Turns out I'm about to report something that is old news -- a reissue of an album I only just found out about. This is going to be one of those posts where I just meander on about buying a record, note. It's a real good record, though. And what a cover!
Two years ago, a French label put out a limited edition reissue of Don Cherry's 1975 album Brown Rice with the original gatefold quilt-art cover by Cherry's partner Moki. As I say, it's a marvelous album -- a kind of maximum fusion of Cherry's interests in jazz, improvisation, world music, funk, and pop; I think it's probably his single greatest musical accomplishment. I'd had this version, with the cover art immediately below, twice before as an import from Italy:
Maybe it also first came out in France or Germany or Sweden that way, I'm not sure, but one thing I know: it didn't come out that way in North America. For some stupid reason, the American edition has this rather boring cover, where I always wonder if the somewhat sour look on Cherry's face is because he is vexed that they aren't using Moki's art:
Having discovered the Italian import, I could never make sense of the choice to distribute it any other way. Even if Moki -- whose work with Don and elsewise is made subject of this lovely book, Blank Forms 06: Organic Music Societies -- were not Cherry's partner and long-time collaborator, there is no wisdom in substituting such a fabulous cover (with a gatefold and much more to see) with such a prosaic one. Maybe it was just a money issue? Maybe the photographer was cheaper than Moki? The answer may be out there somewhere, but I do not know it.
Weirdly, it's not a unique issue, when it comes to the Don Cherry catalogue. Cherry's somewhat more "neoprimitivist" 1974 LP, The Eternal Now, also had art by Moki when it first came out. It's one of those albums that has elements of Tibetan chant in it, no longer an integral element to Cherry's music by the time of Brown Rice. Starting in the late 50's, he had helped Ornette tear apart everything "western" in jazz, at the forefront of free jazz, and by this point was rebuilding with a (likely?) psychedelically-enhanced interest in other traditions, exploring and experimenting with folk forms, sacred expression, etc. He was leading a suitably bohemian/ free life, too, one gathers. It's terrific stuff, but hasn't quite arrived at its maximum expression, where he harnesses all the influences he's exploring and makes something completely new out of them.
...anyhow, that was reissued briefly with this dull/ inappropriate cover. There were periods in his career when Cherry dressed onstage like you see below but 1974 was not one of them. The above cover is MUCH more revealing of what the album sounds like; in fact, the Tibet cover is easily the worst album cover associated with Cherry, and I'd feel seriously baited-and-switched if I bought it expecting music in the same vein as you see here (it looks like he's playing Miles-Davis-like cool jazz or something!).
...all of this being why my friend Dan Kibke, the only person I have met who loves the work of Cherry as much as/ more than I do, texted at me quizzically -- the 21st century version of "glanced at me quizzically" -- when I told him earlier today of my Brown Rice upgrade. He is not there yet, he explained, is not bothering with upgrading his non-Moki covers with Moki covers even as they get reissued in their original form. There was more than a hint of questioning why I would bother doing this with Brown Rice, since he knows that I presently do already have the US reissue with the boring cover. I mean, he's okay on having The Eternal Now as Tibet, and he knows that I too am okay having The Eternal Now as Tibet since, actually, he gave me my copy of that (we've passed some Cherry stuff back and forth over the years; he also has my previous European Brown Rice, more on which later). We've both had the chance to buy it in the Moki version of The Eternal Now several times and have not. So why upgrade the one and not the other?
It's a fair question, but on reflection, I realize I have a few answers to offer. The first is that Brown Rice has my second-favourite Moki Cherry cover of all time after Mu part one. Some of her covers I don't really resonate with (The Eternal Now, Organic Music Society, Relativity Suite, Where is Brooklyn? -- she did several!) but Brown Rice and Mu part one are just delightful. Hell, these are among my favourite ALBUM covers of all time, nevermind just favourite Don Cherry album covers. And it doesn't hurt that I've watched my wife make a quilt for our nephew, or that I have some interest in quilting as an unsung art form, something regarded with great respect as a "craft" but not treated, probably because of it being a largely feminine hobby (with functional ends in mind, to boot) as fine art, for the most part (Moki being an obvious exception).
