Monkey House - Headquarters (2012)

Canadian import

A full press release for this album is available here, but here's a snippet from the Alma Records website:

Monkey House, the slick, funky brainchild of Emmy-winning songwriter/producer Don Breithaupt, is an oasis of pop smarts and jazz harmony in a by-the-numbers world. Headquarters, the band's first new album since 2005, includes guests like Steely Dan veterans Michael Leonhart and Drew Zingg, and Canadian guitar heroes Kim Mitchell and Rik Emmett. Named for a 1970 Kurt Vonnegut book, Monkey House began in 1992 as a vehicle for songs Breithaupt considered "maybe too quirky to cover." Years of accolades (including ten CSJA nods) and multi-genre airplay (AC, jazz, pop, AAA, smooth jazz) followed.

Today I learned CSJA stands for Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards. The awards, originated by station WAVE, were handed out annually for 7 consecutive years, spanning from 2005 to 2011. But I digress.

I've already written quite a bit about Monkey House:

• Big Money: "fantastic, highly melodic pop music played by real musicians"
• Left: "a master class in smoothness"
• Remember The Audio: "a conglomeration of great melodies, complex harmonies, fantastic arrangements, and perfectly chosen guest artists."
• Crashbox: " a beautiful series of adult contemporary melodic pop songs that are immediately recognizable as Monkey House, complete with bandleader Don Breithaupt's characteristic cadences, instrumentation, and production. And those close vocal harmonies throughout? Goosebumps."

You get the picture. I dig this sort of slick, smooth, sophisticated stuff. Go check out these witty, well-crafted tunes at your preferred streaming site. Or, better yet, support the artists and buy a copy. Let's get physical!

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks: 14 tracks, 64 minutes. Nothing to skip, but the middle section is where things get really good. My choice picks are Where's Mantis Evar?, I Could Do Without The Moonlight, Too Much Too Much, December Girls, Right About Now, and The Man You Love To Hate.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: I must have first listened to this album while sitting on the front porch of our house in 2012 because I always flashback to that place when I spin this thing. Below is a picture of said porch. We sold that property in 2017. I don't miss tending to an acre of flora, but I sure do miss rocking (and rockin') on that porch.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Crashbox (2025)
Remember The Audio (2022)
Friday (2019)
Left (2016)
Big Money: Singles, Remasters, Rarities, 1992-2005 (2005)

Also:
Just Passing Through: The Breithaupt Brothers Songbook, Vol. II (2014)

Jimmy Smith at Club Baby Grand, Vol. 2 (1956)

Note: the CD I listened to was the mono 2008 Rudy Van Gelder Edition.

If a little bit is good, more is better.

Smith - organ
Thornel Schwartz - guitar
Donald Bailey - drums

Original liner notes by Leonard Feather. 2008 reissue liner notes by Bob Blumenthal.

Reviews/ratings:

• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks, with favorites indicated:

	Title	Writer(s)
1	Caravan	Juan Tizol & Duke Ellington,	✔
2	Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing	Sammy Fain & Paul Francis Webster
3	Get Happy	Harold Arlen & Ted Koehler
4	It's All Right With Me	Cole Porter	✔

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:

The Best of Jimmy Smith (1988)	Midnight Special (1961)
Keep On Comin' (1983)	Crazy! Baby (1960)
The Dynamic Duo (1967)	Houseparty (1958)
Back At The Chicken Shack (1963)	The Sermon! (1958)
Home Cookin' (1961)	At Club Baby Grand, Vol. 1 (1956)

Jimmy Smith at Club Baby Grand, Vol. 1 (1956)

Note: the CD I listened to was the mono 2008 Rudy Van Gelder Edition.

Smith's first live album, recorded on August 4, 1956 at Club Baby Grand in Wilmington, Delaware, just months after his first Blue Note releases. We're treated to Smith in a loose, exuberant club environment, where his astonishing technique is apparent. And, for the most part, the rhythm section gets the hell out of the way and lets Smith shine. More relaxed and less polished than Smith's studio records, sure, but it's solid work and, at times, electrifying.

