STEVE MARCUS - TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS

If i was say seven or however old enough you have to be to do that thing where you sit on Santa's knee at Christmas time, that thing they do in department stores the world over (Israel and Muslim states excluded) where Santa asks you what you want for Christmas in his deep and bearded Santary voice. If I was of the correct age and in said knee based situation I would probably say,

'A bike Santa, what I really want for Christmas is a bike!'

And Santa would laugh his big Ho! Ho! Ho! laugh and then say something like,

'But you already have a bike, isn't there anything else you want?'

I would sit silent and thinking for a while. Maybe this is my chance to ask for an end to global hunger (popular Christmas wish back in 85 thanks to Bob Geldof) or 'world peace' (Israel and Muslim states excluded?) or, or maybe I should ask for something truly wonderful, really make the most of my festive wish...

'Okay Santa, this is a bit of an ask but what I would really like for Christmas is a 13 minute freejazz reworking of the Beatles classic 'Tomorrow Never Knows.'

Saint Nick would smile and in a puff of smoke the above album would appear.

Sadly I seem to remember blowing it and going with option 1. - A bike. leaving me to wait another 25 years before hearing Steve Marcus play 'Tomorrow Never Knows'.

First of all, who the fuck is Steve Marcus?

Well the internet doesn't give away much aside from the fact he was otherwise known as 'the count' (ah ah aaaa), that he played with Buddy Rich and that he is dead. He had curly hair, we know this much from the above sleeve. We also know that despite being awesome the above album does not score favorably on the review sites. Well fuck a review site, 'Tomorrow Never Knows' rules.

I was introduced to said album by a colleague who rather refreshingly has a record based habbit that quite comfortably eclipses mine, makes me feel like my 'little problem' might actually be managable in the grand scheme of things. At the same time as making me feel so much better about myself, he also introduced me to this and a couple of other new music based adventures.

The album is pretty much a series of musical 'what if?'s:

What if instead of being a wet sub-folk hippy sing a long for the masses 'Mellow Yellow' was infact a truly awesome drum heavy jazz workout?

What if 'Eight Miles High' was still a fantastic song but had in fact been painstakinly rewored with brass and had a truly spastic saxophone solo inserted right up it?

Much as it could be a truly hideous misfire the album works and begs to be played loud, the perfect soundtrack to dry humping the air because you never really understood how you were supposed to dance to free jazz.

As you may have gathered, if like me 60's pop classics being reworked in the 'angry black jazz' style is your thing then I heartily recommend you obtaining said album at your earliest opportunity.