Today’s download of the week is ”Some Order, Long Understood" from the album of the same name.  

As I come close to the end of a year of weekly downloads I thought it might be good to go way back. In this case to the evening of February 5th, 1982

The music is one of two tracks that make up the entire album, one on each side as it was originally released as an LP, and each over 20 minutes long. The other side is the titled “Psalm”.

The recording was made live to two track at Studio Henry, later known as One Morten Street. The trio was put together just for this gig, and features Butch Morris on cornet, William Parker on bass, and myself on piano, some kind of crummy organ, and electronics-including an Aries synthesizer and amplified piano. (for you tech geeks out there http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/aries300.php). The music is mostly improvised, ironically even more so than the original recordings. Let me explain.

To begin with this LP was my first “record deal”. The master tapes were made on 1/4 tape on a Revox tape recorder with 2 mics. I sent the label, Black Saint, a cassette copy of the music, and 6 weeks later I got back a letter saying they would like to release a record of the music. As I recall I was simply asking if they were interested in the band, and I was a little surprised that everything was moving ahead so quickly. 

I was informed that both tracks were too long for a single side of a record, and asked if I would be willing to have it edited. I agreed, and after sending the master tapes I sent very detailed instructions about how I wanted it edited, which were either misunderstood or ignored. The irony is that the small amount of written material, the “heads” of each composition (which usually appeared somewhere in the middle-on cue), were either partially or totally removed, and I never found out until I got an actual copy of the LP! This was especially true on Psalm where the “head” was essentially deleted.

At first I was fairly devastated, but one thing you learn quickly in art, and in life, is that you are always less in control than you think, and regrets are worthless. The point is I love the music to this day, I miss Butch and I miss these times in NYC, where everyone lived so close and you’d see Frank Lowe and Bob Quine and Shelly Hirsch just walking to get coffee.

Ultimately what I hear most in the music, made over 30 years ago, was the genesis of everything I still do. I won’t attempt to describe that in words, I certainly am the wrong person to author that verbiage, but I know that every project I have done since reflects, in some way, the music that is on these 2 tracks. 

I hope you enjoy the music.