Smith - organ
Thornel Schwartz - guitar
Donald Bailey - drums

Original liner notes by Leonard Feather. 2008 reissue liner notes by Bob Blumenthal.

Reviews/ratings:

• Billboard (74 out of 100): "skillful modern stylings strapped to a fundamental, deep-rooted beat."
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks, with favorites indicated:

	Title	Writer(s)
1	Introduction	Mitch Thomas
2	Sweet Georgia Brown	Maceo Pinkard	✔
3	Where Or When	Rodgers & Hart
4	The Preacher	Horace Silver	✔
5	Rosetta	Earl Hines & Henri Woode

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:

The Best of Jimmy Smith (1988)	Midnight Special (1961)
Keep On Comin' (1983)	Crazy! Baby (1960)
The Dynamic Duo (1967)	Houseparty (1958)
Back At The Chicken Shack (1963)	The Sermon! (1958)
Home Cookin' (1961)

Seawind - Light the Light/Seawind (1979/1980)

UK import

A remastered two-fer reissue from the Hawaiian band (1974-82) who created sophisticated, uplifting soft rock featuring silky harmonies, jazz-funk grooves, polished arrangements, and - most importantly - tasty horn licks. Why are the horn parts so important? Founding band member and trumpeter Jerry Hey wrote most of the band's characteristic horn arrangements. When Seawind moved from Hawaii to California in the mid-1970s, the "Seawind Horns" quickly developed a reputation among studio musicians and producers. Quincy Jones discovered Hey's talents and he became the go-to horn arranger/player in many Los Angeles studios.

It's not an exaggeration to call Hey one of the most important horn arrangers in the history of pop music. He's been nominated for 11 Grammy awards and won 6 of them. Yeah, that's Jerry on albums by Michael Jackson, Al Jarreau, Toto, Chicago, and Earth, Wind & Fire, among many others. When I was in high school, I read a lot of album credits (because I didn't have many dates but that's a story for another time), and noticed the same three names appeared with some frequency on many of the records I purchased: guitarist Steve Lukather, bassist Nathan East, and Jerry Hey. More on Hey from this 2016 interview.

The above band photo was taken from an article in DownBeat magazine (August 8, 1979) titled "The Second Generation of Fusion" that featured Seawind along with Spyro Gyra, Auracle, and Caldera. As you might imagine, the article's tone was passively condescending and dismissive. Screw 'em - I dig this stuff.

---

LIGHT THE LIGHT (1979)
8 tracks, 37 minutes

Produced by Tommy LiPuma, this was the band's third album release and the only one on Horizon, a subsidiary imprint of A&M Records.

Press of the time:

• CashBox: "Seawind's first album for Horizon may be the label's best effort yet."
• Billboard: "aiming toward a more pop commercial idiom"
• Record World: "the debut for their new label is an auspicious one"
• DownBeat (★★½): "rhythm section is authoritative on funk yet durable on ballads"
• High Fidelity: "essentially derivative"

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #143
• Billboard Jazz: #8
• CashBox: #127
• CashBox Jazz: #9
• Record World Jazz: #7

Tracks: The lead track, Hold On To Love, was released as a single and peaked at #70 on Billboard's R&B chart, but didn't see the Hot 100. The whole thing is very 'yachty' and all 8 tracks go down smooth. Reminds me more than a little of stuff from Crackin'. According to the seven pages of informative liner notes, the centerpiece of the album is the ballad Follow Your Road. The most jazz-oriented pieces are the instrumentals Morning Star and Enchanted Dance.

---

SEAWIND (1980)
9 tracks, 39 minutes

Produced by George Duke, this was the band's only release on A&M and is pop-oriented compared to its predecessors. I'd compare it more to the sound of The Dude or Sergio Mendes. I wouldn't call this jazz by any means, but it did well on the jazz charts, so what do I know. And as much as I like Light The Light, I prefer this one.

Press of the time:

• Record World: "this group's heartbeat is in the rhythm section"
• Note: I find it odd that the group's first release on a major label got so little press coverage. And yet it turned out to be more successful. Go figure.

