GIVE IT UP. DUDE WROTE "TAKE FIVE"

I don't listen to Aimee Mann at all, but after seeing her on a past episode Portlandia, I appreciate that she has a sense of humor. She plays herself forced to take a job as a house cleaner because of declining returns from her recording output (due to downloads, ahem). I came away thinking that she'd be a good person to have a beer with, to shoot the shit. So, when I saw her selections in The Best Thing I've Heard All Year, in the year end issue of Mojo, I figured I'd actually take the thirty seconds to read it, depite the fact that her own music doesn't do much for me. I figured there might be some common ground. I was right. Along with Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan and Steely Dan, she mentions a Paul Desmond LP, a 1969 release From The Hot Afternoon, which she describes as sounding like a soundtrack to a 70s TV show. She's not far off.

Coming from the sax player for the Dave Brubeck Quartet, the guy who wrote "Take Five" ten years earlier, From The Hot Afternoon is completely different. It sounds like 70s bachelor pad music, a mix of exotica, West Coast jazz, easy listening, bossa whatever and, if you haven't rolled your eyes out of your head yet, oddball instrumentation ala Pet Sounds. It's not Paul Desmond as I was used to hearing, but because it is such a good example of what it is, it's been added to the list. Also down there is a Brubeck cut that Desmond plays marimba on, another sort of oddball worth hearing.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:

Paul Desmond - From The Hot Afternoon LP (streaming) at YouTube

Dave Brubeck Quartet - Backstage Rhumba mp3 at Groove Addict