do you remember where you were in 2006 when someone finally went on live TV and told the truth for a change?" Had it been tape-delayed, Colbert would probably never have made it to the air.

Don't get me wrong: I love Jon Stewart as much as the next guy, but this was something else. As if Colbert were channeling Lenny Bruce. It was that rough. Rougher! The entire half-hour-or-so turn, which included a 10-minute film co-starring recalcitrant reporter Helen Thomas (!), was a high water mark in the annals of snarkery and---to employ Colbert's popular catchphrase--- truthiness, not to mention "political satire."

No disrespect intended, but the old man is probably still throwing up, and not just from all the booze he quaffed Saturday night. Heads are bound to roll this Monday morning, and I don't mean at Comedy Central, where Colbert is employed.

Thus far, all wings of the Fourth Estate, as much a villain of Colbert's "piece" as Boosh himself, have been more-or-less mum about the entire affair. They choose to focus instead on a lame, mildly self-deprecatory routine that Boosh did with a---poor bastard---presidential lookalike. Predictable.

Pigs in Pokes

Thursday at Amoeba Records here in L.A., the city where the future comes to die, I happened upon a 5.99 Japanese CD that appeared as if it might hold some promise: Super Harmony by Time Five. Time who?

The songs listed on the back made the CD even more problematic; the repertoire ran the gamut from the sublime, "Stardust," to the ridicurous, "Davy Crockett," with stops in between for the varied likes of Stephens Bishop and Foster, etc. The remainder of the text was in Japanese, but the CD clearly seemed to contain vocal group singing of some sort. Would it be more like Jackie and Roy or. . . the dread Marty and Elayne? What the hell! It was only six bucks and so I snagged it!

Playing it in the car on the way home, I liked it. Close to a lot.The next day, I showed the CD booklet to my friend Jay, who reads Japanese. "Reads Japanese," hell. IS Japanese!

He had not heard of them either, but he perused the booklet and learned that they were a Japanese Four Freshmen-styled group when they began in 1968. And still are Frosh-like when they are not plying an a cappella approach as they do on this CD.

I also discovered that up through 2001, for 18 years straight, they were voted top vocal group in Japan in the Swing Journal poll. Altogether they have won 21 times. Time Five has also been given a very prestigious Japanese cultural award, the Monbu-Daijin, by the Secretary of Education. All still original members. They have released a couple dozen albums, and sung on over a thousand commercials. And were the first Japanese vocalists to perform at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. Appeared at the Glenn Miller Jazz Festival in Iowa in '94 and '96. I should know this stuff.

So many CDs, so little time. In the future I've decided to refer to Time Five as "T5," as if I'd known of 'em all along. Gotta hang on to my Japanese jazz creds.

They have a web site, not to mention a music school. Here's what they sound like (mp3 links for a limited time only).

Cat Blog Friday

Click pic to blow Kuro up reallll goodddd

Page Cavanaugh

During the mid-1940s to early-'50s, Page Cavanaugh was more of a household name than he is this century. So much so, there's little doubt that when, in 1948 prior to starting to film her first feature, Romance on the High Seas, Doris Day was informed that Page would be her musical co-star in the production, she probably couldn't sleep or eat for a week. That's how big a deal he was back then.

Beginning in the mid-1940s, Page---along with Nat King Cole, Bobby Troup, Matt Dennis and Joe Mooney---played a major role in putting a whole new spin on the jazzier side of American Popular Music. Almost overnight, it had a lighter, breezier sound. Eventually, Cole became the most famous of the lot, and Cavanaugh, arguably, the least. Part of the "problem" (if that's what it is) is that, as the now octogenarian Page has probably been heard to say on more than one occasion: "I don't take meetings. I just play music." In other words, he hasn't much patience with all of the extra-musical considerations that go along with maintaining a career. But it's paid off in the long run. Over the last half-century, Page---especially in the Los Angeles area---has had all the work he can handle, appearing with his various (mostly) small group configurations in some of more swellegant locales in town. And, on occasion. . .well, a guy's gotta eat. If I had any say-so in the matter, for services above and beyond the call of duty to American music, he should receive the Kennedy Center honors. Instead, he's just. . .booked. Right now he commutes multiple times weekly back and forth between the lounge at the posh Tower Hotel lounge on the Sunset Strip and Orange County's Balboa Bay Club.

And pianist-whisper vocalist Cavanaugh (he loves that appellation) has a new CD, Return to Elegance, that is just about to be released. I've heard an advance copy, and it's one of the finest not only of his but anyone else's career. Here's just a brief snippet of the opening track. That does not sound like the playing of an 84-year-old. More like a 24-year-old.

Return to Elegance is the icing on the cake of his 60 + years distinguished recording career. I'll be writing more about it here in days to come, along with the inclusion of a few audio snippets, and ordering information.