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #83
• Billboard R&B: #20
• Billboard Jazz: #13
• CashBox: #101
• CashBox Jazz: #6
• Record World Jazz: #5

Tracks: Again, the first track on the album was released as a single. A great, funky track titled What'Cha Doin', it peaked at #18 R&B and #28 dance. The next track, The Two Of Us, was also released as a single and although deserving, it failed to chart. The rest is more of the same and that's a good thing. Only one instrumental this time around, Pra Vosé written by the band's guitarist Bub Nuanez, which sounds like a Brazilian tune from an Earl Klugh album.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None, but I sure wish someone had given a copy of that Seawind album to young Mark back in 1980.

John Pizzarelli - P.S. Mr. Cole (1999)

In 1994, Pizzarelli released a tribute album of versions of songs recorded by the legendary Nat "King" Cole. This is the follow-up to that tribute album and is more of the same. From the liner notes:

Sadly, the legendary Oak Room at The Algonquin closed in 2012.

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks: A guitar trio softly interpreting the Great American Songbook? Please and thank you.

My favorites are tracks 1, 4, 6, 11, 12, 15, & 16. The sole original tune - track 14, That's Nat - ain't bad, either. There's nothing to skip here, but if you want to stop after 17 tracks, I certainly understand.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Meets The Beatles (1998)

North Mississippi Allstars - Hill Country Revue (2004)

Recorded Live at Bonnaroo, Manchester, Tennessee, June 11, 2004.

Calling it a North Mississippi Allstars album is technically accurate, but it looks like half of northern Mississippi was invited along for the ride, turning this festival appearance into part family reunion, part history lesson, and part blues workout. Must have been a blast to watch. There's plenty of traditional hill country repetitive riffs and hypnotic grooves; there's even a fife & drum band appearance. The album is full of sweaty, raucous, rambling blues often reserved for humid front porches, it's just that this particular front porch was bigger than most.

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: Did not chart
• Billboard Blues: #4

Tracks: A hypnotizing top-to-bottom listen. It doesn't even bother me much when things slow down a bit during introductions and audience interaction. The progression is like many concerts I've attended: good at the start, slight lull in the middle, then save the best for the end.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None, but my used copy has a price sticker from what I'm assuming was the original point of sale, Boogie Woogie CD in Sarasota, Florida.

The Smithereens - The Lost Album (2022)

I was an early fan of this group, but life happens and I somewhat lost interest after the release of A Date With The Smithereens. That 1994 album was a step down in quality to my ears so I figured the band was past their prime; I promptly sold my CD. Decades later, I see this Lost Album release advertised and I just can't help myself. I've tried and tried to like it but it just doesn't do it for me. I couldn't quite figure out why and then I actually read a bit about the album's origins.

This album was recorded in 1993, during the time between the Smithereens' contracts with Capitol and RCA. After the Blow Up album in 1991, the band went into the studio and financed new sessions themselves. Even without a contract, the band reportedly cut enough material for two albums. When The Smithereens signed with RCA, roughly half of that material was selected for the aforementioned A Date with The Smithereens. The rest simply sat in the vault until it was released in 2022 as The Lost Album. In the CD's liner notes, bassist Mike Mesaros describes the album as being only about 80% finished and rough mixed. Rather than trying to reconstruct it into some artificially polished 2022 production, the band mastered what they had.

So this album is a rough mix of songs that weren't good enough to be included on an album I didn't like. And there ya go. Still dig the earlier stuff, tho.

Pat DiNizio is in fine form vocally and I hear the occasional crunchy guitar riff but that 80% mentioned above is being mighty generous. What's lacking here is some punchy production work (it's easy to imagine what Don Dixon would have done with this) that includes the band's trademark overdubs to fill out the instrumental sound and choirs on the background vocals. It's not exactly leftover, unfinished filler tracks, but it's pretty close.

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks: It doesn't work as an album, but there are few tracks worth hearing here, including Out Of This World, Don't Look Down, Monkey Man, and Face The World With Pride. They're just not as good as they could have been.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:

2011 (2011)	11 (1989)
Meet The Smithereens! (2007)	Green Thoughts (1988)
Blown To Smithereens (1995)	Especially For You (1986)
Blow Up (1991)