Morning dance (Spyro Gyra) (LP 929)

Spyro Gyra  Morning Dance (Vinyl, MCA Records, 1979) *** 

Genre: Modern jazz 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records and then Graham Purdy's record collection.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Morning Dance

Gear costume: Song For Lorraine 

Active compensatory factors: I bought this one for my mum when I was working at Marbecks Records. My memory is hazy on the circumstances: maybe it was her birthday, maybe she'd heard the title track somehow - it was hugely popular at the time, maybe something else. Whatever the case, I bought it for her as it seemed like the sort of stuff she'd appreciate - light and jazzy, quite cruisey and un-demanding.

Jay Beckenstein, the Brecker brothers and Tom Malone are the featured horn players in the band. John Tropea on guitar, Steve Jordan on drums also make appearances. So the expertise is there.

It sounds fine and the tunes are catchy but for some reason, maybe the synths, maybe the strings, maybe the un-demanding bit, it doesn't grab me particularly. Still - I've hung on to it because my dad did and it has a link back to my mum.

Where do they all belong? Another one of those records I'll never part with as it instantly makes me think back to 1979, when she was healthy and fun and alive.

Goin' out of my head (Peter Nero) (LP 351)

Peter Nero I'll Never Fall In Love Again (Vinyl, Columbia, 1970) ** 

Genre: Easy listening

Places I remember: Another album inherited from my father's record collection.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Something

Gear costume:  I 'll Never Fall In Love Again, Lay Lady Lay 

Active compensatory factors: Seemingly, the sort of album hip youngish executives put on the hi fi as they loosened their tie and made a gin and tonic after a day of meetings at work in Otahuhu while kids did their homework and their wife got dinner ready.

In 1970, my dad would have been 42 and my mother 40. At 12 years old, I was a naive and innocent bystander. My 10 year old brother was just annoying.

Yes indeed, this album is a memory bomb. Drop the needle on that first track, Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head, and I'm back in the bosom of the Purdy family at 18 Korma Ave., Royal Oak, Auckland, NZ, Earth, the Solar System, The Universe.

At that time this kind of music washed over me. I was listening to the real thing on The Beatles Hey Jude album in 1970 - well the few weeks of 1970 after Christmas that is.

Now I listen to this album with a nostalgic tear in my eye for those much simpler days when I had my family intact around me! It's tough being a grown up. And I miss my mum and dad.


Where do they all belong? At the time I completely failed to notice what a distinguished musician Peter Nero was. Such is youth! 

I'll never ever get rid of this album! It sits happily in the Easy Listening section of my collection along with George Shearing, Herb Alpert et al.