Coming
out of the Renmin Guangchang Metro station,
at 11:00PM I looked through what I had for something to throw on. It’s a vast underground network there
and it never seems to place me above ground where I want to be. This late it was already closing time,
stores were shuttered, lights dimmed down along shopping alleys that were now
unmanned. Music was needed to
accompany me for the next few blocks as I popped up far from where I wanted to
emerge, 黑天半夜[1] Shanghai night, near the old Park Hotel,
where race horses would have once thundered by. Fat headphones mounted, despite the muggy night air. A definitive signal to the two-dozen
idiots who would otherwise approach me asking me if I wanted a “sajeee” that I
was in no way interested. I landed on a name I didn’t recognize. But the album cover, from that
complicated year of 1975, was of recent vintage to my collection: Owen Marshall
and the Naked Truth leaping out from the album entitled “Captain Puff In The
Naked Truth.”
I don’t think I’d put much of any cognizant time in before
and certainly couldn’t place the music though I recall the period a few weeks
back when I’d stumbled upon it.
Trotting along Tibet Middle Road approaching the Shanghai Number 1
Department Store things began with a lonesome horn and odd space dirge effects,
before a “Star Child"-like heavily echoed invitation to submit control for the
remainder of the musical voyage to “planet funk” was unconvincingly intoned. A rather well worn metaphor even in (perhaps
especially in) 1975, the album as space voyage, I was worried.
One too many galactic interruptions and I’d be ditching this. I learned later that there are three
photos of Owen in-the-buff on the albums backside, which I mercifully can not
see. This too would have given me pause, early on.
I soldiered through this initial four-minute and forty-four
second song, and I’m rather glad I did. His musical vision that flourishes without any more Captain
Puff directives from the flight-deck, is wonderful. Funky, sophisticated jazz by a man who’d worked with Lee
Morgan for years and in the industry long enough to know he wanted to produce
his own albums. This session
recorded at the Compton Community College has an illustrated and mercifully
obscured Mssr. Marshall in a space suit, shades and nothing else. An interesting article about the
session suggests that there may well be quite a bit more independent, spiritual
jazz to uncover in this vein. http://thequietus.com/articles/08956-owen-marshall-the-naked-truth-review
Back to my serviced apartment that I stay in here in town
and Owen Marshall is now filling the room and joining me out on the porch
looking down over the night time park.
I’m finishing a pack of peanuts I swiped from the biz lounge before
flying down here and appropriately the tune I now have on, upon checking, is
“Peanut Butter Ice Cream Man.” The
bass track swings and the melody is like Sun Ra at his most playful. Naive, elegant, determined, they must
have had fun recording this. Indeed,
the tune “Grunt” with the incessant he and she panting, sounds like they’re
having more fun than I need to know about and is the only other song that is a
miss.
Mr. Marshall does not, as yet, have a Wiki page and I have
yet to be able to discern precisely where he’s from and what’s become of him,
but I’m glad he decided to strip down and produce this all by himself. He’s entitled to the indulgent intro
and a bit of grunting. Responsible
for “Keyboards, Flute, Vocals [Narration and presumably male copulation accompaniment],
Guitar, Percussion,” I can only hope he is still piloting journeys out there somewhere.
Tomorrow morning, 9:00AM sharp, is show time. The peanuts are done and you don’t need
another scotch. Close the porch
door and go to bed.
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