SumtinK

OK, so it’s not really ‘morning’ anymore, but that’s ok. These songs can be nestled into at most anytime.
The first Cal Tjader album I bought was pretty late in the game. My parents had probably played him at some point or another earlier on, but I was probably like “what is this seasame-street-soundingcrap. Feel like I’m being stalked by Big Bird or something.” So it didn’t work out until 10th or 11th grade when I was at BU visiting this dude I pretty much idolized. This dude was so cool. Especially to a 17/18 yr old (me). He was a senior at BU and had amazing taste in music. I mean, homie knew everything and everyone, a true aspiring beat junkie/crate digger, and was dope as hell on the tables. He played a bunch with the Animal Crackers (as he was from the ‘Natti). So I was over at his apartment (which was SO tight) and he’s got his ‘studio’ room with records lining the wall, his keyboards, his Technics, his Akai MPC, other sick little drum machine midi’s, etc. And he puts on this Cal Tjader song, ups the pitch a little bit and then starts cutting in Nas’ It Ain’t Hard to Tell Acapella, then overlaying a few drum loops with a little midi device.
That shit blew me away.
I couldn’t even handle it. I just started laughing and was like ‘what the fuck are you doing man. This is ridiculous!’ he just laughed, knowing that it was, and kept going.
So I sat there for a good hour and he just busted out all this crazy shit.
Later that day after I regrouped myself, we met up with his friend and went on my first real crate diggin journey.
My exposure to music stores had been pretty sterile up until that point. I would usually enter ___chain store, everything would be orderly, alphabetized and all, little markers noting the beginning and ending of sections, brightly lit environment, shady people watching over you so you wouldn’t steal because they thought YOU were shady, etc.
This place was NOT that.
It was like the quintessential eccentric beatlovers basement. We descended down from the sidewalk into this huge room with records just stacked everywhere. I could barely identity any order to the place. I mean there were just HEAPS of records and tapes (and some cds). Thousands upon Thousands. Shit was crazy.
Seb, my friend, had his little portable record player he could sling over his shoulder in it’s case so we just began wading through stuff, moving by listening.
It was a literal journey.
Point is, this was the first time I actually sat down and listened to a Tjader album.
And I bought the record right there.
Well, first I had to FIND the ‘cashier’ (which was just some pot-bellied dude behind a desk with old receivers and turntables and a little metal cash box. He was stoked on my buy. Then Seb and his boy bought a few records and he was stoked on those too. Seb kept talking music with him and I realized that this dude was probably just stoked on every buy, on all music, on his job, on his ‘dirty’ ‘unorganized’ heap of music that he could share, and enjoy. This dude was just stoked on life. He just sat behind his desk, tinkered with old audio equipment, jammed out to music, ate potato chips, and talk music ALL day. And the people who came in there, like Seb, talked and lived and loved that shit just like him.
So many ways to be happy.

So the Tjader album I ended up buying was Tjader doing Bacharach stuff – Cal Tjader Sounds out Burt Bacharach.

Cal Tjader – A Message To Michael
It’s good anytime music.

Thing is, this whole post started because of this song: Cal Tjader – Morning

And once that came to, this little diddy popped back up: Asheru and Blue Black – Truly Unique

Alright, hope the Saturday is a goody.

m