Also, I have a more interesting history with the Italian version of Brown Rice than I do with most albums out there. I remember where I first found it, at Black Swan in Kits, maybe circa 1996 or so; it's one of the only albums I got from Black Swan -- a store I liked, shopped at often, and still miss -- that I have kept around in some format or other all these years. I knew the music, at that point, but not that Italian cover, and was stunned by how lovely it was. I continued to own that version even after I decided to sell off almost all of my other records when I moved to Japan, in 1999 (I just didn't want to pay to store them, and didn't want having stuff stored here to slow me down if I decided to stay overseas). It was waiting for me when I got back, in 2002... and even when I sold off the remaining fifty or so records I had stashed with my parents, I could not part with my Brown Rice.
....Except that's around when I screwed up at a used book and record store I was working at, sadly. Some predatory shmuck passed a phony $100 in exchange for some crime paperbacks and real bills (as change; that was what he really wanted, the four good twenties he got back on the deal). His bill didn't entirely look right, in fact -- it was one of those "I shoulda known" situations -- but I had no real experience with funny money and didn't want to risk offending a customer, y'know? Fool me once. Anyhow, I felt enough of a dupe about it that I wanted to eat the loss. Since I couldn't afford to just give the bookstore owner $100, I gave him my copy of Brown Rice, by way of an apology, and he flipped it (as was the plan) for $75 easy dollars, which made all parties feel better: I didn't feel so guilty, he wasn't out so much money, and the guy who got it for $75 obviously knew it was a rare and special thing, even at that price. I'd only paid about $30 for it at Black Swan, which made it hurt a bit less, too, spending (essentially) $30 to cover a $100 fuckup. (It's since sold for as much as $250 CAD, note, so even $75, back when, wasn't THAT a bad price).
This does not end my history with Brown Rice, however (or $75 records). I was shopping at Zulu Records, a few years later, after I had decided (thanks in so small part to chats with Mats Gustafsson, actually) to re-build my record collection, and had asked one of the employees (the Josh who was not Magneticring Josh) if he could dig up a copy of the Subhumans No Wishes, No Prayers. He did, but (I felt at the time) he screwed me a bit on the price, insisting that he wanted $75 for it. Now, this was about 2007, you understand, around the time the Subhumans were just starting to become active again, so interest in them was high, but you could buy most brand new records for $12.99 or something, not like today. To ask $75 for a used record -- it had better be a real sought-after rarity. In fact, I had lost an auction on eBay for the same album, a couple of weeks prior, with the final cost being around $35 bucks (US). By comparison, even with exchange and shipping, $75 CAD seemed a lot.
I mean, that was then. Now it's gotten even worse; I think the last copy I saw of the Subs album, a few months ago on the wall at Red Cat, was $150, or was it $250, either of which probably seemed like a good deal to whoever got it...
...anyhow, I did buy that Subhumans record, but was butthurt about the price; I did consider telling Josh to stuff it, in fact, except, flipping through the used records at Zulu that day, I saw, yes, the Italian Brown Rice, again, FOR A MERE $20. And so the re-acquisition of that softened the blow, which I remarked upon in a ha-ha way to Josh at the till: "Okay, you're overcharging me for THIS record, but this OTHER record, you've priced too low, so I guess it balances out."
PROBLEM: that (Italian) Brown Rice had a couple skips on it! The cover was great, but it was nowhere as listenable as my previous copy. It was still probably worth more than $20... but in that kinda shape, it wasn't exactly a steal. And it's not the sort of album you can tolerate skips in! SO WHO IS THE JOKE ON NOW, Al?
Hence my giving that copy to Dan: because much as I love that cover, there was just no point keeping a record you weren't going to enjoy PLAYING. Let Dan own the nice cover, as a thank you for this-or-that. I'll settle for the American cover and pristine grooves: fuckit.
Which I did, about two weeks ago, buying it at a record store new, figuring that I would never see the European version again. Which remained my thought until this afternoon, when I discovered it had been reissued in a limited run of 500 copies and was there at Beat Street along with a bunch of Cherry albums I don't plan to replace.
So now I have Brown Rice twice -- an album I have had twice previously on vinyl. Let my having bought it four times teach me just to keep it this time 'round, okay? And I'm not even going to spin this new version, you know? I'm just going to spin the US version; that can be my play copy. I might still take the shrink off so the album doesn't warp, but I won't set a needle in its (brown vinyl!) groove.
Snap it up if you see it in a store, eh? Only 500 were made, and it seems like it's already out of print; if you like creative music... it doesn't get much more enjoyable than this...
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