last year in december, we gathered to rehearse for a benefit show to help with a local tucson school (miles exploratory learning center) and its defunct music + art programs. it was an informal cluster, 2 from giant sand and 2 from calexico, which in itself merited a sweet symbol of holiday spirit and friendship above all else. it included my old friend and band mate, john convertino on drums, jacob valenzuela on trumpet, and thøger t. lund on upright bass.

we gathered and played in a way unlike most sessions, but much the same as the fabled w. eugene smith recordings from the late 50s/ early 60s in his infamous new york ‘jazz loft’. he had wired his drafty space in order to record at a moment’s notice the scores of jazz musicians that would meet there after their club gigs had finished. those kind of jams were players playing for themselves and each other. this kind of capture was unlike any studio session or live gig.

(it should be noted that all the rehearsal sessions to my favorite thelonious monk recording of all time were recorded here in smith’s loft with hall overton presiding. ironically, the entire accumulation of all that taping has been since stockpiled and stashed in a secret room right here in tucson at the university of arizona since 1978.)

[perhaps one footnote more, previously to smith leaving his family in jersey and setting up residence in the dank jazz loft, he was hired by the cia to shoot a series of photographs in spain in the 50s to be used as propaganda in order to influence this country’s conscious in supporting the “poor” peasants of spain and bolster such assistance by setting up a military base there.]

but i digress … the point being that the session you have here called ‘melted wires’ is symbiotic with the sound of that jazz loft. players playing for the sheer love of it. it has a wonderful looseness, a playfulness that couldn’t happen in any formal recording or live presentation. an accidental conclave. a spin of the room. a stop of the clock.

especially here in the approaching season, a shared moment, a glimpse of happenstantial yippity, a sonic embrace. you can hear the band grabbing old songs and playing inside them like it was recess time in the school yard as well as new piano excursions with their own exploratory spelunking.

these songs were as they were, done live and unadorned with dubs or arrangement, except for the exceptional frolic of “holiday eyes”. on that track john added vibraphone and i added my 7 year old talula.

the name ‘melted wires’ was said to be of my invention, but i have no memory of it, and so simply allow it to tag us rightly. some fun in a room with the record button on. although not everything recorded correctly, and not everything recorded rightly, but all of it done as the fates determined and with a definitive joy and splendor of cluster. may you have a wonderful season and a better year ahead. maybe these ‘melted wires’ can assist in such inception, or at least fill the void between connections, electrical or time elapsed, where wires matter less then.

onward,
howe gelb
(thanksgiving, 2010)